Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Interesting article. It says this is the "Bush Boom":
12-5-2003
The not-quite-so-jobless recovery
Why is it taking so long for the so-called ?Bush boom? to resonate in the labour market?
This time round (aside from a hiring blip last autumn) it lasted a year and a half. The recovery remains way behind schedule (see chart). If it had followed the course of most post-war cycles, 8m Americans would have been added to the payrolls by now. Instead, payroll employment is still 700,000 lower than it was when the recession ended in November 2001.
This cycle is unique, but it bears a family resemblance to the recovery presided over by George Bush?s father. Even then, however, firms waited only about a year after the recession ended before starting to hire again in earnest. And payrolls, by this stage of the recovery, had grown by more than 1%. A better record on jobs than his son, then, but too little too late to save his own.
some corporations see a recession ?not as an event to be weathered but as an opportunity?or even a mandate?to reorganise production permanently, close less efficient facilities and cull staff.?
A puzzle for economists, jobless recoveries are also a conundrum for psephologists, who study presidential elections. We know it?s the economy, stupid, but is it growth or jobs that have most bearing on the way people vote?
In every election since the second world war, falling unemployment in the spring of election year has foretold victory for the party in charge of the White House. The sole exception was the Democrats? loss to General Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. Mr Bush will take some comfort from this. As long as the unemployment rate keeps falling through the spring, he should be home and dry in next year?s election. Unless, perhaps, he goes up against another decorated general.