We all know about the wretched failure of Obama’s stimulus, and we can update the chart showing that the joblessness rate is two-and-one-half percentage points higher than the White House claimed it would be at this point if we flushed $800 billion down the Washington rat-hole.
But we also should pay attention to the second Obama jobs disaster. This chart shows the employment-population ratio from the Department of Labor, and it reveals that the number of people participating in the labor force has fallen off a cliff since 2008.
The decline began during the big-government Bush years, so Obama does not deserve all the blame. But we can say that his policies have hindered the economy’s natural tendency to bounce back from a downturn.
