the road to something...

(Click to enlarge)

Recently the Bureau of Labor Statistics came out with the latest unemployment and job loss numbers. You can find the numbers here. You can also find the numbers on a much easier to read graph at NPR. The graph, at least the job loss graph, showed up on Facebook promoting the Road to Recovery under the Obama Administration. That graph is here. The Road to Recovery graph looks quite nice. The graph shows this great dichotomy between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration. It’s almost as if the changeover was the cause for less job loss. And maybe it was. But maybe it wasn’t.

You’ll notice that one of the two graphs from the BLS site and NPR site is missing. It’s the unemployment rate graph. It’s the graph that shows unemployment shooting up over 10% toward the end of 2009. I’ve created a similar chart (it’s shown at the top of the post) showing the unemployment rate that is similar to the Road to Recovery graph.

As you can see the graph isn’t as flattering as the other one. Indeed you could almost say the changeover created more unemployment. Of course we all know that’s not true. Obama in a speech acknowledged the continued problem of unemployment. The road to recovery is getting better. That’s clear from the fewer jobs being lost month after month. But there’s still a lot of work to be done. That’s apparent by the second graph. And Obama won’t silence his many critics until he lowers that second graph.