Labor

Job Growth Slow and Lagging Behind Other Administrations1

- Job growth under President Bush is among the slowest of any Administration in over 70 years

- Job creation per month per year has averaged 67,900 since 2001; typically the economy needs to create 150,000 to 200,000 jobs each month to keep pace with population growth

- Job growth is projected to fall to 55,000 per month during the first half of 2008

Unemployment Rate on the Rise, Especially for Minorities2

- The unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in January 2008; .7 percentage points higher than when President Bush took office in January 2001

- African Americans unemployment rate was 9.2 percent in January 2008, up almost 1 percent from 2001

- Latino unemployment rate was 6.3 percent in January 2008, up from 5.8 percent in 2001

More People Out of Work and Staying Unemployed Longer3

- 18.3 percent of the unemployed have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks as of January 2008, the maximum number of weeks for collecting regular unemployment insurance

- At 1.4 million, the number of long-term unemployed is higher today than it was when Congress first enacted unemployment compensation after the 2001 recession

Employee Compensation Has Lagged Behind Productivity4
 
- Productivity in the nonfarm business sector rose by 18.7 percent between the fourth quarter of 2000 and the third quarter of 2007, but real compensation per hour grew by half as much, increasing by only 9.1 percent over the same period
 
- As the cost of employee benefits, such as health care, has outpaced wage and salary growth, take-home pay has declined relative to inflation
 


[1] JEC Calculations based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; Testimony of Commissioner Keith Hall before the Joint Economic Committee on February 1, 2008; Congressional Budget Office Director’s Blog, January 23, 2008 available at http://cboblog.cbo.gov/.
 
[3] Bureau of Labor Statistics (2008), “The Employment Situation, historical information,” Table A-9 available at http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsatabs.htm; Economic Policy Institute (2008), “Jobs Picture,” available at http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_jobspict_20080201.
 
[4] JEC calculations based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Bureau of Economic Research.