Bush By the Numbers: A Look at the Record

Much has been made recently about "improvements" in the economy, especially job growth. Here is evidence that the picture is not nearly so bright as Bush supporters paint it.

$445 billion percent — The Bush administration's latest estimate of this year's record deficit — $70 billion higher than last year's.

9 million — The number of U.S.workers under the age of 65 who lost employer health benefits between 2001 and 2003, according to a survey by the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington, D.C.

8.2 million — The number of unemployed in July (a 5.5 percent unemployment rate). Those unfortunate folks were, on average, without jobs for 18.6 weeks.

3.978 million — The number of jobs the Bush administration's Council of Economic Advisers projected would be created over the last 13 months, through July, as a result of Bush's tax cuts. But the reality is depressing: A whopping 2,565,000 fewer jobs were created over that period. Job creation failed to meet the administration's projections in 11 of the 13 months.

32,000 — The meager increase in new jobs in July, a figure so disappointing that it sent Wall Street tumbling 147.7 points, the lowest close of the year to that point. Analysts had expected somewhere between 215,000 to 247,000 new jobs in July.

One-third of President Bush's tax cuts over the last three years went to taxpayers at the top 1 percent of income(making an average of $1.2 million annually), according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Their average after-tax income soared 10.1 percent, while it increased only 2.3 percent and 1.6 percent for those in the middle and lowest income categories, respectively.

932 — American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war, through Aug. 15, including at least 697 killed in action (583 since May 1, when Bush declared an end to major combat operations).