On Wednesday the business analytics firm Automatic Data Processing (ADP) released its monthly national employment report. The firm projects that the economy produced roughly 118,000 jobs in the month of November.

Positive monthly job growth is not something to belittle, but persistently meager monthly gains reveal a general weakness in the broader economy. The United States is simply not creating enough jobs on its own to fully recover from the economic downturn of 2008-2009.

This economy needs to create more than one million jobs annually simply to keep pace with natural population growth. The Obama administration has overseen tremendous progress on this front but there is still much to be done.

In addition to meeting the needs of a growing population, the U.S. economy must create new positions to absorb millions of Americans who are still out of work thanks to the recession. Just last month the Obama administration officially erased the job losses it accumulated during the first few months of 2009. By most standard metrics the recession that President Obama was handed has been rebuilt.

However, the recession and collapse that occurred under President Bush’s watch has yet to be reconstructed. Making matters worse is the fact that the Bush administration was not defined by one recession. That administration created zero net job growth in eight years. The Bush economy created zero jobs at a time when the population of this nation grew by nearly 30 million. President Obama deserves no blame for the disastrous economics of his predecessor, but he is still responsible for the cleanup.

It is encouraging that the economy is at least capable of creating jobs on its own, but continuing along with middling numbers will not revitalize the American economy. This country still needs more stimulus to help keep it on the right path.

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