The government can't create jobs. Only the private sector can. So ditch the naïve talk that Uncle Sam can wade into this economic mess and do anything meaningful to fix it.
We hear these sorts of assertions with increasing regularity these days, a rhetorical shrug at the reality that the American economy is stuck in a hole, leaving millions of people out work and unable to pay their bills. While the political impediments to action remain formidable, the government could quickly do a great deal to add paychecks and restore vigor to the economy. The magic trick would work like this: The government could start hiring people.
On Friday, as the Labor Department delivered its latest monthly snapshot of the anemic job market, two key facts underscored this prescription. The private sector added a modest 104,000 net jobs in October. That was not enough to absorb even new entrants to the job market, let alone cut deeply into the national unemployment rate, now at 9 percent. Yet it still amounted to welcome progress. During the same month, however, the government eliminated a net 24,000 jobs, heaping fresh woe on the economy. Most of those losses -- a net 20,000 -- were at the state level.
Whatever your political persuasion, does anyone out there seriously believe that state governments lack for important tasks to complete in the public interest? Yet most are now staring at gaping budget deficits and are cutting workers in an effort to square the books.
From California to Florida, classrooms are both packed and dilapidated, reflecting a need for more teachers and upgraded buildings. Roads and bridges are disintegrating through wear and neglect even as millions of construction workers remain jobless. The social service agencies that administer relief programs -- from unemployment benefits and job training to food stamps and emergency rental assistance -- are shedding workers even as demand for such help grows.
Okay, so that last one trips controversy, with some people clinging to the idea that when you hand a jobless person a check large enough to prevent them from, say, having to go dumpster-diving for dinner, you sweeten the joys of unemployment so much that they lose all interest in finding their way back to the workplace. Put that one aside, if you will. But who wants to fire cops, firefighters and school teachers? Who wants to stand in line longer at the department of motor vehicles, or spend more time waiting for commuter buses and trains because service is being cut? Who likes the feeling of running into a pothole at 60 miles an hour?
As state coffers continue to show the effects of the worst economic downturn since the Depression, the resulting budget shortfalls have reached staggering proportions. California could be looking at a deficit reaching $8 billion in its next budget year, according to the Sacramento Bee. New York confronts an anticipated $2 billion state budget shortfall (even as Gov. Andrew Cumo resists calls to increase taxes on millionaires).
In the state of Washington, the governor is now considering rolling back school bus service to address a $2 billion budget shortfall. Tennessee is contemplating cuts to the staff that handles applications for new driver's licenses, as it takes on a budget deficit reaching as large as $400 million.
The much maligned Obama stimulus plan -- no curative, but a useful palliative -- made this problem smaller while it lasted: It delivered $127 billion worth of relief to states over the past two fiscal years, limiting layoffs of school teachers and helping finance health care for low-income people, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But the amount of federal aid for states that is left in the pipeline for the current fiscal year is only $6 billion, virtually ensuring fresh job losses to come.
The contrast between the business world and government is not new. For months, the private sector has been gradually if inadequately healing, adding some jobs, while the public sector has been adding fresh wounds.
Since the beginning of 2010, the private sector has seen a net increase of of 2.7 million jobs, or about 125,000 jobs per month, according to Labor Department data. That is no cause for a victory parade, but it is a sign of a tentative recovery, if only it were accompanied by a crucially needed boost from public coffers. Yet during those same 22 months, some 509,000 net government jobs have been eliminated, more than 23,000 per month.
In a blog post, Mark Doms, chief economist at the Commerce Department, takes this analysis deeper, finding that over the first nine months of the year, the private sector has been creating jobs at roughly the same pace that state and local governments have been destroying them. Between August 2008 and September of this year, local school employment shrunk by 270,000 jobs, Doms found -- this, while enrollments expanded.
Only ideological silliness and political malice prevents us from using our government to improve our collective economic lot by guaranteeing increases in paychecks, the one thing that could make the phantom recovery a reality. When we fire a schoolteacher, we not only divest from educating children, we also take dollars out of the economy. We cut what that teacher can spend at the local coffee shop, at the stationery store and at the boutique (not to mention at the pharmacy and on the psychiatrist's couch). When we hire schoolteachers, we add dollars that cycle through the system, and that prompts the private sector to hire more, recognizing a fresh influx of dollars that can be captured.
Only ideological silliness (and, let's face it, Republican obstructionism), prevents the obvious fix: having the government put people back to work in the service of public goods such as infrastructure, education, public health and research. But we can at least begin to address the dire picture of joblessness by dispatching the notion that the government can't create jobs.
Anyone willing to write a check can create a job. Only two camps have access to a big enough checkbook to create enough of them to make a difference. The private sector must answer to corporate shareholders who have no appetite for hiring until they see profits attached to adding payroll. The government is supposed to answer to the rest of us. Where is the constituency against job creation?
Follow Peter S. Goodman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/petersgoodman
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Employee led government unions have been able to help American workers keep pace with the increased cost of living over the years. Still, Republicans want to see them dismanteled and watch public workers become exploited like many of their private sector counterparts. This country should be thankful government jobs. Even though the government has been cutting jobs they are the main sector keeping the economy of this country going.
Every dollar spent through the government has been taken from someone at the point of a gun, socialists like Peter Goodman just want someone else to hold the gun while they steal the money.
Question? Will there be more water when you are done or less?
The only way to win is to get your butt out of the tub and do some useful work like digging another well.
Make it Voluntary if one wants to work more than a 8 hr day/40 hr week and let them work 12 hr days if they want too! At Reg. Pay ! and let them work an extra Day a week if they want too! At Reg. Pay!
You Think The Self Employed Pay themselves more for work more than a 40 hr week?
Why should anyone else be?
Just make it Voluntary...
And $8 hr x 68 hrs a week can be enough for people to Make a Living income..
and we won't need Illegals to do our Lower pay work for us either !
They've been doing this for Over 50 yrs in the LIMO and Cab Business!
and the OTR-Trucking Business!
a OTR Trucker can make $900 wk, ave only $15 hr, but can put in *60 hrs a week if they want!
Give everyone else that kind of Freedom..! (* 10 hr days x 6 days wk )
- Just Double our SS adn Medicare Investing ( Double the Payroll Deduction for it)
-And Invest that $ into American Resources thru BALANCED Mutual Funds!
-They've ave over 8.5% -10% Apy for decades
And then? This would Allow 55 yr old's to Afford to Retire!
-That would Create Their Jobs to be passed onto the next Generations
-We would Solve Unemployment as we know it..
Depending on the Gov't to Be Our Employer is and has not Been the Answer..
How much Longer do we have to See this..? It;s only been over 100 yrs proving it!
Just only have to look at the UPS System ... Socialisum Doesn't work!
Just look at Europe, France, Italy, Greece, Spain , South America and ASIA..
and Free Capitalisum Doesn't work either.. Look at what the Republicans have done to our Economy and The Caused the Real Estate and Job Market to Collaspe by Giving Away Free $ to People and Businesses that Didn't belong or qualify to Get that $...
Get back to the Glass Seagull Act and Raise Rates back to 7% to borrow $ and give 5-6% to Savers
Stop Allowing Wall Street Corrupt the system! They Force GreenSpan to Lower Rates and to use Pres. Bush as their Front Man.. and Destroyed the country..
Ban the Lobbyist! Out law them or at the least? Any Politican cannot become a Lobbysit for a Min. of 10 yrs or Never!
Investing in education, preventative health care, and NSF-style research grants all MAKE money. But do those see big increases? Nope. Instead, their budgets get slashed. Meanwhile, tons of money is put into making the nation more secure via Homeland Security (against what again?) and propping up businesses that are doomed to fail (anyone here actually trust a GM car? Really?)
With that said, it's crazy to think the government should "just hire people" and expect things to get better. You don't get out of a recession by hiring people- you get out of it by smart investment: including smart government investment. But fixing potholes or reducing your wait times? Please. Spare me. Those are great ways to throw money down the drain. I hate potholes too, but we have too many roads in some areas. Likewise, places like the post-office have too many workers. You can't recover by hiring more of them- you have to cut them loose and retrain them.
Who want to lay off fire or police? In my town the base salary is 50,000 but retirement pay is 85000, why would they keep working?
Hitting a pot hole at 60? Instead of 4 people leaning on rakes looking at a pot hole there will be 6 people leaning on a rake looking at the pot hole. It still won't get fixed.
Giving more to school districts doesn't result in more teachers or a better education. If they can't teach a child at $11000 per head, how will they do any better at $15000 per head? An audit at my district found 200 people drawing a check without showing up, and thousands on medical insurance that weren't related to the person insured.
Go to the DMV just before closing when they want to leave, the 2 people working the counter are swamped with assistance. Bodys seem to come out of the woodwork at closing time when the doors are locked and no one else can get in. Nothing will change, 2 people will still be at the counter, until closing time. What we need to do is fire those that show up "out of the woodwork".
With that said, again, pouring money into education only helps if it's properly spent. Probably there should be a fully transparent money flow system for schools. After that, they could cut out the waste and use it to actually improve outcomes (and the eventual economy).