Do you agree with Gallup’s poll showing 89% of Americans identify the economy as the primary issue of concern?

A related poll shows how differently Democrats and Republicans view the economy under Obama, whose purge of 8.33 million jobs in 2009 and 2010 remains millions down from the workforce numbers in place when he took Office. Gallup’s satisfaction with the way the country was headed poll, incredibly, spiked to 59% approval ratings from Democrats in 2009, 50% higher than Republicans nationally, before ballooning to 55% more approving of the economy and direction of the country during the second half of 2012. Perhaps the disparity might be attributable to the hundreds of metrics and thousands of data points published in the BLS’ monthly Employment Situation Report, which all but guarantees a few select measures hinting at improvement while dozens of others more realistically paint a distinctly different picture. That was the basis for former BLS Commissioner John Hall calling the unemployment rate “deeply flawed” in the run-up to the last election, and former Labor Department Chief of Staff Rick Manning ridiculing the data, suggesting only Obama campaign staff could possibly believe the incredible drop in rates while growth was insufficient to employ newcomers to the job market, much less 90 million Americans separated from gainful employment by November 2012. More than half of college graduates since Obama took the Presidency, including many supporters, understand that only too well, now.

Since the election, information leaked about a handful of BLS survey takers for the Current Population Survey (CPS) having fabricated data by generating phantom responses dreamt up without respondents having answered questions for Census Bureau staff assigned to the CPS. Oddly, only one of five individuals coworkers complained about was investigated, which led to an embarrassing admission from one individual who logged more than three times the survey responses as the average monthly rate for CB staff for more than a year. That translated to hundreds of fabricated responses monthly being acknowledged, while at least four more individuals were implicated for doing the same. Simple math suggests 1500 – 2000 errant responses on around 50,000 to low 50k range could seriously compromise the data. Of course, that revelation clearly supported what John Hall, Rick Manning and the likes of former GE CEO Jack Welch and business magnate Donald Trump claimed.

The good news is that the Department of Labor records real nationwide counts, which are more accurate and reliable than simple survey-based estimates, through the Employment & Training Administration (ETA). Their weekly reports of newly registered claimants for unemployment after job losses have long been considered more accurate than the wide-ranging effort to portray our nation’s employment picture from limited survey responses. On a quarterly basis, the ETA releases a real, fully supported job count from employers’ payroll records with each state. As a result, the two interrelated figures, which have identified largely inarguable job loss counts for decades, and actual employment records based upon employers paying into the UEI system provide the DOL’s best and only comprehensive counts of key metrics showing who’s employed and how many workers suffered job losses. In comparison to surveys, which can be suspect, and the leeway given BLS statisticians handling the data to smooth anomalous, surprising data with seasonally adjusted numbers they see more in line with expectations, the ETA’s real employment counts cannot be overstated for their importance.

A graph of quarterly employers’ payroll counts is posted here, so it’s possible to follow more valid numbers than the BLS survey responses which have suffered data manipulation math savvy individuals have been struck by during the Obama Presidency. Notable on the charts is a dramatic increase in job losses, along with a corresponding loss of total Americans employed during Obama’s first 24 months in Office. From January 2009 through January 2011, more than 8.3 million jobs were slashed from the economy. At election time in 2012, the Obama Administration was down 5.8 million jobs, while 2013 began down 5.2 million for the first modern-day President to turn in job losses across a single term in Office. ETA employers’ payroll counts showed George Bush presided over an economy that added 7.05 million jobs. At this point, entering Obama’s sixth year as President, the Administration has managed a modest comeback to down about 3.2 million jobs from the 133,886,830 Obama inherited from George Bush at the start of 2009. Unfortunately, the 3.2 million job shortage from when he took Office tells only a fraction of the story.

Some 37-40 million new workers sought entry and opportunity for independent adulthood as workforce hopefuls over the past five years. When that’s viewed on top of the cumulative count of 112 million new registrants for unemployment since January 24, 2009, the shrunken economy seems all the more harsh.