12 Million Jobs, Meh

Governor Mitt Romney promises to create 12 million jobs in the 4 years he would be in office, that works out to 12,000,000 / 4 / 12 = 250,000 per month. That sounds like a lot. In general it is, from 1950 to 2007 the average number of jobs created per month was 136,000. (http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet). And compared to recent history it looks like a lot.

But is it a lot ? The average of the positive values in the data from 1950 to 2007 is 212,000. Not that much different than his promise. In fact the Romney has an almost guaranteed shot at accomplishing that goal. If we stay on the course President Obama has gotten us on we'll do just as well. Take a look at the trend started by Obama and the promised growth via Romney.

In fact Obama's trend line, that is the slope of the net jobs curve has been curtailed by the Republicans in congress since his mid-terms. Since then there has been no stimulative spending and growth crushing partisan politics such as the debt ceiling fight. If we had maintained the policies of the first two years we'd be alot closer to that goal. Take a look at this floating average of the derivative of the Jobs Created per month. That is to say d^2 Jobs / d Month^2.

During the first half its pretty good, the stimulus does way better than the Bush Tax Cuts. Even with the winding down of the stimulus the positive derivatives are of a larger magnitude than anything in the Bush years. If anything we need more stimulus, interest rates are low borrow now, repair bridges, jobs nows cheaper transportation tomorrow!