"Nearly Six and a Half Million Jobs Since Tax Cut." That's the headline you didn't see after the release of the latest monthly employment report. Instead you saw headlines with words such as "disappointing" and articles that focused almost entirely on one small number appearing in a report packed with rather large numbers.
Also unnoticed was the third anniversary of President Bush's second tax cut. However, the evidence strongly suggests those tax cuts led to tremendous jobs gains. Prior to the cuts, both the establishment survey (which counts only payroll jobs) and the household survey (which counts self-employment as well) had been showing job losses. In the three years since the tax cuts, the payroll survey indicates that almost 5.3 million new jobs have been created. The household survey shows more than 6.4 million. At the same time, the unemployment rate has dropped from 6.1% to 4.6%. That is lower than the average unemployment rate during the Clinton years, which was 5.2%.
The results are indisputable: Supply-side economic policies under President Bush have led to a rapid growth in jobs and a drop in unemployment.
