Friday Night Chart – Private vs. Public Jobs Under Obama
May 4, 2012 3 Comments
Given today’s lukewarm jobs numbers, it’s worth taken a look at the following chart, which accompanies a ThinkProgress article written by Michael Linden. Could Democrats please start arguing with more force for the positive role that government can play? (Thank you very much.)
Under President Obama, the private sector has experienced a relatively robust recovery, and is now back to where it started when he took office. The public sector continues to shed jobs, and as a result, the overall jobs picture in the US remains weak. If you want to understand why conservative efforts to slash funding for teachers, firefighters, cops is bad for the economy, look no further than this graph.
About Matthew
Amazing what a little perspecitve will do.
I don’t think the chart tells the story well. What’s alarming is to lose teachers, firefighters, and cops and replace them only with workers providing less essential services. The chart, though, deals only with numbers and shows the private sector gaining jobs much more quickly than the public sector is losing them. If the Tea-Party-Obama policies prove unable to break through the initial level of private-sector employment and the blue line flattens out from here, that will be different, but for now the trend shown in the chart looks promising.
I agree it doesn’t tell the whole story, but I do think it tells part of the story. Much of America has been led to believe that the Democrats grow big government at the expense of private industry, and this reveals that falsehood quite clearly. Even though, as you point out, there are still big problems with the underlying story.