This is a complicated subject. In brief, the data that fintstone quoted is not considered a reliable or accurate measure of the total US job count. The reliable data that economists and investors actually use does, in fact, show
a decline in total US jobs since 2000.
If you want to the details, I'll explain - it's a bit long, so bear with me here.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) gathers data using different surveys. One major method is to survey a sample of 160,000 employers covering 400,000 workplaces to gather statistics for how many people are on their payrolls, how much they are paid, etc. This is called the "establishment payroll survey" or the
"payroll survey" for short. For details:
http://www.bls.gov/ces/cesmetho.htm#3 Another major method is the survey a sample of 60,000 households to gather statistics for how many are working, etc. This is called the "current population survey" or the
"household survey"[. For details:
http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/homch1_b.htm
The monthly news releases of the BLS presents a mix of data from these (and other) sources. It is a bit confusing. For example, look at
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm and notice where it cites the establishment survey and where it cites the household survey.
The two surveys don't always give the same results. One difference is that the number of employed persons reported by the two methods has been different in recent years. In recent years, the payroll survey has been showing weaker job growth trends than the household survey has been showing. For example, the payroll survey reports 131,916,000 total nonfarm jobs in Sep 04, while the household survey shows 139,480,000 total civilian jobs in Sep 04. The payroll survey reported 130,135,000 total nonfarm jobs in Sep 03, while the household survey shows 137,731,000 total civilian jobs in Sep 03.
There are several reasons for these differences, which are discussed in a 10/8/04 BLS paper here:
http://www.bls.gov/cps/ces_cps_trends.pdf Some reasons are (a) the payroll survey covers a much larger sample and is thus more accurate, (b) the payroll survey is checked/re-calibrated annually against unemployment insurance tax records, and (c) the household survey's raw results have to be extrapolated to the entire US population using census data (gathered every 10 years) and limited data gathered between census years.
Economists view the payroll survey as a more accurate count of nonfarm wage/salary employment (i.e. people who draw a paycheck for working other than on a farm), and the source of the most detailed industry employment data (e.g. oil and gas extraction, construction of buildings, textile mills, etc). The household data is considered a less accurate count of wage/salary employment, but is used to get a a picture of unemployed, self-employed, unpaid and agricultural workers (who wouldn't be counted in the payroll survey) and the reasons for their situation (actively seeking work, discouraged but want work, don't want work, etc), and the source for demographic employment data (e.g. by race and sex) as well as some broad industry-level data.
Therefore, economists focus on the payroll survey as an indicator of the national employment situation. Investors also focus on the payroll survey as an indicator of whether the US is adding or losing jobs. Again, the main reason is because the payroll survey is more accurate and detailed, and is not affected by extrapolation for population estimates.
Anyway, the point of all this is that there is a good reason why
essentially all knowledgeable and reputable commentators refer to the payroll survey and agree that total US jobs have declined from 2000 to the present. The household survey, which is what was quoted in the message that started this thread, is not considered a reliable measure of total US jobs.
As the BLS paper says:
"the upward trend in household employment since the end of the 2001 recession has been largely a function of the estimated growth in population. That is to say, the household survey has not shown an increase in the proportion of the population that is employed."
What this is saying is that the household survey
appears to show job growth (since 2001) only because of the extrapolation of estimated US population growth.
The household survey results do show that
there are now fewer jobs per unit of population. Here's the details: the ratio of employed persons (over 16 y/o) to the total population was 62.4% in Sep 04. In Sep '01 this was 63.4%, Sep '02 63.0%. Sep '03 62.1%. I am comparing Septembers because this ratio is seasonal, e.g. it tends to start lower at the beginning of the calendar year and then increase during the year (probably due to summer workers and holiday retail sales jobs). Bureau of Labor Statistics, series LNU02300000).
Hope all this makes sense. I looked into this about a year ago, and it took a bit of digging to understand how these government statistics are collected.
Edit: I re-read this post, and I may not have done a good job explaining things. If anyone wants details, I do suggest reading the 10/8/04 BLS paper which includes all sorts of graphs that make things a bit clearer. If anyone wants to get lots of numbers to play with, I suggest going to
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.toc.htm by follwing the links you can download all the data you want.
Edit 2: As you may have guessed, the chart from Factcheck.org is based on the payroll survey data, and represents the US jobs situation as economists and investors actually view it. Whoever fintstone was quoting is using the household survey to count total US jobs, which makes sense if you (not fintstone, but whoever he's quoting) are trying to make a political point, but isn't actually reliable or accurate.
Damn, I have to get back to work. Later!