Mitt Romney’s Fuzzy Debate Math

The person who wrote this Blog post is Howard Hill is a retired investment banker. Presumably the guy knows numbers. Maybe someone here can check his work - I’m no mathematician, and I didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night…

If this is all correct, According to Mitt Romney’s own assertions at the debate, his 12 million new jobs will have to make over $430,000 a year or he has to create more jobs than we currently have in the work force.

If this is incorrect, how many jobs must he create or how much do the 12 million new jobs need to pay? If it is correct, how do Romney supporters feel about this?

Math. Not even once.

You asked me for the math John,

So here it is.

But just to make sure we are on the same page a few qualifications.
a) We are talking about across 10 years here right?
b) A trillion has 12 zeros
c) I am not a mathemitician, not an american, and I’m an Obama supporter anyway, so I’m not gonna invest a lot into this

Based on trying to raise $1.5 trillion across 10 years from existing workforce (156 million), assuming an annual tax rate of 20% you would need to raise the annual income of each current worker by $5,000 per year.

If you take away the income from the 12 million new jobs, it comes down to about $4,500 per worker.

Do I think it will happen? NO - on the other hand though, it’s not quite so egregarious as is being made out.

The 12 million new jobs, if they happen, do not exist in a vacuum. They add to the economy. People in those jobs produce more stuff. That stuff gets sold - either here or exported. In either case, the effect is way beyond just the wages for the jobs and the taxes on those salaries.

Look at it another way - in 2007-2009, something like 7.5 million jobs were lost. According to the simplistic analysis of the guy quoted in the OP, that would only lead to the shortfall of what - 50-60B/year? Is that what you think happened?