Today is 'National Manufacturing Day' ... The Truth of the Matter vs. What President Obama Says

President Obama has declared today to be "National Manufacturing Day."

And in touting his record, he is using some interesting and highly misleading interpretations of the numbers to tell a false story which he hopes and expects will help his Democratic party's chances in the upcoming elections next month.

Let's look at what President Obama says compared to the real facts as revealed in On Manufacturing Day, share of sector's employment sinks to new low:                

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"Every politician likes to talk about manufacturing, because it’s shorthand for decent, middle-class jobs. And it’s appropriate topic to talk about on Friday, since Oct. 3 has been dubbed “National Manufacturing Day” by President Barack Obama.

After talking about natural-gas production, the revival in the auto industry, and new high-tech hubs, this is what the president said on Thursday.

Today, American manufacturing has added more than 700,000 new jobs.  It’s growing almost twice as fast as the rest of the economy.  And more than half of all manufacturing executives have said they are actively looking at bringing jobs back from China.

That is basically the case — as long as you don’t naturally connect one sentence to the next. . . .

But don’t conclude that manufacturing employment — which again, is really what most people want — is growing twice as fast. From February 2010 — Obama’s date, it should be highlighted — private-sector jobs have grown by 10%. Manufacturing jobs have grown by 6% over that same time period.

In September, the manufacturing sector added a meager 4,000 positions. And that’s not a one-month anomaly — as a percent of total employment, it’s below 9% of the U.S. economy, and in September sunk to the worst on record. Economist Alan Tonelson has more data here.

Put another way — at the current rate, Obama will fall about 570,000 jobs short of his goal to create 1 million manufacturing jobs in his second term.

The lack of manufacturing jobs has helped keep wage growth meager — somewhere between 2% and 2.6%, depending which series is used."

Summing Up

I encourage you to click on the above referenced article "Economist Alan Tonelson has more data here" and learn just how lousy the phantom recovery in manufacturing employment has been under President Obama.

The truth is the truth, and it's nothing like what Obama says it is.

Happy Manufacturing Day, my foot!

Thanks. Bob.