On the recordJanuary 21, 2010
As we consider new job initiatives to create more jobs for unemployed Americans, the Joint Economic Committee will be producing a series of charts over the next few weeks to help us better understand the economic missteps that led and contributed to this great recession. This chart goes back to 1992, the year that President Clinton was elected. It shows that during his time there was very robust job creation in the private sector, and then during the Bush years it fell dramatically. This dark line is the job creation, going up during the Clinton years, falling dramatically under the Bush administration. It also shows that Democrats have been considerably more effective at creating private-sector jobs. Economic reality was actually even worse than this chart shows. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, job creation during the Bush administration was fueled by a bubble that inflated housing prices and spurred consumption and hiring, and when that bubble burst, the bottom fell out. We owe it to the millions of unemployed who fell victim to the failed economic policies of the past to invest in Democratic job creation policies that have actually put people back to work in the private sector.
