Bush Backs Off Job Forecast

A Feb. 9 report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers predicted that payrolls would grow to an average of 132.7 million in 2004 from 130.1 million in 2003, an exceptionally rapid employment gain for an economy that has shed 2.3 million jobs during Bush's tenure. Facing the prospect that Democrats would make a campaign issue of Bush's failure to meet his own projections, Bush and top administration officials declined to endorse the 2.6 million jobs forecast.

The annual CEA report has had difficulty in the past with its forecasts for jobs growth. Previous reports predicted the economy would add 1.7 million to 3 million new jobs in 2003, but in fact the nation lost 53,000 jobs.

J. Bradford DeLong, a Clinton administration economist now at the University of California at Berkeley, said the Bush administration forecast is even more optimistic than it appears because it is based on year-average numbers. In fact, DeLong said on his Web site, the White House is assuming the economy will create 3.8 million jobs by the end of 2004.

Though McClellan said yesterday that Bush did not endorse the jobs forecast because he's "not a predictor," the president last year used a CEA jobs projection as evidence that his tax cut would add 1.4 million jobs by the end of 2004. "That's the projection of a lot of smart economists who have analyzed the package," he said then.