THE VERDICT: A comprehensive look back at Obama's jobs record by Bob Bryan on Jan 6, 2017, 12:38 PM Advertisement
 President Barack Obama took office in the throes of the worst recession since the Great Depression, as the future of the country's economy was in doubt, and as workers were being laid off like crazy. Eight years later, it's clear that the Obama presidency has been pretty solid for the US labor market. Despite a mixed Friday jobs report — the US economy only added 154,000 jobs against expectations of 175,000 — the labor market has come on strong over the past few years after the decimation of the financial crisis. Technically, this isn't the final report of the Obama era. The survey week, which comes in the week of the 12th every month, for the January report will take place before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated. But it's the last time Obama will be in office for the release of a report, leading the White House to put its final spin on what it said were eight years of "labor market progress" under Obama. "Thanks in part to the forceful response to the crisis and policies throughout the eight years of the Obama Administration to promote robust, shared growth, the US economy is stronger, more resilient, and better positioned for the twenty-first century than ever before," the White House said in an email following the jobs report. "Even with this remarkable progress, it remains important to build on these efforts to support further job creation and real wage growth in the years ahead." Let's take a look, with the help of a few charts, at just how strong the jobs recovery has been under Obama and where it fell short. Since Obama took office in January 2009, the US economy has added 11,250,000 people to total nonfarm payrolls.  This includes a decrease of 354,000 government workers, so private payroll growth has been slightly higher. A number the Obama administration loves to tout is that the economy has added jobs every month for the past 75 months, the longest on record and much higher than the previous record of 48 between 1986 and 1990.
Obama is roughly in the middle of the pack for recent presidents in raw jobs created.  Obama ranks third among the past five presidents in total job creation over the length of his presidency — in front of both George H.W. and George W. Bush, but behind Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. While Clinton did not have to deal with any significant economic downturn during his presidency, Reagan did see a recession in the early part of his first term. But compared to Obama's recession, the downturn in the 1980s was caused by the sudden and massive increase in interest rates by the Paul Volcker-led Federal Reserve, not a meltdown of the global financial system. Studies have shown "crisis-induced" recessions have a longer-lasting effect on employment.
The unemployment rate has decreased from 7.8% when Obama took over the Oval office to just 4.7% today.  It hit its lowest point since June 2007 last month, at 4.6%. Unemployment peaked at 10% in October 2009. Additionally, the U-6, or underemployment rate — which includes people in part-time jobs for economic reasons— fell to 9.2% in December, the lowest since April 2008. The gap between the U-6 and the U-3 rates is also the lowest since the onset of the recession.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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