Thursday, April 12, 2012

Obama vs. Romney on Women's Employment

You may have read about the back and forth between Romney and Obama over how many women were employed in the past three years.

Romney's original statement:

"Women account for 92.3 percent of the jobs lost under Obama."

A lot of the fact checkers labeled this as mostly false, which is strange because all of them admitted that the statement is 100% accurate. It is true that men had lost thousands of jobs before Obama entered office and that women's jobs usually follow. It is also true that Obama should not get the blame for numbers posted in January when he had just taken office. However, what I find strange from the arguments made by the fact-checkers and the Obama proponents is that they still don't make an argument that Obama has helped women get jobs.

Let's look at the numbers.

* Total Nonfarm Payroll Jobs:
January 2009: 133,561,000
March 2012: 132,821,000
Net loss: 740,000 jobs.

* Total Female Nonfarm Payroll Jobs:
January 2009: 66,122,000
March 2012: 65,439,000
Net loss: 683,000 jobs.

This is where Romney gets his 92.3%. Let's try it if we don't include January 2009. How about we also skip February 2009, just to give Obama time to unpack his bags.

 * Total Nonfarm Payroll Jobs:
March  2009: 133,561,000
March 2012: 132,821,000
Net gain: 783,000 jobs.

* Total Female Nonfarm Payroll Jobs:
 March 2009: 65,660,000
March 2012: 65,439,000
Net loss: 221,000 jobs.

So that looks slightly better. From March 2009 to March 2012, there was a slight gain in jobs. And by slight gain I mean .0059% more jobs. And of that .0059% increase in jobs, none of them went to women, who still had fewer jobs than they did in 2009. We can argue about the numbers and how they should be applied. But they don't look good no matter what angle you take.

I think that the point conservatives should make is this: Being president during a recession is difficult. We don't hate President Obama. We fully sympathize with the tremendous obstacles he faced and is facing. However, there is a reason why we have an election every four years. When a president fails at reviving an economy, we give somebody else a shot. We can argue about the specific amount of women who have lost their jobs, but we can't argue over the fact that President Obama has failed to turn the economy around after more than three years of trying. And women have been disproportionately affected by that weak recovery.

Those are the facts.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you are not got laid-off you don't know how it hurt,I had laid-off since Obama took office until now,I can't get any job even I am looking for job every day but no company hire me,I am very struggle in my life time till now,when Bush first term I was laid-off for 4 months,and Bush second term I was laid-off for 5 months but since Obama took office until now I have never got a job,it is time to change the presidency because it is not only me was unemployment,it is more than 20% unemployment now and all we are very struggle and painful at this time but Obama is very happy and enjoying spending the American taxes dollar free why he want to collect $1 billion to buy his job for 4 more years that very exiting in the white house.

Anonymous said...

If this country re-elects a President who has HIGHER unemployment than when he took the oath - HIGHER number of people out of work - HIGHER national debt - LOWER number of people actually working - then they deserve what's coming. Even if Romney wins, at least 46% of voters will have pulled Obama's lever. I can't imagine what they're thinking. www.rightandnow.blogspot.com

Graham said...

Of the many things that are impressive in this "war on women" gaffe committed by Hilary Rosen, at the top of the list is the swift-and-thorough kick to Obama's groin that Romney has dealt in response. Obama and his entire organization were really and truly not ready for the weight of the smackdown that came that way for their gaffe.

Much like when Rick Perry used a surrogate to attack Romney's faith--and then disavowed the surrogate when the attack backfired--Obama's campaign went "out there" to try and negate one of Mitt's greatest strengths: Ann.

They totally did not see the size 12 steel-toe coming up between their knees. I for one look forward to more of this.

Kim said...

Ha ha, Graham! Love it!