November 7, 2003

Reuters today reports, "The number of workers on U.S. payrolls outside the farm sector in October soared 126,000."

Soared? Really? Well, it was the biggest increase in 10 months, so that is at least not as dismal as before.

If last month was typical, the country added over 200,000 in population during the month. Adding 126,000 jobs just keeps up with population growth. It barely even begins to put a dent in the millions of people who have lost their jobs since Mr. Bush was selected and the millions more who fear entering the job market.

In a good economy, you can expect to add around 200,000 to 300,000 jobs each month. Averaged over the 8 years that Bill Clinton was President, job growth was 0.20% per month. Based on the number of non-farm jobs today, that would be 261,000 more jobs per month. From 1939 to present, the average increase was 0.18% per month, which is equivalent today to 241,000 more jobs each month.

If we had maintained the historical 0.18% job growth per month since Mr. Bush was appointed to the office, we would have 11.1 million more jobs now than we do. The number of unemployed has increased by 3.1 million, and the other 8 million people who could have had jobs have disappeared.

It is good that things are not as dismal as they were before. Hopefully, we can keep this up and even start to see adequate job growth for a real recovery.

Richard M. Mathews

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