The Obama Administration has been quick to extoll the fact that private sector payrolls have expanded for 28 consecutive months with 4.4 million jobs created – an increase of 4.1%.   To make this claim they calculate “their success” by picking the recent low point for private sector employment that occurred in February 2010.

 With the release of the June employment situation report, if you use the White House’s own methodology, the Obama recovery now ranks last on private sector job creation among recoveries since World War II that lasted more than a year.  The other nine recoveries posted an average private sector job growth of 8.0% over the comparable 28 months from the private sector employment low.

Add this to the fact that the current recovery already sits in last place for real economic growth and the picture grows increasingly dim.  The current recovery has generated a total increase in real GDP of 6.7% over the last eleven quarters.  The preceding nine recoveries average total GDP growth of 13.8% over a comparable eleven quarters.

Lastly, the unemployment rate posted its 41^st consecutive month at 8.0% or higher.  While the unemployment rate has declined by 1.8 percentage points since peaking at 10.0% in October 2009, most of the decline is attributable to the decline in labor force participation.  If labor force participation had remained at its October 2009 level, the unemployment rate would have only declined by 0.1 percentage point to 9.9%.

The attached Republican staff commentary discusses these and other indicators of the recoveries poor performance.