With President Joe Biden dropping out of the Presidential race, many have lined up to sing his praises and tout his accomplishments.
Foremost among them is the claim that “There are nearly 16 million more jobs today than when Biden took office.” This is an absurd notion, of course, because most if not all of these jobs are not new jobs but jobs being restored by the economy re-opening after the widespread government-imposed Covid shutdowns.
And upon a closer look at the data, 2022’s historically high inflation has been followed up by a sharp loss in full-time jobs.
The Mises Institute’s Ryan McMaken has the numbers that take the shine off of Biden’s job creation record:
Over the past year …total part-time jobs increased by 1.8 million. During the same period, full-time jobs fell by 1.5 million. Net job creation during that period has been all part-time. In the month of June alone, workers reported a gain of 50,000 part-time positions while full-time jobs fell by 28,000. (emphasis added)
Full-time jobs, McMaken adds, have been down, year over, for five straight months, a stat only achieved just prior to, or during, a recession.
But what about all those “blockbuster” monthly jobs reports we keep seeing?
As previously discussed, the headline job number is drawn from the “establishment survey.” The establishment survey counts people on payroll from a survey of businesses.
In contrast, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) also conducts a household survey, which is based on households. In short, the establishment survey counts the number of jobs, whereas the household survey counts the number of people with jobs.
Someone with two jobs can be counted twice on the establishment survey, because they are on two different payrolls, but will be counted only once on the household survey.
Over the past three years, we’ve seen a significant divergence between the two measures. As McMaken writes: “as of the June report, the gap is at 4.3 million. In other words, since January 2021, the establishment survey has (gr)own by nearly 16 million new jobs while the household survey has shown less than 12 million new employed persons.”
This divergence between the surveys is a strong indicator of an increasing number of people taking second and third jobs.
Lastly, McMaken points out that much of the “job growth” over the past few years has been in government jobs. As of June, government employment reached 23.2 percent of all jobs. “Historically, whenever this measure reaches above twenty percent for several months in a row, a recession is on the way,” McMaken writes, adding that this measure has been above the 20 percent threshold for the past ten months.
In sum, Biden’s supposed stellar record on jobs is in reality a residue of Covid lockdowns, inflationary government growth, and millions of people being forced to take second or third jobs to help make ends meet.
