Reply #5: Even 8 million jobs in 4+ years is nothing special [View All]

[NewJeffCT]

For several reasons:

1) the biggest gain in employment under Bush has been with the US government - at least partly due to the creation of the Homeland Security Dept.

2) Bill Clinton's four year average was about 11 million for four years.
Jimmy Carter created over 10 million jobs in his four years, and the US population was about a good 60 million less when Carter came into office as compared to Bush, so he had a smaller labor force with which to create jobs.

3) Carter inherited an energy crisis and an inflation crisis from Nixon. Clinton inherited gargantuan deficits from Reagan. Bush came into office after an amazing run of unprecedented growth, low interest rates and with spending under control.