LIAR ! This guy is just too much.. CBS NEWS – President Obama blames high unemployment rate on ‘huge layoffs of government workers’ at federal, state and local levels. Specifically Obama stated:

The reason the unemployment rate is still as high as it is, in part, is because there have been huge layoffs of government workers at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level,” he said. “Teachers, police officers, firefighters, social workers– they have really taken it in the chin over the last several months. And so, what we’re trying to do is to see if we can stabilize the budget.” – President Obama 5/12/11  (video here)

(NRO) This is completely wrong. Extremely and mind-bogglingly wrong. Epically wrong. First, let’s look at the numbers for private sector employment. All figures come from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics:

  • Recent peak of private sector employment, June 2007: 116,603,000.
  • Total private sector employment in the month Obama became president, January 2009: 109,084,000.
  • Recent low of private sector employment, January 2010: 104,933,000.
  • Total private sector employment, April 2011: 108,862,000.

So note, we are about 8 million away from the most recent peak in private sector employment.
Now, let’s look at total government employment (at all levels) for those four months:

  • June 2007:   22,176,000.
  • January 2009:   22,471,000.
  • January 2010:   22,376,000.
  • April 2011:   22,594,000 (preliminary).

As you can see, in terms of total number of Americans employed in government, there has been no real discernible recession. In fact, the number has increased slightly.
Now let’s look at the number of people employed in state government during these months:

  • June 2007:   4,918,000
  • January 2009:   5,116,000
  • January 2010:   5,053,000
  • April 2011:   5,253,000 (preliminary).

Again, not only pretty stable, but slowly climbing.
Now let’s look at employment in local government:

  • June 2007:   14,514,000
  • January 2009:   14,583,000
  • January 2010:   14,478,000
  • April 2011:   14,492,000 (preliminary).

Again, the numbers are stable, and even indicate that local government employment is increasing, not decreasing. Obama is not even a little bit right. Will anyone call him out on this?

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