Deinonychus antirrhopus

More on Krugman and Employment

Since the initial post on this has slipped somewhat down the page I thought this deserved its own post. Robert Musil e-mails (and posts on his blog),

Krugman can't use total private employment data, because there are counterexamples to his "since-Hoover" claim if that is the measure:

Eisenhower:

• Jan 1957 - Total Private Employment = 44,554
  
• Jan 1961 - Total Private Employment = 44,208

Ooops. (Robert used the seasonally unadjusted numbers, but the claim is true for the seasonally adjusted numbers as well.)

And shifting over to EconoPundit, I highly recommend this link for a discussion of this by Steve Antler. He also has a wonderful bit by Jim Glass who points out yet more of Krugman's disembling. The gist of it is that back in 1996 Krugman was arguing that 6% was the new NAIRU (Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment) and that to go below that and to try and achieve GDP growth of 4% or more was pure folly. Now, of course he is singing a different tune saying that Bush is the Son of Satan¹ in part because we haven't gotten back to that low a level of unemployment (and may not).
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¹Okay, Krugman hasn't really called Bush the Son of Satan, but he has been very harsh.