The facts: Obama vs. Reagan on job creation

President Obama is counting on you being either stupid, or under-informed or misinformed, regarding the most basic aspects of America’s economy, and recent history. Why else would he (a) allow a senior official in his campaign to appear on a national-televised news forum and make egregiously false claims about our economy and his record, then (b) not issue a correction – or fire her – within the next six weeks?

Case in point: On August 22, 2012 Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s Deputy Campaign Manager, appeared on MSNBC’s popular “Morning Joe” program. One of the substitute hosts, Willie Geist, asked how she would try to convince an out-of-work American why he or she should vote to re-elect Obama. Cutter’s response:

“Over the past, you know, 27 months, we’ve created 4.5 million private sector jobs. That’s more jobs than in the Bush recovery, (or) in the Reagan recovery.”

As the facts in this infographic show, Cutter is either egregiously ill-informed – or she lied directly to our faces:

Net private sector jobs created during the first 37 months after the end of the recession that Obama inherited (June 2009-July 2012): 2.7 million

Net private sector jobs created during the first 37 months after the end of the recession that Reagan inherited (November 1982-May 1985): 9.8 million

Furthermore, under Reagan, the percentage of working-age Americans in the workforce grew by three percent, while under Obama, this percentage fell by more than three percent (the labor force participation rate). Sources of this data:

National Bureau of Economic Research: “US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions” (shows dates of official beginnings and ends of recent recessions).

“Sorry, Stephanie Cutter, the Obama recovery hasn’t created more jobs than the Reagan recovery,” by James Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute, August 22, 2012.

“FALSE: Barack Obama’s campaign says his recovery has outpaced Ronald Reagan’s in job creation,” by Louis Jacobson and Bridget Hall Grumet, Politifact, August 27th, 2012.

Given the plethora of data available that establishes the facts about economic growth in recent years, some questions that honest Americans must consider: (1) Do you really believe it’s possible that Cutter did not know these facts? (2) What can you conclude from the fact that Obama has still not ordered her to issue a retraction, or fired her, six weeks after she uttered such a demonstrably, egregiously untrue statement to the nation on his behalf – which was promptly exposed as untrue by multiple researchers?