USA TODAY: As Republicans gear up to run against President Obama’s record for creating private-sector jobs, they may encounter an unexpected glitch: It looks a lot like Ronald Reagan‘s.
Politicians and markets alike are awaiting October’s unemployment report today, which is expected to show a gain of 125,000 private-sector jobs and a jobless rate still at 9.1%. Obama has presided over a loss of 1.6 million of the nation’s 111 million private-company jobs since taking office, according to official statistics. But since employment hit post-recession lows in February 2010, companies have added 2.6 million jobs, beating the 2.4 million created between the bottom of the 1982 recession and this point in Reagan’s first term. Joblessness then was 9.2%.
The trouble for Obama is that next year’s outlook seems nothing like 1984. The U.S. economy added 3.9 million jobs in the last 12 months before Reagan romped to re-election. Moody’s Analytics expects the U.S. to add 1.6 million jobs next year, barely enough to move unemployment lower. That makes the president’s prospects a toss-up, analysts say… (more)
