Very Interesting Employment Figures

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From Livio DiMatteo.

Here is what I found fascinating: the second graph -- what a beautiful way to display this data! -- and what it shows: from 2009-2013,  among advanced economies, only Iceland, Estonia, and Ireland have had better increases in their employment growth rate than the United States.

So everyone who is complaining about US unemployment remaining high under Obama: I would stop.

UPDATE: Correct "employment rate" to "employment growth rate."

Comments

  1. Josiah Neeley2:06 PM

    Maybe I'm missing something, but Figure 2 only shows the employment growth rate for 2009 and 2013. It doesn't show what happened to the employment rate between 2009 and 2013.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bob Murphy5:32 PM

    Gene, for all we know, Obama might be a heckuva guy, but suppose we thought his policies were horrible, and the his famous stimulus package passed in early 2009 caused employment to fall off a cliff that year. Then, suppose we also think that economies over time generally recover as prices and wages adjust etc., and that an economy in a big rut is likely to gain more ground than an economy in a small rut.

    Wouldn't that make Obama the best guy in your approach?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. gcallah12:47 AM

      I am not, by the way, saying these figures showed Obama's policies are fine!

      But: I think it is pretty hard to blame him for the 2009 numbers, when he had just entered office. Unemployment was already rising, and it takes time for policy to have an effect, right?

      Delete
    2. Bob Murphy7:37 PM

      Well, Romer/Berstein thought the stimulus package would have already shaved 1.25 percentage points off the unemployment rate by the end of 2009. And Krugman declared in the summer of 2009 that "Big Government" (his term) had ended the recession and avoided a depression, and he cited (not as the most important factor) the stimulus package passed earlier in the year.

      Delete
    3. gcallah1:11 AM

      OK? The recession officially ended in Q2 2009. Unemployment was already very high by Jan. 2009. It rose a little after that, then started down.

      It is impossible to read these numbers as having caused "employment to fall off a cliff" in 2009! The vast bulk of the drop occurred 2007-2008.

      Delete
  3. gcallah1:19 AM

    I'm eyeballing a Labor Dept. graph, but it looks like:

    By Jan 1 2009, unemployment had gone from 4.5% (pre-recession) to 8%.

    By the end of Q1 2009, it looks like about 9.2%.

    That is about the earliest we could start attributing anything to any Obama policy, right?

    At that point, the slope of the unemployment line reduces sharply, and by year end 2009 it looks like about 9.8%. Since then, it has fallen.

    ReplyDelete
  4. KPres5:10 PM

    I find it interesting that 3 of the 4 (USA, Ireland, and Estonia) have, relatively speaking, very liberal economies. It's almost like the free market countries were able to bounce back quicker.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. gcallah5:25 PM

      So libertarians are going to argue both:

      1) Obama's radically anti-market policies have kept us mired in a downturn; AND
      2) We bounced back so quickly because we are so free market!

      I see.

      Delete
    2. gcallah5:58 PM

      OK, KPres, you are determined to still be a jerk? Good-bye!

      Delete
    3. gcallah5:58 PM

      Again.

      Delete

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