One of the benefits of 21st century technological advances
is the quick availability of government reports that relay information
to the population without commentary or criticism from a biased source
such as a news organization or media pundit. Over the past four years, repugicans have not rejoiced much at reports the President’s economic
policies have helped create millions of jobs in spite of their attempts
to cripple the tepid recovery, and in spite of their news outlets and
conservative belief tanks persistent rants that this President was toxic
to the economy; government jobs reports have shown consistent growth.
Yesterday there was another report
that the economy added jobs, but it is likely that instead of despair, repugicans celebrated wildly that their austerity cuts have begun
paying dividends and slowed job growth.
The good news is that the economy added 88,000 jobs in March and the
jobless rate fell to 7.6%, but there are conditions that make the report
less than encouraging. First, the new job numbers was the lowest
increase in nine months signaling the job market recovery is slowing,
and although the jobless rate did fall, it is likely because more
Americans have given up hope and stopped even looking for work. The
labor force contracted by about a half million people because if a
person is not looking for a job, they are not counted as unemployed. The
percentage of working-age Americans either with a job or looking for
one dropped to 63.3 percent that is at its lowest level since 1979 and
it means the pace of job growth in 2013 is slower than it was last year.
One can hardly blame some Americans for dropping out of the labor
market because if there are jobs available, they are increasingly
part-time minimum wage jobs that do not afford adequate food and shelter
compared with unemployment benefits for those who qualify. In every
state in the Union, a full-time job at minimum wage will not pay rent
for the most austere apartment, and even if both parents are fortunate
enough to hold down two part-time jobs, they still earn well below the
federal poverty limit and struggle to feed their families.
The repugicans can take all the credit for the slowdown in jobs that are
a direct result of their austerity frenzy that slowed GDP growth in the
fourth quarter of 2012, and that was well before the repugican
sequester took effect on March first. Part of the slowdown in hiring is
that companies are not hiring because Americans are tightening their
belts and not buying, and as sales drop, companies stop hiring or worse,
start laying off workers. The sad news is, it is going get much worse
and the repugican cabal must be wetting themselves at the prospects of rising
unemployment and hungry and homeless Americans as they resist any of the
President’s attempts to create jobs and grow the economy.
Economic experts warned consistently that austerity during a recovery
retard growth and kill jobs, and after repugicans imposed Draconian
spending cuts and repugican-controlled states shuttered schools, fired
teachers by the hundreds of thousands, and eviscerated the public
workforce, the downstream jobs are drying up rapidly. The sequester
alone was promised to kill between 700,000 and a million jobs in its
first of a ten year run, and doubtless March’s employment figures
reflected the start of those job losses. Alan B. Krueger, chairman of
the Council of Economic Advisers, said “While
the recovery was gaining traction before sequestration took effect,
these arbitrary and unnecessary cuts to government services will be a
headwind in the months to come, and will cut key investments in the
nation’s future competitiveness.”
Federal Reserve officials warned that it is not just the slower pace
of job growth that is disconcerting, but the quality of hiring is
troubling according to Sarah Bloom Raskin. She said, “It’s important
to look at the types of jobs that are being created because those jobs
will directly affect the fortunes and challenges of households and
neighborhoods as well as the course of the recovery,” and noted
lower-wage jobs accounted for a large share of job growth that in turn
slow consumer spending drastically. The largest share of jobs added in
March were low-wage temporary and part-time work that might be good for
large employers, but it means less job security and income for workers.
In fact, 7.6 million Americans who want full-time jobs are only finding
part-time jobs that, for many Americans, are not worth taking and not
because job seekers are lazy. For example, a single mother who lost her
full-time paralegal jobs after five years said, “When I’ve had
offers for positions they’re part time or temporary, but the child care
I’d need to pay to take the jobs is more costly than what I’d be getting
paid for the job itself,” and it is a narrative heard more often than not.
The executive director of the National Employment Law Project said
that midlife and older workers who lost their jobs to cutbacks are
having to “dip into retirement savings in order to stay afloat, and
that 10 years down the road, a lot of retirees who didn’t expect to live
in poverty are going to be in poverty” and it does not appear there
is any stopping the elderly’s march into poverty. Through it all, repugicans in states and Congress are actively cutting retirement and
pension benefits on top of killing public sector jobs that drives the
slowdown in hiring as more and more Americans are forced to cut spending
in order to survive. Businesses large and small have cited lack of
consumer spending as the prime reason for hiring slowdowns, and yet debt
and deficit reduction and the resulting austerity are still foremost on
the repugican agenda with no end in sight.
The repugicans’ spending cut frenzy gave Americans a firsthand look
at the deleterious effects of austerity at the end of the fourth quarter
of 2012, and the sequester’s one month anniversary promptly revealed a
slowdown in hiring that is only going to get worse. President Obama’s
budget attempts to create jobs through infrastructure spending as well
as replacing the arbitrary government cuts in the sequester, but John
Boehner dismissed it immediately for not cutting Social Security enough
and because it includes revenue to put Americans to work repairing a
broken infrastructure. It is important for all Americans to remember
that repugicans know, and were warned, their austerity and sequester
would kill jobs and slow growth, and yet they proceeded anyway and
celebrated accomplishing another job-killing policy.
Americans had just started feeling the economy was on a path of
recovery and growth, but their good outlook failed to take into account
the true leaders of this nation were hell-bent on staunching recovery
and killing jobs. The slowdown in growth during the fourth quarter of
2012 should have been a warning sign to repugicans that their slash and
burn austerity was dangerous to economic growth, but instead, they
celebrated their sequester victory and promptly rejected the President’s
budget because it replaces the sequester and creates jobs. They most
likely celebrated again at the news hiring is slowing and more Americans
are headed for poverty, and although they were discouraged there were
any jobs created in March, they can rest assured that as the sequester
enters its second month of a ten year run, they will have plenty to
celebrate as more Americans lose their jobs, people drop out of the
workforce, and the economy contracts; their goal for the past four
years.
No comments:
Post a Comment