Government vs. private sector job losses

Robert Tracinski:

President Obama's statement that "the private sector is doing fine" is not just gaffe. It is a lesson in bad economics and an explanation of the failure of Obamanomics.

The specific premise behind that statement is that the cause of persistent unemployment is not the weakness of the private sector but rather a decrease in employment by state and local governments.

... These figures are all in percentages. Look at it in terms of absolute numbers, as this graph does, and the picture becomes even clearer. There are about ten times as many state and local employees as there are federal employees, so the big increase in federal hiring during the recession does not entirely compensate for the small drop-off on the state and local level. But there are five times as many private-sector employees as there are public-sector employees, so the weakness in private hiring is far more significant than the minor decline in public employment. Public-sector jobs are down by a couple of hundred thousand. Private-sector employment is down by four and a half million. 

So how do Obama's apologists back up their claims? First, they don't mention the surge in federal hiring, as if that isn't part of the "public sector." Second, they simply cut off the beginning part of the graph and show only the changes in employment since the beginning of the recovery, not since the beginning of the recession. So what you see in their version is private-sector employment marching slowly but steadily upward while state and local employment slide slowly downward. It's easy to change the story if you just leave out the first half, the part where private-sector employees got laid off by the millions while public employees all kept their jobs....

There is much more.

It is another example of how liberals cook the books to make an invalid argument.  If you go to the link in the story you will find more on the nature of the Obama attempt at deception.  He is deep into the politics of fraud.