HE MUST BE HIGH: Obama’s Jobs Claims in State of the Union Don’t Line Up With Reality

The Liar-in-Chief hasn’t changed one bit.

Claim 1: “Our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999.”

From Heritage’s James Sherk:

President Obama celebrated the fact that the economy created jobs at the fastest pace since 1999. These figures are far less exciting news when put in context. Americans have suffered through the slowest recovery of the post-war era. The recession started seven years ago. Only in mid-2014 did the economy recover the jobs lost during the downturn. Full-time jobs have still not recovered – the entire net employment gains since 2007 come in part-time positions. Furthermore, the Obama administration’s policies have contributed to this sluggishness. Half of small business owners cite taxes or government regulations as their single greatest problem. A delayed recovery certainly beats the alternative of even slower job growth. But the administration should hardly want credit for such an anemic recovery.

Claim 2: “Our unemployment rate is now lower than it was before the financial crisis.”

Heritage’s Sherk writes:

Obama touted the fact that unemployment has fallen to 5.6 percent. That’s good news. But he neglected to mention the fact that the proportion of Americans with jobs has changed little over his presidency. The vast majority of the improving unemployment picture comes from Americans dropping out of the labor force and no longer looking for work. In part that has to do with demographics—the ageing of the baby boomers means more retirees and thus fewer workers. But demographics only explain one-quarter of the drop in labor force participation. For many workers the economy offers less opportunity than it did before the recession. The official unemployment figures hide that fact.

Read more: The Daily Signal