For todays Daily Thomas, we on-share a link shared by Thomas A. McAdam announcing a new study from staff at the National Review. The studys headline finding is that all employment growth [in the US] since 2000 went to immigrants. Thomass one-word comment on this study: Obamanation. Did Thomas forget to put on his reading glasses? We all know that President Obama came into office in 2009, not 2000. But the study covers the period from the first quarter of 2000--not 2009--to the first quarter of 2014. Thus, only during the last 5 years of this 14-year period was Obama even in office; of the remaining 9 years, George W. Bush was president in 8, and Bill Clinton in 1. Shouldnt Thomass comment have read Mostlybushsomeobamaandalittlebitclintonation? OK, maybe Thomas has done his homework. Maybe he has dug a little more deeply into the numbers and determined that, rather than rising at a steady rate over those 9 years, employment among immigrants was stagnant or even falling during the glorious Dubya years and then surged under Obama. That would justify the Obamanation claim. But is that the case? The numbers we need to fact-check this are right there in Table 1 of the study itself. Here are the relevant data for the working-age population (those ages 16-65): (All numbers are in thousands) Immigrants employed 2000Q1 17,115 2000Q4 18,501 Change, 20001Q1-2000Q4 (Clinton) 1,386 2008Q4 21,809 Change, 2000Q4-2008Q4 (G.W. Bush) 3,308 2014Q1 22,814 Change, 2008Q4-2014Q4 (Obama) 1,005 Total change, 2000Q1-2014Q4 5,699 So is Thomas right? Did most of the growth in immigrant employment since 2000 happen under Obama? No, indeed the contrary: only 17.6% (1,005,000 divided by 5,699,000) of the total growth during the period has occurred in Obamas term so far; a larger share, 24.3%, occurred during Clintons last year, and the remaining 58.0%--well over half!--occurred while Dubya was president. Even if immigrant employment were to continue to grow in the rest of Obamas term at the same rate as in his first 6 years, total immigrant employment growth during his whole two terms would then be 1,340,000 (4/3rds of 1,005,000)--still less than in 2000 alone! And the breakdown would be Clinton, 23.0%; Dubya, 54.8%; Obama, 22.2%. The growth in the number of employed immigrants over Obamas whole time in office would still be well less than half what it was under his predecessor! To summarize: contrary to what Thomas would like us to believe, less than a quarter of the growth in immigrant employment that this study reports occurred during President Obamas administration. To call this growth an Obamanation--to suggest that somehow Obama was responsible for the growth in immigrant employment during the 9 years before he was sworn in as president--is the real abomination.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 03:40:55 +0000
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