White House Crows About New Job Figures

Re “U.S. Job Growth in March Posts Robust Rebound,” April 3: If the Bush administration takes credit for the job growth figures for March, it should also accept responsibility for overall job figures. Overall, employment is down about 2 million jobs since President Bush took office.

At the same time, the number of working-age Americans (age 16 to 65) has grown steadily. Putting these two statistics together, there are approximately 6% fewer jobs compared to the number of working-age Americans today than there were in January 2001. Is this really the issue that the Bush campaign wants to emphasize?

David Holland

Northridge

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In the last three years, the U.S. has lost 2.3 million jobs but, in the last few months, gained 300,000 or so of them back. Consequently, the White House is making public pronouncements about how great the jobs/economy picture is looking. So, if someone steals $10,000 from you and then gives $1,200 of it back, don’t worry about it, you are doing great financially.

Richard Vidan

Lawndale

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“Cut Taxes -- but Do the Job Right” (Opinion, March 28) states that since January 2001, 2.3 million jobs have been lost. However, the U.S. Department of Labor reports the total employment has increased from 136 million as of January 2001 to 139 million currently. Total employment includes the self-employed, agricultural jobs and the holders of two jobs. Labor income is up by $400 billion, and payments into the Social Security Trust Fund are up by 21%. The downturn in industrial production that started in October 2000 and that lasted for 15 months has since been reversed. Furthermore, the gross domestic product has increased by $1 trillion. Certainly, the tax cuts helped to return idle economic resources back to usage.

Theodore A. Andersen

Professor of Finance

Emeritus, UCLA