On January 24, 2012, President Obama delivered his latest State of the Union (SOTU) speech to Congress. It heavily emphasized economic themes, among which were jobs, manufacturing, trade, the auto industry, teachers, taxes, Medicare, financial regulation and growing income inequality in the United States. Claims were made and general proposals offered for how to create more jobs and how to get a sluggish US economic recovery finally going after three years of tepid, stop-and-go results.

But many of the president's claims in his SOTU speech, especially with regard to jobs, were contrary to the facts. And the proposals he reaffirmed for generating a sustained   economic recovery were more of the same "old wine in new bottles," which hasn't had much impact to date. Here are some facts concerning jobs to consider before feeling too optimistic over what was largely a campaign-oriented, election-year SOTU speech - a speech more reminiscent of Obama's 2008 "talk the talk" period than of his 2009-2011 "talk but no walk" record.

Obama boasted that the US manufacturing sector had turned around and created millions of jobs on his watch. He subsequently named the need to further boost manufacturing, and the exports of US-manufactured goods, as one of his two primary recommendations for doing something about the 23 million people still jobless in the United States. (His other primary recommendation was more business tax cuts, which I will address in Part 2 of this series.)

More here.