Tom Blumer has been noting the failure of the current “recovery” versus the recovery from the 1981-1982 recession for some time. Before I take you to the main event, I do encourage you to look at the latest from Tom; he also explains how the “103,000 jobs added in September” isn’t quite all in September.
This morning, The Wall Street Journal jumped on board this train, with a front-page story (unfortunately, behind the paywall), a banner companion must-see graphic (fortunately, not behind the paywall), and a little look at the third Septbembers of Ronald Reagan’s and Barack Obama’s terms. The devastating part:
As it happens, the biggest one-month jobs gain in American history was at exactly this juncture of the Reagan Presidency, after another deep recession. In September 1983, coming out of the 1981-82 downturn, American employers added 1.1 million workers to their payrolls, the acceleration point for a seven-year expansion that created some 17 million new jobs.
Bear in mind that is, depending on whether one measures the end of the 1981-1982 recession as October 1982 or November 1982, a mere 11 or 10 months (respectively) after the end of the recession, while we’re in the 27th month of “recovery”. The similar point in this “recovery” is either April 2010 or May 2010. April 2010 saw a seasonally-adjusted job growth of 277,000, and May 2010 saw a seasonally-adjusted job growth of 458,000.
The bigger problem is what happened after that 10th/11th month of recovery. The next month after that point in the 1980s where there was job contraction was June 1986, and after that, July 1990. Meanwhile, June 2010, July 2010, August 2010 and September 2010 all saw job contraction.
