That is an absolute lie. Not even close to reality.
Umm, I’d actually ask you to provide some evidence to back up this assertion. I’m happy to provide some numbers with what I’m about to state…and it appears that when talking about hard numbers, not trends, he’s looking more correct than you.
In terms of hard number you're looking at
143,338,000 people employed going into January of 2009 compared to
142,220,000 going into August of 2012 (most recent I can find).
That’s 1,118,000 fewer people employed since the beginning of the month that he took over till now. If you wanted to be nice and give all of January as a bone to him, having him “start” essentially in February, you would see an increase…but of only 121,000.
However, that’s just in terms of raw number of people employed. There’s a number of ways he could view it.
In terms of the ratio of the noninstitutional population that is employed….currently you’re looking at 58.4%. When he took over it was 61%. That’s meaning there’s 2.6% fewer people in the noninstitutional population that are employed now compared to the start of the month he took over.
Perhaps though you want to look at the labor force, not just those actually working. Currently, the labor force is 153,358,000 compared to 152,828,000 when he began. So there’s 530,000 more people in the labor force. That would seem to be good….
But then a closer examination makes you go “well maybe not”. At his start, 65.5% of the NI population were part of the labor force…now, the participation rate has dropped to 63.7. Why the drop? Well, in part it’s due to the increase in people who are not in the labor force but currently want a job. When he took over that number was 5,488,000 compared to now when we have 6,554,000. A difference of just over 1 million people who are unemployed, want a job, but not part of the labor force.
On top of that, the labor force’s increase hasn’t exactly occurred due to staggering increase in the total amount employed but rather in the total amount UNEMPLOYED. When he took over you were looking at 11,108,000 people unemployed. Currently, we’re looking at 12,794,000 unemployed. That’s 1,686,000 more people unemployed now then there was at the start of his tenure.
Which is why I said it depends how you want to look at it. Democrats will generally point that we’re trending more “upwards” then we were in 2009 and thus we’re “doing better”. Republicans will generally point that based on many of the hard numbers we’re worse than when he took over.
You can proclaim him as stating a “lie” and not being close to reality…but I suggest if you want to make the claim to me, you better have numbers. In terms of the notion that “fewer people working today then when he took office”….
There’s over 1 million less people employed today then there was the month he took over
There’s 2.6% less of the noninstitutional population working today then there was the month he took over
There’s over 1 million more people who have left the labor force but would still want a job since the month he took over
There’s over a million and a half more people unemployed then there was the month he took over
Those are facts. You may quibble all you want about it being “bush’s fault” or in terms of trends or other such things…those might be legitimate arguments depending how you make them. But in terms of suggesting that his statement that we have fewer people working today then when he took office is a “lie” and “not even close to reality” you’re just factually wrong.
If you think otherwise, and believe I'm wrong...please, show me your reasoning with links verifying your numbers.