Jan 23, 2017
TLDR: Obama’s tale of two economies
“ By many measures, the U.S. economy has shown marked improvement since Obama took office … But in other ways, the recovery has chugged along slowly, and growth hasn’t been distributed evenly, offering mixed signals about how well Americans are actually doing.
“ Unemployment Has Decreased at a Record Pace During Obama’s Presidency (percentage-point change from first month in office to last)
“ Falling labor participation has been a concern for nearly two decades, but the participation rate hasn’t been this low since the spring of 1978, and the employment-to-population ratio, while slowly improving, is well below prerecession levels.
^ Counterpoint: This is attributable to both demographics (i.e. Baby Boom’s retirement) and structural changes (e.g. secular rise of stay-at-home dads & postcrisis flight into higher education).
“ metro employment had exceeded its prerecession peak by 4.8%. But, non-metro employment shrank 2.9% during the same period.
“ goods-producing roles, a sector of employment which includes roles in manufacturing, construction and mining industries … lost 1.2% of its jobs since Obama took office, about 234,000 positions. But service-providing jobs, which include roles like business, finance, and health care, increased 10.1% … a gain of 11.5 million jobs.
