How many jobs did Obama create for Americans?

(Baonghean.vn) - US President-elect Donald Trump, during his campaign, promised to create a "booming, dynamic economy" that would generate 25 million jobs in the next 10 years. The real estate billionaire repeatedly asserted that his policies would prioritize American workers and criticized the results achieved by President Barack Obama, calling the latest jobs report ahead of the election a "disaster".

US President Barack Obama. Photo: IBTimes.

However, the available data suggests something entirely different. The October 2016 jobs report indicated that the US economy added 161,000 jobs that month and the unemployment rate fell to 4.9%. According to the Washington Post, the report shows that the US economy “is gradually emerging from the shadow of the Great Recession, though it has not yet reached pre-2008 levels.”

In January 2009, Obama faced an economy in freefall. Millions lost their jobs, and the unemployment rate reached 7.8% in his first month in office. By October 2009, that number had jumped to 10.3%. During his eight years in the White House, Obama managed to halve the unemployment rate, bringing it down to approximately 5%. This was a positive assessment by many economists in interviews with CNNMoney.

Since taking office, Obama created 9.3 million new jobs. However, in his final State of the Union address, the US President said: “We are in the midst of the longest period of private sector job creation in history. More than 14 million new jobs, two years of the highest job growth since the 1990s, unemployment rate halved.”

The White House arrived at the 14 million figure by calculating private sector jobs since the low point of the Great Recession, rather than since Obama's inauguration in January 2009. The administration argued that policies aimed at pulling the country out of the crisis needed time to show results.

Typically, Obama's job creation achievements are assessed from the time he took office until December 2015. If so, he still lags far behind former President Bill Clinton, whose administration added 21 million jobs to the economy.

Obama's figure of 9.3 million jobs is comparable to that of former President Ronald Reagan, even though the current US population is much larger than in the 1980s. However, Obama surpasses George W. Bush, whose administration added only 5.7 million jobs to the economy.

However, Americans are earning less than they did before Obama took office, after adjusting for inflation. The American middle class now earns only about the same amount as in the mid-1990s. The president also acknowledged that inequality remains persistent.

The Obama administration also spent more than it earned each year. The debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 48% in 2009 to 75% in January 2016. However, the only US president in recent years to end their term with a lower debt-to-GDP ratio than when they took office was Clinton.

In his State of the Union address in January, Obama said: “For the past seven years, our goal has been a growing economy that brings better things to everyone. We have made progress, but we still need to do more. And despite all the political debate over the past years, there are many areas where Americans are in agreement.”

Thu Giang

(According to IBTimes)