(H/T – Tom Blumer, who has some further stats worth reading)
Former Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal just how disappointing the POR Economy (™ Tom Blumer) “recovery” has been:
Had the U.S. economy recovered from the current recession the way it bounced back from the other 10 recessions since World War II, our per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) would be $3,553 higher than it is today, and 11.9 million more Americans would be employed.
Those startling figures are based on the average recovery rate of real GDP and jobs three years after the beginning of each postwar recession. Some apologists suggest that the current recovery is so weak because the recession was so deep. But the totality of our experience in the postwar period is exactly the opposite—the bigger the bust, the bigger the boom that follows.
On average, three years after the four deepest previous recessions started, real GDP was 7.6% higher than the pre-recession level. During the Obama recovery, real GDP is up only 0.1%. Forty months after the start of the 1953, 1957, 1973 and 1981 recessions, total employment was on average 4.7% higher than the pre-recession peaks, while total employment today is still down 4.7%—that’s a total employment gap of 13.9 million jobs.
Gramm goes on to further contrast the POR Economy to that of the Reagan recovery, including a laundry list of sabotage undertaken by Obama.
There is a further bit of required reading from Tom – what jobs have been gained since the “official end” of the recession has been entirely temporary work. That’s right – since June 2010 2009, a seasonally-adjusted 263,000 non-temporary jobs have been lost.
That’s the reason why Shoebox started the “Economy Held Hostage” series.
Revisoins/extensions (4:05 pm 4/15/2011) – Corrected a typo. D’OH!
