Rethinking the 'Strong Jobs Recovery' Scenario

Over the course of four years, those numbers fail to keep up with population growth. The U.S., with about 275 million people, needs more than 1 million new jobs per year -- between 125,000-150,000 per month -- just to maintain the same percentage of employed relative to the labor force.

As with any data series, you can make the numbers better or worse depending upon when you mark the beginning of your time period, as the chart below of nonfarm payroll data since January 2000 shows.

So the answer to our second question is that the 4.4 million number significantly overstates the true jobs picture since the end of the recession. Indeed, if this were a mutual fund, the Securities and Exchange Commission would not allow such an advantageously selective timeline to be used in the advertising.

Third question: We know the BLS model is a bit quirky and has some warts on it. How "real" are these numbers, and how much is theoretical conjecture?

That's a complex question, but let's take a stab at it. In 2001, the BLS started a new numerical projection called the birth/death adjustment. This replaced a prior adjustment known as the "bias factor." This new adjustment has been gradually phased in since 2001, and became fully implemented in 2003. That's convenient for our analysis, as it was fully integrated at about the same time that Treasury and the White House have used to reach their 4.4 million new-jobs number.

The birth/death adjustment was created, according to the BLS, to capture job creation of new firms that is missed by bureau methodology "due to an unavoidable lag between an establishment opening for business, and its non-sampling methods must be used to estimate this growth."

What the BLS does is estimate the number of new businesses coming into existence. It then projects how many new jobs these new firms create.

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