With only a week to go before the election, the "rooting" and spinning from both sides has hit such a fever pitch that facts have become irrelevant.

But for those who actually care about the economy, facts are important.

So here are some facts.

First, our economic recovery over the past four years has actually been better than what might have been expected under the circumstances (a 30-year borrowing binge leading up to the financial crisis).

Recoveries after such debt binges are notoriously sluggish, and ours has actually tracked better than some economists expected.

The chart below, from economics professors Alan Taylor and Moritz Schularick, shows the projected recoveries from two types of recessions:

A normal recession (blue) and a debt-fueled financial crisis (purple).

The "channel" in the debt-fueled recession shows the expected range of recovery for the U.S. economy over the past few years. The dark purple line shows the actual US recovery, which has been better than expected.

And how about jobs?

A lot of what we've been hearing in the past few months is about how horrible our job-creation in the past few years has been.

Has it actually been horrible?

No.

Our job-creation over the past four years has actually been just as strong as the job-creation during the prior administration!

Don't believe it?

Let's look at some charts.

Here's a chart of overall job growth for the past 12 years. Both George Bush, whose term started in January 2001 and Barack Obama, whose term started in January 2009, inherited recessions. And, as you can see, the slope of the jobs recoveries for both has been similar. Bush's slope is slightly steeper, but not much.

Now let's look at job-creation per month.

Here, too, the tracks of the two administrations have been very similar. Bush's "good period," once it finally got started, was slightly better than Obama's, but not much. (And if you think that Republicans have some super secret to sustainable job growth, you're going to want to forget all about Bush's bad period).

It's also important to separate the growth of government jobs versus the growth of private sector jobs. Here's where it gets really interesting.

Contrary to what Republicans might have you believe, government jobs expanded sharply under George Bush. And they have since shrunk under Barack Obama:

In other words, a lot of job growth in the Bush years came from the growth of government jobs. The loss of government jobs under Obama, meanwhile, which Republicans generally regard as a good thing, have acted as a drag on overall Obama job growth.

Here's a look at private sector job growth under both Presidents. Here, the slope of the recoveries is almost exactly the same:

The similarity is even more clear when you look at private-sector jobs created per month:

So, what's the bottom line?

The bottom line is that, yes, the recovery has been frustratingly sluggish. But this is no surprise. Recoveries after borrowing binges like the one we had for 30 years are generally sluggish. This is because the borrowing in the years leading up to the crisis helped fuel growth, while the "deleveraging" (debt reduction) after the crisis actually hurts growth.

And the bottom line is also that private-sector job growth under Barack Obama has been just as good if not better than it was under George Bush.

Let's say that again.

Private-sector job growth under Barack Obama has been just as good if not better than it was under George Bush.

That's not an argument. It's a fact.

SEE ALSO: Okay, Folks, Let's Put Aside Politics And Focus On The Economic Facts