The reaction to January's jobs report shows how tragically our expectations have fallen, especially among some Democrats and their supporters. Their cheerleading isn't just bad policy or bad politics, although it is both of those things. It's also callous and insensitive to the misery of millions.
It's important to keep explaining what needs to be done to end that misery. To do otherwise is to serve, however unintentionally, an insidious agenda from the right that would lower our expectations until these tragic levels of unemployment are seen as the "new normal."
An increase in jobs is a good thing, of course, even if it's far from what's needed. Here's something else that was good about the report: Conservatives keep telling us that manufacturing jobs have moved offshore permanently, but 50,000 of them were created last month. Now we can put that argument to bed and can get to work creating more of them.
The Good, the Bad, and the Urgent
But millions of Americans -- including minorities and the young -- have already endured years of catastrophe, with years more to come if nothing is done. Why won't more people express support for their plight and explain what needs to be done to help them?
Here's the real story: Government intervention has created millions of jobs. But those interventions were too small, so we're still years away from fixing the problem. To claim anything else is to reinforce the delusions that created the problem in the first place.
If the president and his supporters make that case clearly and forcefully, the country will be able to choose between competing visions in November. It's more likely to choose an end to its misery. The pitch is pretty simple, really: The medicine's working, but let's not stop before the patient gets well. And despite this month's report, the patient is still very, very sick.
Help is needed urgently.
The New Abnormal
At December's rate of job growth (200,000 jobs) we won't reach an acceptable level of employment until 2024. At this month's rate of growth (243,000 jobs) it will still take us until 2019. Even if we accelerated that rate of growth to 400,000 jobs per month, it would still take us until 2015 to get back to our customary and normal rate of employment.
There would be room for celebration -- cautious celebration -- if we were protected from more economic shocks, which could come at any time from our under-regulated and too-big-to-fail banks. But we're not. Or if the Republicans and 'centrist' Dems (including the president) weren't pushing to cut government jobs, which will slow the rate of growth even more. But they are. Or if the president were pushing for bigger initiatives, on the scale that's really needed, while making the case for the kind of short-term help we need to get this country on its feet again.
But he isn't.
The president's current jobs proposals would help somewhat, but they're still much too small. What's more, they're filled with policies that are too easy for Republicans to poke holes in. Unless he comes up with a bolder, simpler, and stronger plan, Republican rhetoric will regain a credibility it doesn't deserve -- and the government solutions that have always worked in the past will be discredited through half-measures that fail to solve the problem.
If that happens, our abnormal level of pain really will become the "new normal."
Economic Apartheid
This month's reported unemployment level dropped to 8 percent for adult males. But women gained only 89,000 jobs, which is a little more than a third of the total. (They got 42 percent of the jobs in the private sector, but were heavily affected by government cutbacks brought on by misguided austerity thinking -- thinking that the president has sometimes encouraged with his rhetoric.)
The seasonally adjusted white unemployment rate for January was 7.4 percent.
For young people 16-19, it was 23.1 percent.
For African-Americans, it was 13.6 percent.
For young African-Americans, it was 38.5 percent.
To be clear, all of those numbers have seen some reductions. But those who say the current pace of recovery is acceptable are also saying that a devastating job situation for young people, African-Americans, and those who are both, is an acceptable state of affairs for years to come. That means untold harm to human wellbeing, career opportunities, future health, lifetime earnings, and entire communities across the country.
It also means endorsing a state of "economic apartheid" that's unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. That's not the kind of country that the Democrats or their supporters should be tacitly endorsing, even if only by failing to consider the long-term consequences of what's being done and said today.
And in an equally devastating finding, long-term unemployment figure was still 5.5 million. These Americans have been thrown from a life of earning and security into hopelessness and spiraling poverty -- and they're being ignored.
Falling Behind
The numbers tell another story, too: People with jobs are falling behind. That's why the middle class really is in a process of slow decay. This chart tells the story:
After a period of long-term stagnation, wages only grew by 1.9 percent and there's no sign that will change. There are lots of working people who will find nothing to celebrate in this report.
Champagne Corks
Nevertheless, a number of Democrats and allies took a premature and ill-considered victory lap Friday. That won't help the country get the policies it needs, and it won't help them politically either. When sympathetic writers like the one quoted by Ezra Klein write of "champagne corks popping at the White House," the image seems inappropriate at best and Marie Antoinette-ish at worst.
The president, his party, and their allies need to send a clear message about these job numbers: that they disprove the conservative argument, but that whole segments of the population were left out of the good news and we're facing many years of pain and stagnation unless government steps up its efforts.
That means they must face facts and make the only argument that will resonate with the American people: That what president and his party have done has helped, but not nearly enough, and that what he is proposing will also help, but not nearly enough. His job creation proposals will be blocked by the Republicans either way, so why not use them to tell the American people what needs to be done?
The president has learned a lot, politically and economically, from the pressure he's received from the left. He's getting better at making the rhetorical case for economic justice. Now he needs to get better at losing, by losing congressional battles with a set of solutions that the public will understand and support. It's incomprehensible that Republicans would oppose a jobs bill for veterans, but they will.
But it's equally incomprehensible that a Democratic president would offer small responses to such a large disaster. (I include the Jobs Act in the category of "small responses," since such a large chunk of it is dedicated to ineffectual tax cuts for business. But it would help.)
And it's a measure of our mad times that CNN is able to call the proposal for veterans' employment as "hefty" with a straight face. At these levels of unemployment, its estimated $5 billion price tag is almost homeopathically small.
Recovery Winter
Some people are talking about a "recovery winter," an ironic reference to the administration's premature declaration of "recovery summer" in 2010. For too many Americans, "recovery winter" feels like more like nuclear winter.
The young people and minorities who weren't invited to the party last month can feel it. What's more, this good news could shift dramatically in coming months -- if Europe collapses, if a major U.S. bank goes down, or if the periodic recessionary cycle that's built into our under-regulated system strikes again this year.
Nevertheless, some liberals are celebrating. Ezra Klein waxes enthusiastic at the Washington Post, writing that the January report "is pretty much all good." C'mon, Ezra. All good? 23.1 percent for young people? More than 13 percent for African-Americans and more than 38 percent for young African-Americans?
Klein is right when he says that revised figures for earlier periods "are positive," at least where jobless figures are concerned. But adjusted population figures added 1.7 million people to the workforce, which means we need even more growth -- and quickly. It means that overall labor force participation is at the unacceptably low level of 63.1 percent.
Klein correctly cites most other areas of concern, including lost public sector jobs and the gap between needed job growth and current figures. But he writes that "this isn't just a good jobs report. It's a recovery jobs report." He couldn't be more wrong, in my opinion -- unless he's talking about a recovery in 2019.
And I hope Democrats don't listen when he calls these results "the sort of numbers that win elections." Current projections show unemployment rising to 9 percent again before November. This lagging recovery will give credibility to the president's opponents while discouraging his opponents, especially young people and minorities.
Steve Benen of the Maddow Blog understands what's going on behind the figures, yet still says "it's hard not to feel good about the surprising strength" of this report -- a sentiment that few of the long-term unemployed would share. Jamelle Bouie of the American Prospect called the report "blockbuster" and said "the economy is looking good."
All this cheerleading feels more than a little unseemly in the face of so much misery -- especially when the misery's likely to continue for years if more isn't done.
Some media types might want to be more cautious, too. A headline writer for McClatchy, which has often distinguished itself with terrific financial reporting, missed the mark by writing "January jobs report sizzles..."
The body of McClatchy's article is much more accurate and objective, correctly noting that the figures were "better than expected" and quoting everyone from a market analyst who cheerleads the numbers for different reasons, to the president and House Speaker John Boehner. But the title's pure hype -- unless they meant "sizzle" as in that old expression about "separating the sizzle from the steak."
The Balance
It's time for Dems and their allies to stop partying like it's 2019.
It's not hard to strike the right balance between encouragement and admonition. Alan Krueger, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, came close. "It is critical that we continue the economic policies that are helping us to dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the recession that began at the end of 2007," wrote Krueger, who called the report "an encouraging sign."
"Nonetheless," Krueger added, "we need faster growth to put more Americans back to work."
That wasn't hard. Jared Bernstein struck the right balance, too, calling on Congress to "seal the deal" and saying "let's not screw this up." (Although I wish he had explained what a full recovery plan could do.)
The Republicans struggled to respond Friday."These numbers are encouraging," said Eric Cantor, "especially for those millions of Americans out of work, but we should aim even higher."
Great, the president should say. I'll take you up on that.
The Message
The right message is clean and simple:
1. What we did worked. But we need to do more of it.
2. So let's stop the bleeding of public jobs. We've seen the damage that's caused in Europe and we don't want that here.
3. The deficit is a legitimate concern -- after we address today's crisis with "the fierce urgency of now."
4. The best way to cut deficits in the long term is to put Americans back to work so they can pay their taxes and buy things that create even more jobs.
5. We tried to compromise with our opponents, because we thought they'd be reasonable. They weren't.
6. So here's what it takes to get that done, with no games or pretense. Let's go to work, and if the Republicans won't help, please vote for people who will.
See? The right message is simple, clean, honest, and easy to deliver. It's cheap, too: No champagne corks necessary.
Follow Richard (RJ) Eskow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rjeskow
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The current political framework is incapable of enacting meaning policy changes. This is due to their acquiescence to the Oligarchs and their inability to take responsibility for the disasters they have created. Both sides are guilty the degrees of which are immaterial. Both have sold themselves as true representatives of their respective constituencies. Both are duplicitous prevaricators. We are ill-served by those we put our faith in. The corporate media keeps us as mushrooms protecting those who serve the Oligarchs and diverting attention from Wall Street, perpetual war and corporate dominance of our Nation to non-financial and imaginary boogeymen. We must ourselves hold those in power as irreconcilable to progress, as pawns of the powerful and as traitors to us all.
Measured in growth, the American economy outperformed those of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan - every Group of 7 developed nation except Canada. Corporate profits are at their highest since 1960 with corporations sitting on the largest stockpile of cash in US history.
By the first quarter of 2011, unemployment had the steepest drop over a three-month span since 1983. In March after 18 months of solid growth the jobless rate fell from 9.1% to 8.8% with the best jobs report in three years (now at 8.6%), an average of 220,000 jobs created in each of the previous three months, GDP grew 1.3%, the economy expanded 0.4% and Gross Domestic Income rose 2.4%.
Manufacturing activity reached the highest reading since May 2004 with expansion for 19 straight months - the employment index topped 60 for only the third time in a decade with jobs created at the highest rate in 38 years - the highest reading since January 2004.
Total tax revenues of states returned to pre-recession levels in the 2011 third quarter. This is the legacy of Obama's economic policy.
It is questionable that his supporters are actually willing to acknowledge the delusion in the first place. They will stamp and holler about Romney's remarks about the poor, but they will remain willfully blind, deaf and dumb about Obama's relentless efforts to erode Social Security.
My suggestion for progressives who want to do something as opposed to weeping into their lattes, is simple. Log on to WhiteHouse.gov and demand bolder actions. Also send the White House your version of Escrow's message. Do the same with Congress.
Again, we need more than words. We need an action plan. Contacting the White House and Congress is the first step.
Hate to say it but in a way we might have been better off if the numbers had been worse. Maybe that would force the president to discard his half-measures and take the bold action that is required.
Obama--unless it is campaign time or a special performance, doesn't even put in the effort to make a case.Part of the reason, if you take one look at his administartion, is because he works for the same interests as theRrepublicans--he has to hope that you not notice.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/economy/jobsact
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/fact-sheet-american-jobs-act
The entire Republican House of Representatives led by Speaker John Boehner as well as the Republican Senators led by Senator Mitch McConnell, have obstructed every, single policy President Obama has proposed in order to move the economy forward. So pundits, political observers, writers, Right-wing/leaning radio and television political talking heads, do not have the luxury to criticize President Obama's policies. The Republican congress is at an all time low in job approval ratings, 13.5%. They have proven themselves as failures and incapable of governing. That's a fact and the entire country has and is seeing it. But when elected officials and right-leaning political talking heads starts carrying their water, it solidifies the Democratic base and moves the "Undecided" to the "Democrat" side of the ballot. For the past three years, President Obama has done an extraordinary job in spite of the obstruction in congress, the continuous bashing by the right-wing/leaning media and Republican-elected officials, who, quite frankly, flat out lie.
The problem with the Republican leadership isn't just their policies, it's their lack of integrity. Integrity is the absolute most important characteristic anyone can have. especially elected officials.
According to the AARP 7000 boomers a day are retiring, out of 10000 a day reaching the age of 65 and this will continue for the next 19 years. So there were 243,000 new jobs plus 210,000 replacement jobs for a total of 453,000 Americans who had jobs last month that didn't have one the month before.
Of course to chip away at the unemployed backlog we would need to reduce the 453,000 by about 150,000 for the new people entering the workforce, but that still leaves a 300,000 a month unemployed reduction.
If you're NOT saying that, how would republicans raise revenue to pay the bills of the country? Would they wave a magic wand or something? Maybe they could squeeze another dollar out of the poor and elderly???
Because Obama has made it clear that NO criticism of his policies by Democrats will be tolerated.
And because the Republicans don't care.
PS - @harryalfred, your idea that "having a college" degree is important for finding a job is totally wrong. Just ask any recent college graduate who can't find employment, and who can't file for unemployment benefits because he/she hasn't been employed full-time. All of them are uncounted in the statistics.
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That's not true, Kokuanani. Unemployment numbers and rates take into account ALL people who are unemployed and actively looking for work. It has nothing to do with whether or not they are getting unemployment benefits.
Prove it.
In fact, you can't. You can cite studies that CLAIM it, but there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, as well. We just don't know. http://reason.com/archives/2011/06/24/the-unseen-effects-of-stimulus
The first thing Hoover tried in 1929 was government intervention, with increased spending and, a few years later, increased taxes. FDR continued intervention, but it worked to lengthen the Depression, not shorten it.
What we need is government intervention that consists of changes to trade policy and tax code to stem the flow of offshoring. NOT more stimulus.