Stephanie Cutter Asks: Would I Lie To You, Honey?

M2RB:  Eurythmics

Now, would I say something that wasn't true?

I'm asking you, honey...

Would I lie to you?

"Well, I think that worker probably has a good understanding of what’s happened over the past four years in terms of the president coming in and seeing 800,000 jobs lost on the day that the president was being sworn in, and seeing the president moving pretty quickly to stem the losses, to turn the economy around, and over the past, you know, 27 months we’ve created 4.5 million private sector jobs. That’s more jobs than in the Bush recovery, in the Reagan recovery, there’s obviously more we need to do, and as I said to Mika at the at beginning of the program, I think that unemployed worker probably sees one person in this race trying to move the country forward and that’s the president…"

- Stephanie Cutter, 22 August 2012

REAGAN:

01.81:  99,955
07.84:  105,435

Number of Employed: Increased by 5.48 MILLION

OBAMA:

01.09:  142,187
07.12:  142,220

Number of Employed: Increased by 33 THOUSAND

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

REAGAN:

1981:1……8.6
1981:2……-3.2
1981:3……4.9
1981:4……-4.9
1982:1……-6.4
1982:2……2.2
1982:3……-1.5
1982:4……0.3
1983:1……5.1
1983:2……9.3
1983:3……8.1
1983:4……8.5
1984:1……7.9
1984:2……7.1

Reagan GDP avg.: 3.29%

OBAMA:

2009:1……-5.5
2009:2……-0.7
2009:3……2.2
2009:4……5.6
2010:1……2.7
2010:2……1.7
2010:3……2.6
2010:4……3.1
2011:1……1.9
2011:2……1.3
2011:3……1.8
2011:4……3.0
2012:1……1.9
2012:2……1.5

Obama GDP avg.: 1.65%

On the point of the labour force participation rate, what as interesting as the average is the trend:

Reagan:

LFP RATE  INCREASES

1981 Avg: 63.9%
1982 Avg: 64.0%
1983 Avg: 64.1%
1984 Avg (Jan-Jul): 64.3%

Reagan Avg. Jan 1981 thru Jul 1984:  64.1%

Obama:

LFP RATE DECREASES

2009 Avg:  65.4%
2010 Avg:  64.7%
2011 Avg:  64.1%
2012 Avg (Jan-Jul):  63.8%

Obama Avg. Jan 2009 thru Jul 2012: 64.5%