Weak Jobs Recovery - compare 2001 to 2007 - and remember who was in control of Congress in 2007 and what they passed after

   

Here’s part of the commentary, from a Wall Street Journal Saturday editorial (bolds are mine):

The nearby chart compares the recovery rate in jobs after each of the last four recessions, and so far this one has been by far the weakest. It would have been stronger without the costs and other burdens that Congress and the Obama Administration piled on the last two years.

… wages are flat, even as prices for food and energy are rising rapidly. The average wage of $22.87 didn’t budge in March and was up only one penny in February. That in itself is not unusual in the early stages of recovery when there are lots of idle workers.

The problem is that consumer prices rose 0.4% in January, 0.5% in February, and March may see a big jump as well. In recent weeks, gasoline prices have risen by 33 cents to more than $4 a gallon in states like California. Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer in the nation, has announced that it will have to raise prices due to higher energy costs. And this week, in time for Easter, Hershey announced it is raising its wholesale candy prices by a whopping 9.7%. All of this is putting a squeeze on middle class paychecks and contributing to consumer unease and a rise in inflation expectations.

The particularly germane comparison is to the 1981 line on the chart, which represents the country’s last really serious recession (in fact, the other two recessions don’t qualify as official recessions under the normal-person definition of two consecutive quarters of economic contraction). The reason job hemorrhaging stopped is that Reagan cut taxes. When he did, not only did the bleeding stop, but job losses disappeared sooner than during any other recession charted, even the far weaker ones of 1990 and 2001. But in the POR Economy, job losses were like the Energizer Bunny; they just kept going and going, because, as the Journal noted, of “the costs and other burdens that Congress and the Obama Administration piled on.”

If they really expected to get a legitmate recovery, they wouldn’t have done what they did. I question whether they really wanted to have one, and if they even want a robust recovery now.