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An Unemployment Report That Screams Spectacular Failure
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Jul 12, 2011 02:38pm |
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| Category | Opinion |
| Author | Charles Kadlec |
| News Date | Monday, July 11, 2011 08:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | "Spectacular failure. These words came to mind as the dismal employment data for June were released last Friday. After the biggest spending binge in peacetime American history, the unemployment rate is stuck above 9%, while in May fewer than 20,000 jobs were created in what was once a vibrant U.S. economy. Adding in discouraged workers drives the combined rate to 16.2%. Wage rates fell, as did the average workweek.
It may get worse. In a U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey of small businesses released Monday, 64% of the executives surveyed reported no plans to add workers, while 12% had plans to cut jobs. Only 19% said they planned to add employees.
Yet, promoters of President Obama’s strategy to rely on government spending to boost employment say it isn’t so – that all of the increased spending produced more, rather than fewer jobs. Any reduction in government spending, therefore, would threaten the fragile recovery these very same policies have produced.
This view was boldly defended by Princeton Economics Professor Alan Blinder in his recent Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: ”The GOP Myth of ‘Job-Killing’ Spending.”
In the article, Blinder asks a very simple, but powerful question: “How can the government destroy jobs by either hiring people directly or buying things from private companies? For example, how is it that public purchases of computers destroy jobs but private purchases of computers create them?” |
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