Tough Love

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics total employment at the end of 2014 was 147.4 million, an increase of 2.7 million jobs over the December, 2013 total of 144.7 million. The main reason?

A research paper traced most of the job increase to Congress' declining to re-authorize the unemployment-benefits extension that was enacted in 2008:

In levels, 1.8 million additional jobs were created in 2014 due to the benefit cut. Almost 1 million of these jobs were filled by workers from out of the labor force who would not have participated in the labor market had benefit extensions been reauthorized.

Count me among the doubters, but I was wrong about the wisdom of the President. He foresaw that terminating the benefits extension would increase employment, didn't he? (H/T Greg Mankiw)