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So we are 5 1/2 years into Bammy's economy, and we almost never hear news stories about how poorly the economy is doing and the plight of middle class America, the decline in the working population, the endemic unemployment rate, the unemployment rate among blacks, the decline in real income, etc. despite the fact that all of the foregoing are plaguing America.
So how about the use reliable data in terms of employment rate, unemployment, growth of GDP, growth of the middle class, and growth in real income to compare Bammy to Reagan?
Workforce Participation Rates
Hmmm ... not so good for Bammy. Reagan took office with a workforce participation rate of 63.6% and dropping in the midst of the Carter recession and by September of 1986, the rate was 65.9% and rising, set to top out at nearly 67%.
Meanwhile, Bammy took office with a workforce participation rate of 66% and under his management, it has dropped to 63.6% - the same rate as when the Reagan recover started - and still falling.
Unemployment Rates
Wow, look at that, once again bad news for Bammy. Reagan took office with an unemployment rate of 7.8%, saw it increase to nearly 11% due to the Carter recession, but then saw the rate fall to 6.7% and declining further while the labor participation rate increased. The Reagan economy saw unemployment fall to 5% at the end of his second term.
On the other hand, Bammy took office with an unemployment rate of 7.7% and increasing due to the recession, and has seen that rate get to nearly 10%, and never get below 6.8% with a declining labor participation rate.
Look at it this way: Reagan had a lower unemployment rate with a higher labor participation rate than Bammy, and where Reagan's unemployment rate continued to plummet while the labor participation rate exploded. Bammy? Uhhhh, not so much.
Median Income
More bad news for Bammy. Median income tends to increase historically due to increases in the labor force and more production employees from improved technology, generating more value. Median income increased throughout the Reagan years.
Ehhh, not so during the Bammy regime. Instead, in constant dollars, median family income has fallen. That of course is not surprising, since the labor participation rate is cratering, and thus fewer and fewer of our working population are working.
GDP Growth - Reagan vs. Bammy
Government-humping lefties respond, "Yeah, but the Bammy recovery works. Look at GDP!!" Sorry, no:
Miserable GDP growth under Bammy, despite trillion-dollar deficits.
But hey, some lib web site insists that Bammy is more fiscally conservative than Reagan!! It must be true - it was on the Daily Douche!! Sorry, no. The facts say otherwise:
Deficit as Percentage of GDP
I have heard, on occasion, the claim that Reagan's economy exploded because he spent more than did Bammy, and that if Bammy had been allowed even greater spending by Congress, by golly, his economy would be booming. Ehhh, not so fast. Bammy is spending far more than Reagan as percentage of GDP - and recall that Reagan rebuilt the military, following the Carter build-up beginning in 1979. That meant a great amount of money spent on hard assets such as tanks, planes, etc. as compared to Bammy getting less and less actual product and more and more income transfers:
Here is what Forbes - a source that ElfiePolo cited as a reliable authority - said about the Bammy recovery compared to the Reagan recovery (and indeed, all prior recoveries):
The real question is how does President Obama’s recovery compare to the other recoveries of other Presidents from other recessions. Since the Great Depression, there have been 11 other recessions in America before this last one. In all those recessions, the economy recovered all jobs lost during the recession an average of 25 months after the recession began. So the job effects of prior post Depression recessions lasted an average of about 2 years. But here we are today, 5½ years, or 67 months, after the recession started, and we still have not recovered all of the jobs lost during the recession. As AEI President Arthur Brooks wrote in the Wall Street Journal last Thursday,
"In 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that total nonfarm seasonally adjusted employment was 138 million workers. Today, it is fewer than 136 million. Meanwhile, the number of Americans has grown by 12.8 million. In many areas of the country, more than one in five adults who want full time employment can’t find it.”
In sharp contrast, President Reagan’s recovery from the sharp 1981-1982 recession, which resulted from the monetary policy that broke the back of the roaring 1970s inflation, recovered all of the jobs lost during that recession within 36 months. At this point in the Reagan recovery, jobs had grown nearly 10% higher than when the recession started, representing an increase of more than 10 million more jobs.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterfe...ecovery-compare-to-those-of-other-presidents/
Here is the tale in picture format, for 21Steelers and ElfiePolio:
This graph pretty much sums up the point:
So, Bammy, try not to forget - IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID. Follow what works - what Reagan did.
So how about the use reliable data in terms of employment rate, unemployment, growth of GDP, growth of the middle class, and growth in real income to compare Bammy to Reagan?
Workforce Participation Rates
Hmmm ... not so good for Bammy. Reagan took office with a workforce participation rate of 63.6% and dropping in the midst of the Carter recession and by September of 1986, the rate was 65.9% and rising, set to top out at nearly 67%.
Meanwhile, Bammy took office with a workforce participation rate of 66% and under his management, it has dropped to 63.6% - the same rate as when the Reagan recover started - and still falling.
Unemployment Rates
Wow, look at that, once again bad news for Bammy. Reagan took office with an unemployment rate of 7.8%, saw it increase to nearly 11% due to the Carter recession, but then saw the rate fall to 6.7% and declining further while the labor participation rate increased. The Reagan economy saw unemployment fall to 5% at the end of his second term.
On the other hand, Bammy took office with an unemployment rate of 7.7% and increasing due to the recession, and has seen that rate get to nearly 10%, and never get below 6.8% with a declining labor participation rate.
Look at it this way: Reagan had a lower unemployment rate with a higher labor participation rate than Bammy, and where Reagan's unemployment rate continued to plummet while the labor participation rate exploded. Bammy? Uhhhh, not so much.
Median Income
More bad news for Bammy. Median income tends to increase historically due to increases in the labor force and more production employees from improved technology, generating more value. Median income increased throughout the Reagan years.
Ehhh, not so during the Bammy regime. Instead, in constant dollars, median family income has fallen. That of course is not surprising, since the labor participation rate is cratering, and thus fewer and fewer of our working population are working.
GDP Growth - Reagan vs. Bammy
Government-humping lefties respond, "Yeah, but the Bammy recovery works. Look at GDP!!" Sorry, no:
Miserable GDP growth under Bammy, despite trillion-dollar deficits.
But hey, some lib web site insists that Bammy is more fiscally conservative than Reagan!! It must be true - it was on the Daily Douche!! Sorry, no. The facts say otherwise:
Deficit as Percentage of GDP
I have heard, on occasion, the claim that Reagan's economy exploded because he spent more than did Bammy, and that if Bammy had been allowed even greater spending by Congress, by golly, his economy would be booming. Ehhh, not so fast. Bammy is spending far more than Reagan as percentage of GDP - and recall that Reagan rebuilt the military, following the Carter build-up beginning in 1979. That meant a great amount of money spent on hard assets such as tanks, planes, etc. as compared to Bammy getting less and less actual product and more and more income transfers:
Here is what Forbes - a source that ElfiePolo cited as a reliable authority - said about the Bammy recovery compared to the Reagan recovery (and indeed, all prior recoveries):
The real question is how does President Obama’s recovery compare to the other recoveries of other Presidents from other recessions. Since the Great Depression, there have been 11 other recessions in America before this last one. In all those recessions, the economy recovered all jobs lost during the recession an average of 25 months after the recession began. So the job effects of prior post Depression recessions lasted an average of about 2 years. But here we are today, 5½ years, or 67 months, after the recession started, and we still have not recovered all of the jobs lost during the recession. As AEI President Arthur Brooks wrote in the Wall Street Journal last Thursday,
"In 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that total nonfarm seasonally adjusted employment was 138 million workers. Today, it is fewer than 136 million. Meanwhile, the number of Americans has grown by 12.8 million. In many areas of the country, more than one in five adults who want full time employment can’t find it.”
In sharp contrast, President Reagan’s recovery from the sharp 1981-1982 recession, which resulted from the monetary policy that broke the back of the roaring 1970s inflation, recovered all of the jobs lost during that recession within 36 months. At this point in the Reagan recovery, jobs had grown nearly 10% higher than when the recession started, representing an increase of more than 10 million more jobs.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterfe...ecovery-compare-to-those-of-other-presidents/
Here is the tale in picture format, for 21Steelers and ElfiePolio:
This graph pretty much sums up the point:
So, Bammy, try not to forget - IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID. Follow what works - what Reagan did.
