Claiming to be hands-on

Both Barack Obama and his Republican opponents claim responsibility for creating jobs. Ezra Klein asks how much influence a US president actually has when it comes to generating employment.

MITT Romney’s campaign would have you believe that every job lost over the past three years is US President Barack Obama’s fault. That includes the 820,000 jobs lost in January 2009, even though Obama didn’t become president until the 20th of the month.

It includes the 726,000 jobs lost in February 2009, before any of Obama’s policies had gone into effect. This suggests that Romney holds a deeply ambitious view of a president’s power to influence the labour market, a view that’s not shared by economists who were responsible for economic policies in recent administrations.