Jobs lost and gained

I've been wondering how Bush can have an annualized unemployment rate of 5.4% (the same as Clinton in 1996) and still have lost more jobs than he gained, as John Kerry would have us all believe. I accepted the idea that maybe there were more jobs, but that wages for these new jobs were lower. As it turns out, neither of those Kerry statements are true. As quoted by a Carnegie Mellon economics graduate (and current high-school teacher):

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 136,181,000 employed laborers 16 years of age [and older - Ed.] while there were 6,647,000 unemployed workers when President Bush took office in January 2001. The unemployment rate was 4.7 percent. Currently there are 139,641,000 jobs for the work force over 16 years old and 7,545,000 unemployed workers. The unemployment rate in September was just 5.1 percent. This is a net gain of about 3.5 million jobs, but it does not take into account the growing population. Notice, however, that while the total number of jobs increased that the unemployment rate has increased 0.4 percentage point.

Kerry Lied and Kids ... went to work. Well at least he's not trying to get a job where trust in him is of utmost importance... oh wait...

See the entire article in the Pittsburgh Tribune here.