Only in their nightmares did economists at the White House imagine that their boss would begin his campaign for re-election facing such a frustrating employment picture.
Two years ago President Bush's economic team projected that the nation would add more than 3 million jobs by the end of 2003. Instead, employment has dropped by roughly 2 million since then, bringing total job losses to 2.8 million during the president's three years in office.
So it was last week that Bush set out on his inaugural 2004 campaign trip with the not-welcome task of explaining why people are still having trouble finding jobs.
"I fully realize, in Ohio, there are still troubled times," Bush said, campaigning in one of the states most crucial to his second-term aspirations. "The manufacturing here is sluggish at best and, therefore, people are looking for work."
With little more than 10 months left before Election Day, the president is still waiting for the 2-year-old economic recovery to start producing significant numbers of jobs.
It's a wait that holds political consequences. Economists overwhelmingly believe that an employment upswing is at hand. But campaign experts say that unless it happens fairly soon, and in sizable proportions, Bush may have trouble shaking the image of a president who couldn't deliver on his goal of finding a job for every worker who wants one.
"It's not good enough to tell people things are good," said Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "There's got to be a fair amount of time _ say four to six months before the election _ for good news to sink in."
Even if job growth does occur, the unusually long lag between the start of the current recovery and employment gains has caused enough economic turmoil to buoy Democratic hopes of retaking the White House. Millions of Americans are believed to have quit trying to find employment. Wage inequality is once again growing. And debate is spreading across the country on how to stem the loss of U.S. jobs to foreign shores.
Bush, in his State of the Union address, took note of the dismal jobs landscape, albeit indirectly. Noting that technology is changing the way nearly every job is performed, the president said, "So we must respond by helping more Americans gain the skills to find good jobs in our new economy."
The day after his speech in Ohio, the president began selling a $250 million jobs training program designed to match prospective employers with workers willing to learn new job skills. The program, if approved by Congress, would be administered through the nation's nearly 1,200 community colleges.
Also as part of his jobs-stimulation program, the president wants to spend $220 million to help low-performing students with their reading and math skills at middle schools and high schools. He would also expand Advanced Placement programs in low-income schools.
But none of the ideas likely would kick in before the November election, leaving Bush subject to economic forces already in place.
Nearly every economic forecast sees jobs creation as imminent. The National Association of Manufacturers projects 1.8 million new jobs over the course of 2004. Wells Fargo & Co. forecasts an even larger surge of 2.8 million new jobs.
But for Bush, timing may be everything.
National employment grew by nearly 1.2 million in 1992, the year his father sought re-election. But most of that came in the last part of the year _ too late, many contend, to counter Bill Clinton's argument that the economy demanded a change in presidents.
Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo, similarly projects that most of 2004's employment growth will occur in the last half of the year. Further, he adds, "Without significant employment gains, the recovery could be in jeopardy."
Meanwhile, Democrats on the presidential trail are attempting to make headway on the jobs argument. Sen. John Edwards, in particular, is calling attention to the "two Americas," in which one does all the work and the other gets all the rewards.
"When the president says, 'The state of our union is strong,' you need to ask, 'Which union, Mr. President?'" Edwards said in New Hampshire.
Edwards' case derives in part from recent data showing that, as a result of the recession that occurred at the start of Bush's presidency, poverty rates are increasing and so is the wage gap between rich and poor.
New Labor Department data show that wages are stagnant for the top-paid 10 percent of workers while they are falling, in inflation-adjusted terms, for the lowest-paid 10 percent. The widening gap is a reversal from the late 1990s trend that saw the wage gap narrow.
Meanwhile, a separate debate also born of the jobs dearth is focusing on the loss of American employment to foreign countries, through both direct foreign competition and the outsourcing of U.S. jobs abroad.
The National Association of Manufacturers says the country has lost 2.8 million manufacturing jobs over the last three-and-a-half years in one of the worst downturns for manufacturing in history. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of high-tech and call-center jobs are being outsourced to places like India, which has become a mandatory stop for American businesses looking to shave costs.
But even the manufacturers group has become bullish about the future. While 2004 employment growth will be at only about half the pace of normal recoveries, it said, manufacturing should grow at a strong clip during the year, producing 250,000 new jobs.
Bullish forecasts such as this are everywhere now, and are expected to be prominent in the new budget Bush will unveil a week from now. If they're right, the president may get his long-awaited employment turnaround when the first 2004 report is issued on Feb. 6.
On the other hand, bullish employment forecasts have been around for nearly two years now. White House officials clearly thought a corner had been turned earlier this month, when they scheduled Bush to preside at a jobs event on the day the monthly employment report was to be released.
Economists expected new-job creation of 150,000 or more. But it was not to be.
Standing before a group of Virginia small-business owners just hours after the Labor Department announced a paltry 1,000-job gain, Bush once more could do no more than promise that things would get better soon.
"All the signs in our economy ... are very strong," he said. "And that's positive for somebody who might be wondering about whether he or she is going to find a job."
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