In 2008 when the recession began, my high school employed 30 teachers for 635 students. This school year there are 18 teachers for about 600 students. That's a 40% reduction in the teaching staff. When we look at the current jobs situation, we hear two predominant prescriptions:
Choice One makes sense if construction jobs and government jobs are central problems. Choice Two makes sense if a lack of private investment is the primary problem. Wouldn't it be reasonable to actually examine what our current employment situation looks like?
Here is a table of job gains and losses by month for 2011 (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics)
While adding a million jobs so far this year is not nearly enough to pull us out of the recession, it's interesting to see where jobs are being added and lost. The private sector is slowly bringing workers back to work. The public sector continues to bleed jobs. Since police officers, teachers, firefighters, public health workers, tax collectors and all the other public sector workers are also needed to buy products, pay their mortgages and contribute to the overall economy, the U.S. will not pull out of this recession until everyone is back to work. That includes teachers and all the other state and local government workers whose job losses are currently pulling the country back towards recession.
What about construction jobs, the other concern of the infrastructure folks (not to mention strengthening the infrastructure itself, a value that reaches beyond job creation)? The U.S. has lost a total of 5 million jobs since 2008. Of those 1.5 million were in the construction industry. That's a 25% rate of job losses for an industry employing 6 million people.
What about the alternate proposal? Reduce regulations to free businesses to grow and reduce their taxation burden. Let's look at the tax history there as well.
See any correlations between lower corporate taxes and jobs? If you do, you're a better statistician than I. Unfortunately, it's harder to quantify regulation and deregulation history but an approximate gauge would be that regulation grew until Reagan in 1981, then deregulation accelerated. The above chart doesn't justify deregulation any more than lower corporate taxes.
We need a targeted jobs bill, one that focuses on the areas of heaviest bleeding. Investing in infrastructure and public services sounds about right to me. Low taxes may be argued by some but there's zero evidence that more jobs would result. And we're out of time for dilly-dallying on this issue. Put teachers, construction workers and others wanting to work back to work.
Note to my Congressman: You have a job. We're paying you. Get to work so others can too.
Choice One: More infrastructure development and more investment in local and state governments (especially education).
Choice Two: Cut government spending, reduce regulations on business, keep corporate taxes at their historic low.
Choice One makes sense if construction jobs and government jobs are central problems. Choice Two makes sense if a lack of private investment is the primary problem. Wouldn't it be reasonable to actually examine what our current employment situation looks like?
Here is a table of job gains and losses
2011
|
Private Sector Jobs
gained or lost
|
Public Sector Jobs
gained or lost
|
Monthly Job Creation Totals
|
January
|
94,000
|
<26,000>
|
68,000
|
February
|
261,000
|
<26,000>
|
235,000
|
March
|
231,000
|
<25,000>
|
194,000
|
April
|
268,000
|
<24,000>
|
217,000
|
May
|
99,000
|
<46,000>
|
53,000
|
June
|
75,000
|
<55,000>
|
20,000
|
July
|
173,000
|
<46,000>
|
127,000
|
August
|
42,000
|
15,000
|
57,000
|
September
|
137,000
|
<34,000>
|
103,000
|
Total 2011
|
1,380,000
|
<267,000>
|
1,113,000
|
While adding a million jobs so far this year is not nearly enough to pull us out of the recession, it's interesting to see where jobs are being added and lost. The private sector is slowly bringing workers back to work. The public sector continues to bleed jobs. Since police officers, teachers, firefighters, public health workers, tax collectors and all the other public sector workers are also needed to buy products, pay their mortgages and contribute to the overall economy, the U.S. will not pull out of this recession until everyone is back to work. That includes teachers and all the other state and local government workers whose job losses are currently pulling the country back towards recession.
What about construction jobs, the other concern of the infrastructure folks (not to mention strengthening the infrastructure itself, a value that reaches beyond job creation)? The U.S. has lost a total of 5 million jobs since 2008. Of those 1.5 million were in the construction industry. That's a 25% rate of job losses for an industry employing 6 million people.
What about the alternate proposal? Reduce regulations to free businesses to grow and reduce their taxation burden. Let's look at the tax history there as well.
Year
(highest in red; lowest in green)
|
(rounded to whole numbers)
|
(rounded to whole numbers)
| |
1940
|
30%
|
81%
|
14.6%
|
1950
|
25%
|
91%
|
5.3%
|
1960
|
25%
|
91%
|
5.5%
|
1970
|
32%
|
72%
|
4.9%
|
1980
|
28%
|
70%
|
7.1%
|
1990
|
33%
|
31%
|
5.6%
|
2000
|
21%
|
40%
|
4%
|
2010
|
15%
|
35%
|
9.6%
|
See any correlations between lower corporate taxes and jobs? If you do, you're a better statistician than I. Unfortunately, it's harder to quantify regulation and deregulation history but an approximate gauge would be that regulation grew until Reagan in 1981, then deregulation accelerated. The above chart doesn't justify deregulation any more than lower corporate taxes.
We need a targeted jobs bill, one that focuses on the areas of heaviest bleeding. Investing in infrastructure and public services sounds about right to me. Low taxes may be argued by some but there's zero evidence that more jobs would result. And we're out of time for dilly-dallying on this issue. Put teachers, construction workers and others wanting to work back to work.
Note to my Congressman: You have a job. We're paying you. Get to work so others can too.
See also: A Flat Tax is not Your Friend
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