I was not referring to hard numbers, I am referring to percentages. Percentages is the true comparison of apples to apples, since it takes into account Hispanic growth over the past time frame (8 years). There will undoubtadly be many more Hispanics today in absolute terms, and compared to other groups (Whites, Blacks, etc) than there was in 1997. Hard numbers value doesn’t take that into account.

Drax,

The links I provided also show that employment population ratio is about the same under both administrations (63.5 for Clinton, 62.3 for Bush). As for your second concern, that it doesn’t take into account loosing a salary job and picking up a job that pays hourly, that is true, but neither did Clintons. Do you have stats that show that situation is worse now than back than? If not, than the point is moot, since it was the same situation under both statistics.

Blogero,

My point exactly. I am not trying to show that the economic situation is necessarily better now, afterall our current economy is post 9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan war. It is to mainly show the selective process people use to report their economic data and balance out some of the stats floating around.