Krugman: "the right is arguing that Obama’s better recovery wasn’t really his doing." They lose.

As is easily seen, FAR more jobs were lost in the recession Obama was dealing with. 4% more of the populace lost jobs. That meant there were far more jobs available to regain in 'rebound'. For Bush to regain the same total number of jobs that Obama did, he would have not been 'recovering', but actually pushing into greater than full employment territory.

If I have a company of 100 people, and I lay off 50 at one point, but only 25 at another, if things pick up again, it's going to be a lot easier for me to rehire 40 of the 50 I laid off than to rehire 40 of the 25 I laid off the other time. I'd actually have to grow the business 15% to rehire 40 after only laying off 25, while in the other, deeper cut, I could re-employ those 40 even though the business had shrunk 10%.

I like Krugman, but there's context missing from that chart.

Sometimes he's less of a researcher than an advocate, less an economist than a partisan. "What you don't know can hurt you." Even before Obama took office, drew down over half of TARP, signed expanded budget bills, and introduced the Obama stimulus, most economists were pointing at the historical trends: Deep recessions = startling sharp recoveries; financial crises slow recoveries.

He also just looks at private sector. Bush II was antistimulus, but government-sector jobs increased until him during the first few years after "peak recession" and under Obama they decreased. This is largely beyond the control of the president, but a lot of people sort of ignored this.

We also have no memories.

We considered 5% unemployment back in 2005 to be outrageously high. We thought we'd die when it hit 6.3% for one month in 2003. We celebrated 6.5% as wonderful: Now, by comparison with 10% it was great. But great on its own terms it was not.

We also compared 10% unemployment in 2010 or 2011 with the Great Depression. We forgot that in 1982 unemployment--under conditions of still high inflation--hit 10.8%. (That's the year I graduated college. The incredible disintegration of the US economy from '74-'81 or so I will not forget.)

I think the thing to look at there is the rapidity with which the employment trend reversed under Obama as compared to Bush. And the steadiness of the increase despite, arguably, a much worse global economic environment. And of course Krugman isn't really trying to credit Obama for the job growth, so much as point out that claims that the bail-out, stimulus, and the ACA would KILL jobs, which they clearly DID NOT. The stimulus, in fact, is likely a big part of the rapid reversal of the employment trend early in Obama's Presidency.

I do like your chart, though. Really shows the hole we found ourselves in.

... a recovery so his point is kind of moot.

Talk to me about "recovery" when short term interest rates are back above 4%.

Republicans are worse, but there are some people who refuse to give Obama credit for anything good, and who blame him for everything bad, right here on DU.

Krugman is right AGAIN.