Obama Jobs Plan Better Include Jobs
I don't think that presidents can create jobs but they can sure do a lot to destroy the economy or get in the way of employers creating jobs. The latest jobs report, for August, is out and the net job growth is ... zero. Unemployment remains at 9.1%. July's numbers, already dismal, were revised down from 117,000 jobs to 85,000. U-6, broader measure of unemployment, is up to 16.2% from 16.1%. People employed part time for economic reasons rose from 8.4 million to 8.8 million in August.
Whenever the jobs report comes out, I like to check in with Jim Pethokoukis for context. He notes that in August 2010, Vice President Joe Biden said, ""We're going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month." We've averaged 104,000 a month since then.
If the labor force was simply as big as it was when Obama took office, our unemployment rate would be 11.4 percent.
And this second "Recovery Summer" has seen a total job growth of just 105,000 net new jobs.
I've mentioned here before about how many of my friends and family, particularly those out in Western states, are unemployed, underemployed, or have dropped out of the labor force altogether. One of my closest family members who was in this situation got a job -- a really good job -- that starts next week, which has improved my disposition mightily. But it's hard to express just how depressing, stultifying and worrisome unemployment is. Particularly for men, who have been hit hardest with unemployment.
This news of zero job growth has serious political implications. This administration's economic policies have been disastrous. But it's also true that this situation in American families is so much more important than politics. I pray for those who are out of work that jobs -- and all of the tangible and intangible benefits that come with employment -- come to them quickly.
That image comes from Justin Hart, by the way.
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Jun '10
Re: Obama Jobs Plan Better Include Jobs
Whatever he proposes, it's going to be designed to to help employment and help the economy for exactly one year. After that, he doesn't really care. After that, he can go back to what he was doing before.
May '10
Re: Obama Jobs Plan Better Include Jobs
I think we're burying the lede on this Zero Jobs Created in August story. How is it even possible to create exactly zero jobs. Didn't overshoot the mark and go negative, yet didn't create a single job. This is precision of a high order. I'll never doubt the ability of technocrats to fine-tune the economy ever again.
That Obama must play a mean game of bocce.
Apr '11
Re: Obama Jobs Plan Better Include Jobs
Apparently the President's new job plan is to sue the banks to recover the money we injected into them via TARP and the Fed's low interest rate programs. If the banks are fragile, and need to build capital, how does it help to sue to extract more capital out of the banks? There are two logical posibilities. Either this suit is part of the jobs plan, and we will see a year of running against banks and Wall Street, or this administration's left hand (Justice) does not know what the right hand (re-election team) is doing.
Re: Obama Jobs Plan Better Include Jobs
This chart -- dubbed the scariest jobs chart ever -- shows that the depth of the decline has been significantly worse than any other recession and the recovery is much weaker than in previous ones:
Dec '10
Re: Obama Jobs Plan Better Include Jobs
The unemployment rate for the African American community is 16.7%. It's 18% for black men over the age of 20 and 13.4% for black women over 20. The rate is 46.5% for blacks aged 16-19 (compared to 23% for whites). If I were a Republican presidential candidate, I would be repeating these numbers at every opportunity.
May '10
Re: Obama Jobs Plan Better Include Jobs
Don't lose sight of the fact that the unemployment numbers were massaged even to get this dismal result. Which means the real numbers were much worse.
Sep '10
Re: Obama Jobs Plan Better Include Jobs
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.: This chart -- dubbed the scariest jobs chart ever -- shows that the depth of the decline has been significantly worse than any other recession and the recovery is much weaker than in previous ones: · Sep 2 at 7:47am
The Bush and Obama policies of using more government interference to prevent the economy from bottoming are counterproductive and contribute to the problem but do not explain it. If you will look a bit more closely at your chart you might notice that the rebound in jobs have been taking progressively longer. The previous two rebounds appear better than they really are because of the Tech and Housing bubbles. The Fed has been trying to manufacture one more bubble and seems to be able to do so only in the gold and treasury markets which do not produce many jobs. When a government encourages its citizen’s to spend more than they make over an extended period of time, sooner or later there is a price to pay. We have just begun to pay that price.
Aug '10
Re: Obama Jobs Plan Better Include Jobs
Been thinking about the "things that really matter" to this administration and the EPA keeps circling back around in the equation. They now occupy the part of the Triangle that once housed the Dept of Labor and Interstate Commerce. Regulation replaced commerce .
This administration isn't invested with the creation of business, just the regulation of it.
The EPA has accomplished a coup shutting down key parts of the machine that made this country great. Manufacturing lies shackled to the ground like Gulliver, the lilliputian agents scurry about tightening the ropes, opening veins, killing it.
EPA has 18000 employees and millions of square ft of office space for them to plot things while they earn wages that exceed those of productive workers across the country. Talk about mission creep.
Here are the jobkillers. Politics and reality clash over the corpse of manufacturing jobs.
We will need to consider shutting EPA down altogether.
And then there's all the new state agencies. Cal EPA alone has 5000 employees.
May '10
Re: Obama Jobs Plan Better Include Jobs
Kennedy Smith: I think we're burying the lede on this Zero Jobs Created in August story. How is it even possible to create exactly zero jobs. Didn't overshoot the mark and go negative, yet didn't create a single job. This is precision of a high order. I'll never doubt the ability of technocrats to fine-tune the economy ever again.
That Obama must play a mean game of bocce. · Sep 2 at 6:56am
Kennedy, I do get the joke, but isn't it actually estimated to 3 digits? I don't think that the input parameters have a resolution any better than to the nearest thousand. And if you try to state it more closely, you invite analysis to verify methodology, and then you gots real trubbel in River City.