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The Uninformed Economic Views of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in 2 Charts
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the new Democratic darling and self-described democratic socialist, said some odd things in a PBS interview. First, she tried to explain away the current low unemployment rate this way: “Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs.”
Well, no, not even accounting for political exaggeration. The latest employment numbers are from the June jobs report. They show that only 4.8 percent of employed Americans hold multiple jobs. That’s lower than before the Great Recession and lower than during the 1990s boom. Indeed, that number has been declining for years. As the BLS noted in a 2015 report:
MULTIPLE JOBHOLDING HAS BECOME LESS COMMON in the United States over the past two decades. The downward trend cannot be attributed either to changes in the sociodemographic composition of the working-age population or to shifts in the occupation or industry structure of the economy. Instead, this article shows that the trend originates from a lower propensity of single jobholders to take on a second job. Multiple jobholders, in contrast, did not become more likely to give up their second job. One explanation for these findings is that workers may have become increasingly reliant on alternative sources of income to meet expenses or to pay off debt. Another, noneconomic explanation is that looking for enjoyment through a second, different job may have become more unusual.
And, as a 2014 Pew Research analysis noted:
Based on recent media reports, many people may think that, because of the tough economy and stagnant wage growth, more and more people are working multiple jobs. You may have read that more Americans are moonlighting with a part-time night shift at Target, selling homemade jam at farmers’ markets on the weekend, or cobbling together two, three or more part-time jobs to approximate a living income. However, that assumption would be wrong. Both in terms of raw numbers and as a share of all employed people, fewer Americans are working more than one job than in the mid-1990s.
Then there was this from Ocasio-Cortez: “Capitalism has not always existed in the world and will not always exist in the world.” Actually, capitalism has pretty much always existed. People have been trading since there was something to trade. “The market economy, contrary to what you might have heard, has existed since the caves,” writes Deirdre McCloskey in Bourgeois Dignity.
And if what Ocasio-Cortez means is “modern capitalism” of the sort that took off in the 1800s and that Karl Marx tried to describe — McCloskey prefers to call it “trade-tested progress” or “innovism” — then she needs to grapple with the parabolic improvement it brought in living standards. You know, this chart:
And as for her flippant forecast of capitalism’s eventual demise, what does she see replacing it? Is this one of those “post-capitalism,” “artificial intelligence will replace markets” kind of hot-take things? Since innovation-driven capitalism has created an abundance beyond the imaginings of Marx, perhaps we shouldn’t be so eager to replace it with something or other.
Published in Economics
JimP,
Now, Jim, you don’t expect a real millennial to actually know anything, do you? She recited the positions that her narrative prescribed and she looks great. That’s all there is to it and that’s all there ever will be to it. If you want more you must be a racist-sexist-homophobe-Islamaphobe-transphobe fascist.
That’s the facts Jack…er…Jim.
Regards,
Jim
Maybe she just hangs with the Hedleys.
She’s an ignorant child. What do you expect? You might as well ask her to treat a brain tumor, or design an integrated circuit. Her 15 minutes will be over soon.
That Alexandria is seeking a position of public power should horrify all Americans. These comments, especially, should double-extra horrify.
These are the people who would be voting on the federal budget, among several hundred other things, annually. Imagine the decision-making process that would occur in her office, amongst her staff and advisers, on policy and voting.
I’m not a Trump guy. But all the criticism he’s gotten, lack of experience and knowledge, etc, why doesn’t she catch at least a little of that?
Because power. If a candidate helps a party remain in power, or grow its power and influence, it doesn’t matter. It’s a vote that supports their power.
The tragedy isn’t just in the ignorance of this one young Democrat, it’s in the ignorance that her many supporters share with her. I can guarantee that none of them realized the error in what she said, and they will refuse to acknowledge it when it’s pointed out.
Careful. That’s what they kept saying about Pres. Trump.
Communism.
I know. Scary, huh?
The greatest threat to the USA is socialism/communism coming from within. It has been brewing for a 100 years. Capitalism and liberty is unnatural and unlikely to last. It is up to us to promote and protect ‘Merica. Where would the world be without us? Subsistence farming and global food shortages for sure. Someone please remind me of the great technological innovations of socialist countries. Space dogs and AK47? No thanks.