Obama’s False Predictions on the Economy

President Obama has repeatedly promised that his break-the-bank policies will deliver more good-paying jobs and robust economic growth. His policies consistently fail to meet his predictions. Instead of changing direction, the president doubles down with more taxpayer-funded projects and says that this time it will be different.

America Needs Stronger Growth

Last year the American economy grew by a disappointing 1.7 percent. President Obama has predicted four percent GDP growth three different times.  He has been wrong every time.

In January 2010, President Obama predicted his economic policies would produce 4.3 percent GDP growth by 2011. When that growth did not happen, the president did not admit failure, rather he simply revised his prediction in 2011 for better growth in 2012. He has continued to predict strong growth, but each year he moves the goal post further away.

Nowhere Near Enough New Jobs

In 2010, President Obama predicted that the economy would be creating an average of more than 250,000 new jobs a month starting this year. While not quite as optimistic as his GDP growth projections, these forecasts have met the same dismal fate. So every year since, he has drastically decreased his predictions. This year, the president is expecting comparatively modest growth -- 167,000 jobs per month on average. At that rate, employment will not reach its prerecession peak until the middle of the decade. The president now predicts that we will not break the 250,000 new jobs on average threshold until at least 2014.

Fewer Workers Participating

Despite President Obama’s promises that his economic policies will soon produce good growth in the economy and careers for job seekers, American workers are not buying it. The labor participation rate, which is the percentage of Americans who are working or actively looking for work, is the lowest it has been since 1984. The rate has dropped steadily, to 63.9 percent from 65.7 percent, since President Obama took office. This decline accounts for about four million workers who are no longer a part of our labor force.

While the unemployment rate has declined over the past year, most of that change has been because of shifts in the participation rate rather than actual improvement in the labor market. If the labor force participation rate remains at 63.9 percent for the remainder of the year, the economy will need to add approximately 160,000 jobs per month to get the unemployment rate below eight percent by November 2012.