Just wondering — where is Ed Lazear when you need him?

Figure 1: Log nonfarm payroll employment normalized on 2009M06 trough (blue), and on 2001M11 trough (red). NBER defined troughs. Source: BLS via FRED, NBER, and author's calculations.

Normalizing on beginning of administrations yields this figure.

Figure 2: Log nonfarm payroll employment normalized on 2009M01 beginning of Obama administration (blue), and on 2001M01 G.W. Bush administration (red). Source: BLS via FRED and author's calculations.