You've made some sweeping generalizations, unsup

You've made some sweeping generalizations, unsupported by any facts. In other words, they're your 'beliefs'.



Fact Check: Shift to part-time workers started under Bush


As FactCheck.org found, there was a “huge shift” in the percentage of all employees who work part time — but that shift began under George W. Bush, coinciding with the recession of 2007-2009.

Since then, the part-timer ratio has been trending downward, FactCheck.org found. As of April, it was within one-tenth of 1 percentage point of where it was when Obama first took office. Actually, nearly half the effects of the recession on part-time work have been reversed since Obama took office.




By Carole Fader Fri, Jun 5, 2015 @ 6:22 pm | updated Fri, Jun 5, 2015 @ 8:38 pm

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie answers a question during Rick Scott's Economic Growth Summit in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., Tuesday, June 2, 2015. AP
AP

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie answers a question during Rick Scott's Economic Growth Summit in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., Tuesday, June 2, 2015.


Times-Union readers want to know:

Is it true what New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says, that there’s been a huge shift from full-time work to part-time work under President Barack Obama?

Christie made his statement on May 12 at the University of New Hampshire in a speech denouncing Obama as “the worst economic president since Jimmy Carter” and laying out an economic plan including tax cuts and reductions in federal regulation of business, FactCheck.org reported;.

But his claim isn’t accurate.As FactCheck.org found, there was a “huge shift” in the percentage of all employees who work part time — but that shift began under George W. Bush, coinciding with the recession of 2007-2009.

Since then, the part-timer ratio has been trending downward, FactCheck.org found. As of April, it was within one-tenth of 1 percentage point of where it was when Obama first took office. Actually, nearly half the effects of the recession on part-time work have been reversed since Obama took office.


FactCheck.org looked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, which show that the percentage of part-timers was 18.6 percent of all employed people when Obama began his first term in January 2009 — and the percentage was rising rapidly.

The ratio peaked at 20.1 percent one year later; it was the highest part-timer ratio since 1968, when BLS began the current series of figures on part-time workers, FactCheck.org reported.

From the start of the recession in December 2007 to the part-timer peak in 2010, the ratio rose by 3.2 percentage points. Since then, it has dropped by 1.4 percentage points, BLS statistics show.

Christie said in his speech that the weak recovery pushed full-time workers into part-time work. But as FactCheck.org has shown, that push came during the recession, not during the following recovery.

Christie also said “the number of full-time employees is still 3.2 million below the peak.” But the governor used raw, unadjusted, quarter-to-quarter figures, FactCheck.org found. Actually, the number of full-time workers in April was nearly 5 million higher than it was when Obama took office, measured by the seasonally adjusted monthly figures that economists and journalists use.

FactCheck.org also noted: “Christie made an apples-to-oranges comparison when he sought to blame Obama by comparing present full-time employment to where things stood in the July-September quarter of 2007, when George W. Bush was president. Full-time employment was declining for many months before Obama took office in January 2009.”

FactCheck.org also points out something that Christie did not: Most part-timers seek out such work because of child-care issues, family or personal obligations, school or training, retirement or Social Security limits on earnings, and other reasons.

It was true that the number forced to work part time for economic reasons surged during 2007 and 2008, then crept up more slowly until peaking in September 2010. But since then, it has come down substantially.

As of April, the number working part time because of the economy was nearly 2.7 million less than at the peak, and nearly 1.5 million less than when Obama first entered the White House.