Today's employment report from the BLS suggests that labor markets are getting even weaker, two years after the official recovery began. In June, payrolls grew by only 18,000 and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent.
Typically, when the President is asked about slow job growth and high unemployment, he refers back to the scale of the job losses in late 2008 and early 2009. He rightly notes that these job losses were not the result of his policies. As with all non sequitors, this answer is irrelevant. The ongoing sluggish recovery is the President's, and his policies have failed to revive labor markets. Many believe that the recovery would have been stronger if different (mostly opposite) policies had been pursued. Now that job growth and unemployment are even worse than a year ago, the President cannot credibly claim that his policies have nothing to do with the current situation. It wasn't his recession, but it's his recovery, and it's terrible.
Update: Here's the President in 2009 taking ownership of the economy.
