Please Explain this Jobs Chart

[FloridaCouple]

I found it at this page. This is the same chart that the POTUS is running in ads in Florida.

Quote:
"...showing monthly job losses/gains in the private sector since the start of the Great Recession. The image makes a distinction -- red columns point to monthly job totals under the Bush administration, while blue columns point to job totals under the Obama administration."

Of all the things that Obama passed in his early months in office, which one(s) caused a change in job growth in the months FEB through MAY 2009?

 

[Bert Notorius]

they all end up stuck in the political mud.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No job chart means anything. What matters are Percentage of Americans Working, Hours of Employment Per Week, Average Wages Per Cohort.

When you exhause unemployment benefits youre not counted as unemployed, if you graduate college or high school but have no job youre not officially unemployed, if you leave the military or prison or the state hospital and have no job youre not officially unemployed. Youre employed if you work one hour per week or volunteer or go to school.

The real criteria is WHATS IN YOUR WALLET?

 

[FloridaCouple]

Thank you for replying. I believe there is no proof of any event(s) that caused the monthly decrease in jobs, as laid out in the chart.

 

[Liar]

Thank you for replying. I believe there is no proof of any event(s) that caused the monthly decrease in jobs, as laid out in the chart.

Proof? That's aiming a bit high. Obama and his supporters will say that it's the stimulus. Which is probably partially true. Others will say it's not. Which is also partially true.

 

[FloridaCouple]

Proof? That's aiming a bit high. Obama and his supporters will say that it's the stimulus. Which is probably partially true. Others will say it's not. Which is also partially true.

I think it goes deeper than that. The POTUS is using the chart in his ad. He is making the claim that his actions caused the change in FEB through MAY. Then someone like me comes along and asks "Okay, what are the events? When did such events pass either Congress or by Exec Order? "

We do not even need to see a relationship. What we, as Americans, need to see are the policies that he passed. All policies take time before results can be measured. But we see the change in FEB through MAY. Now all we need is someone to show us the events.

I do not think it can be done.

 

[Liar]

I think it goes deeper than that. The POTUS is using the chart in his ad. He is making the claim that his actions caused the change in FEB through MAY. Then someone like me comes along and asks "Okay, what are the events? When did such events pass either Congress or by Exec Order? "

We do not even need to see a relationship. What we, as Americans, need to see are the policies that he passed. All policies take time before results can be measured. But we see the change in FEB through MAY. Now all we need is someone to show us the events.

I do not think it can be done.

This thing here:

http://www.barackobama.com/jobsrecord

...points specifically to the stimulus signed in February and the auto bailouts executed in March. March and April then continued with huge job losses, before the worse stopped in May. It's really more of change starting in May than a change Feb through May.

So yeah, the argument could be made that those two policies were signed, and 2-3 months later, the first results could be shown. Is it the whole truth? No, but the truth is too complex for any political ad.

But I don't like a chart like this. It only really shows that it stopped getting worse as fast in May as it had before.