The jobs report issued a day before America's credit downgrade gave the impression things were improving. Wrong. The number of people working actually declined.
So why did the unemployment rate go down? Because a huge number of Americans stopped looking for work last month. If you're not actively trying to get a job, the government doesn't count you among the unemployed.
Barack Obama has joined George W. Bush as the only presidents besides Herbert Hoover to see the number of job-holding Americans decline on his watch. But Obama's presidency — like Bush's — resembles Hoover's in another unflattering way as well.
Contrary to popular mythology, Hoover did not sit idly by waiting for the economy to fix itself. Federal spending increased 50 percent during his term. It grew more in the four years of the Hoover presidency than during the first seven years of FDR's. Likewise, federal spending skyrocketed under Bush, growing faster than at any time since the Johnson administration. Obama-era spending has grown even faster.
During the Hoover administration, the stimulative effects of all that spending left something to be desired. The same holds true today. Back then homeless men set up camp in Hoovervilles. No one has seen any Obamavilles . . . yet.
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