Earlier this month, NPR reported job creation numbers:
February’s report showed 295,000 jobs added, and a drop in the unemployment rate, down to 5.5. percent. It follows on the heels of January’s strong report, which showed strong wage gains.
Good news? It turns out it’s so hard to know. Here’s an absolutely charming graph from The American Prospect comparing job creation for various Presidents:
The X axis is in absolute numbers, which of course will never do, given population growth – so this graph is more or less useless. They supply another utterly fascinating graph to remedy this fault:
But, as author Paul Waldman points out,
Of course, none of those presidents took office in the midst of an economic calamity of the kind we were suffering through when Obama began his term. If you want to be more generous to Obama, you could measure from the trough of the Great Recession, which in terms of jobs was February 2010. The economy has created over 10 million jobs since then, and if we continue the current trend, Obama could claim 16 million jobs between that point and the end of his term.
OK, so if we make an awkward analogy, comparing oranges to oranges doesn’t work if one orange is in a glass of water on Earth and another is in a glass of mercury on Jupiter. It’s really a lot harder to accurately display data in graphical form than one would think, especially when that data is only partially numerical. Each of these Presidents faced unique challenges and environments, and while a partisan might condemn Bush I for his poor performance in this group, a more independent observer might find factors belying such a conclusion. As much as I enjoy a good graph, I think any such must be approached with the greatest suspicion, especially those originating from partisan sources.
Charles Joseph Minard was a 19th century pioneer of the field of information graphics. He is the author of a famous graphic, representing Napoloeon’s March on Russia, which hangs on the walls of many nerds; I have it on my living room wall, in a place of honor. It contains 6 categories of information which, with just a little study, correlates troop losses with geological location, chronological location, temperature, distance, and direction of travel. It’s the sort of thing you stare at with your mouth hanging open the first time. Every creator of a graph should aspire to such artistry. (A big h/t to Don Lee, a colleague who introduced me to this wonderful graphic perhaps 20 years ago.)
(with apologies to the NewScientist Feedback column for using Blue Whales as a measurement.)
