An opinion piece by David Brooks in today's New York Times reminded me of the old adage, "everyone has a right to their own opinion, but not to their own facts."
Particularly in regard to the Recovery Act, Brooks gets the facts wrong and in so doing, presents a misleading picture of where we've been, where we are, and what the best next steps should be.
Jobs Saved or Created: Brooks cites a model that "suggests the stimulus will create about a half-million jobs." That's demonstrably wrong based on Recovery Act recipients' own reports, and way off the consensus of outside estimates. Each of these facts is, by the way, a mouse click away.
For example, click here and learn that according the Congressional Budget Office, the nation's premiere, independent, nonpartisan scorekeeper, as of the first quarter of this year, the Recovery Act saved or created as many as 2.8 million jobs.
The CBO evaluates the jobs created by the full scope Recovery Act programs, from direct spending on road projects, to teacher-job preservation, to tax cuts, and so on. But there's another source worth examining here: recipient reporting on Recovery.gov. Click on the link and you will see the number 681,825. These are the number of jobs reported by a subset of Recovery Act recipients, those whose jobs came through direct spending (missing, for example, jobs created by tax cuts or jobs created indirectly through spending by direct beneficiaries).
Note two things about this number: first, it reflects jobs created or retained with less than a fifth of the Act's spending, and second, even though it only covers a small part of Recovery Act spending, it's a lot higher than "half-a-million."
Brooks may have objections to these facts, but it is misleading in the extreme to simply omit them.
Brooks then incorrectly cites the work of economist Ed Glaeser to suggest that there's no relationship between stimulus spending and job creation. Glaeser finds nothing of the sort--the raw relationship Glaeser reports is that unemployment has risen less where the stimulus was larger (see here for a discussion of Ed's work). I spoke to Ed this morning and he certainly believes the stimulus created jobs in states across the country.
Current Conditions: The other lynchpin of Brook's argument is the fact that in the last jobs report, of the 431,000 net jobs created in May, only 41,000 were private sector jobs. In March and April, however, the number of private sector jobs created were 158,000 and 218,000, respectively. Every economist who follows these numbers knows they bounce around, so cherry-picking one month to make your case is just bad analysis (see here for a gaggle of economists making this important point). Presumably, Brooks wouldn't have made this point last month, and it's implausible that the stimulus worked in April but not in May.
The average of private sector job growth over the past three months has been about 140,000 per month. One year ago, that same average was negative 575,000...per month! Over the past three months, we've gained over 400,000 private sector jobs. Over that same period last year, we lost 1.7 million.
Economists across the spectrum widely agree that the Recovery Act played a key role in that reversal. Mark Zandi, one of the most frequently cited economists in America (and an economist who previously the McCain campaign), called the Recovery Act "the catalyst for the transition from recession to recovery."
We know we have a long way to go before working Americans once again have the economic opportunities they need and deserve, and the President is working aggressively to build off of the momentum described above. But we can't effectively plan next steps if we fail to objectively and factually evaluate where we've been.
This post originally appeared at WhiteHouse.gov's Recovery Act Blog.
Brooks often gets his facts wrong and this is no accident. He's just one more conservative hack wriggled into the political discourse pretending to be more reasonable than your average republican.
"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant."
— Harlan Ellison
Forget the FACT that, admittedly, the bulk of last month's 431K jobs were temporary govt CENSUS hiring. So yeah, don't take one month's FACTS as being a trend, especially when the census is done. Maybe we can pay them to count rocks.
With the continuing outsourcing of our jobs, the factories are not merely closed, they are gone. This is why the recovery is already beginning to stall. The teachers & others who have been able to work because of the stimulus funds will lose their jobs as the funds are used up. State governments have generally experienced harsh cutbacks the last 2 years, only somewhat offset by using the stimulus funds.
As the funding drys up, the states will again have to lay off teachers & others. Our manufacturing base continues to shrink & globalization has led to the jobs migrating to the cheapest labor providers. Africa will be one of the next growth areas because of their low daily wages. That will not substantially increase African wealth. It will merely increase the wealth & power of international corporations.
You should be talking about reality & the most probable future for America, Europe & other places who's labor force cannot compete in the world market & are therefore in for a long non stop decline into poverty. The new world is of two classes. The ultra rich &
We need a second stimulus, and it needs to be focused on energy and education. We need to solve our energy dependence issues; we need new industries in which to again establish a base for American exports, and we need an educated populace to feed the skilled labor needs of the 21st century.
Of course, the deficit hawks are now out in force, so a second stimulus is an uphill battle. But even as you hear the Republicans calling for fiscal responsibility (what a freaking joke!), you still hear them preaching tax cuts. Even as the Gulf is filling with oil, you hear them pushing more deregulation.
The most basic fact that Americans need to understand is that if you’re not in the upper 2% of wealthiest Americans, anything you hear coming from the mouth of a Republican is poison to your future and the future of your children. Their policies are designed to destroy the middle class. Thus far, they’ve been very successful — they will not stop until the job is done.
No, taxes are free money with which the govt can buy your vote. Sure there are some bad apples, but in the free market, profit is not free, it must be earned by trading value for value.
With the continuing outsourcing of our jobs, the factories are not merely closed, they are gone. This is why the recovery is already beginning to stall. The teachers & others who have been able to work because of the stimulus funds will lose their jobs as the funds are used up. State governments have generally experienced harsh cutbacks the last 2 years, only somewhat offset by using the stimulus funds.
As the funding drys up, the states will again have to lay off teachers & others. Our manufacturing base continues to shrink & globalization has led to the jobs migrating to the cheapest labor providers. Africa will be one of the next growth areas because of their low daily wages. That will not substantially increase African wealth. It will merely increase the wealth & power of international corporations.
You should be talking about reality & the most probable future for America, Europe & other places who's labor force cannot compete in the world market & are therefore in for a long non stop decline into poverty. The new world is of two classes. The ultra rich &
Longer term, some categories of labor may well suffer from competition from overseas. That is why government action to redistribute income (which can take the form of free medical care, free education etc.) is desirable.
Don't hold your breath waiting for a boom in Africa. Lack of infrastructure and poor governance will hold Africa back for a long time.
Third part - Africa's problems are largely the result of continued mercantilism in the region. It pays to keep people fighting amongst themselves, while their resources are stolen.