On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the monthly employment situation report for April.  Current consensus estimate (from Wall Street Journal) looks for a gain of 165,000 nonfarm payroll jobs (range of 105,000 – 244,000) with a private sector gain of 178,000 private sector jobs (range of 105,000 – 246,000).  Consensus estimate looks for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 8.2%.  

At present, the White House is touting President Obama’s record of private sector job growth -- 25 straight months, 4.1 million jobs – which equates to a gain of 3.8% from the low point for private sector payroll employment in February 2010. 

By contrast, during the Reagan recovery from the last severe recession, using the White House’s own metrics, private sector payrolls jumped 10.0% or 7.2 million private sector jobs added.   In today’s terms, a gain of 10.0% would equate to a gain of over 10 million jobs from the low point.  

Check out this JEC Republicans video on our YouTube site which goes into exactly how the White House gets to its numbers and what a Reagan-style recovery would mean for hardworking Americans. 

Here is the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHT-0sBcgxM

Let us know what you think and make a point to become a fan of our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.   Our DailyEconDigest is a good way to keep up with what’s going on in the economic debate.  Links for all three are below the signature block.

Finally, the following chart shows how the Obama recovery stacks up against the Reagan recovery on three key metrics: private sector job growth, drop in the unemployment rate, and the growth in real gross domestic product.