Too Low a Bar
By PAUL KRUGMAN
ohn Snow, the Treasury secretary, told The Times of London on Monday that he expected the U.S. economy to add two million jobs before the next election — that is, almost 200,000 per month. His forecast was higher than those of most independent analysts; nothing in the data suggests that jobs are being created at that rate. (New claims for unemployment insurance are running at slightly less than 400,000 a week, the number that corresponds to zero job growth. If jobs were being created as rapidly as Mr. Snow forecasts, the new claims number would be closer to 300,000.)
Still, Mr. Snow may get lucky, and the job market may pick up. But his prediction was a huge climb-down from administration predictions earlier this year, when the White House insisted that it expected the economy to add more than five million jobs by next November.
And even if Mr. Snow's forecast comes true, that won't vindicate the administration's economic policy. In fact, while private analysts are criticizing Mr. Snow for being overly optimistic, I think the stronger criticism is that he's trying to lower the bar: to define as success a performance that, even if it materializes, should really be considered a dismal failure.
Bear in mind that the payroll employment figure right now is down 2.6 million compared with what it was when George W. Bush took office. So Mr. Snow is predicting that his boss will be the first occupant of the White House since Herbert Hoover to end a term with fewer jobs available than when he started. This is what he calls success?
Bear in mind also that just increasing the number of jobs isn't good enough. If we want to improve the dismal prospects of job seekers — currently, 75 percent of those who lose jobs still haven't found new jobs when their unemployment benefits run out — the number of jobs must grow faster than the number of people who want to work. Indeed, because the working-age population of the United States is steadily growing, the economy must add about 130,000 jobs each month just to prevent the labor market from deteriorating.
Mr. Snow thinks the economy will, finally, start to do better than that — but it's not happening yet. In September, employment rose for the first time since January, but the increase was only 57,000 jobs. And to have kept up with the population growth since Mr. Bush took office, the economy would have to add not two million, but seven million jobs by next November.
Mr. Bush's employment policies would truly have been a success if he had left the job market no worse than he found it. In fact, even his own Treasury secretary thinks he'll fall five million or so jobs short of that mark.
I know, I know, the usual suspects will roll out the usual explanations. It is, of course, Bill Clinton's fault. (Just for the record, the average rate of job creation during the whole of the Clinton administration was about 225,000 jobs a month. Mr. Clinton presided over the creation of 11 million jobs during each of his two terms.) Or maybe Osama bin Laden did it.
But surely there must be a statute of limitations on these excuses. By the time of the election, Mr. Bush will have had almost four years to deal with the legacy of the technology bubble, and more than three years to deal with the economic fallout from 9/11.
And Congress has given him everything he has wanted in terms of economic policy, even though that has led to a frightening explosion in federal debt: in the current fiscal year the Bush tax cuts will account for almost 0 billion of a deficit expected to top 0 billion. (If that 0 billion had been used to employ workers directly — a new W.P.A., anyone? — it would have created six million jobs.)
Yet Mr. Bush's own Treasury secretary has, in effect, admitted that despite the administration's unimpeded efforts, and all that debt, the job market will still be in poor shape a year from now.
Mr. Bush's handlers have often managed to have small achievements hailed as triumphs by persuading people to set the bar very low. Now his officials are trying to convince the public that if, after several years of dismal performance, they can achieve one year of job creation at a rate below the average rate Bill Clinton achieved over eight years, this will constitute a great economic victory.
Copyright 2003 New York Times
Dude, if you want to taken seriously, you need to do better than submit an article by Paul Krugman, who by the way used to be an adviser for Enron. Do you see me submitting articles by David Horowitz for your approval?
Hey,krustyfuck,you support a president and thief who was totally in bed with Kenny Boy Lay. Trying to use the Enron paint brush here just isn't going to work. The information is what counts. The jobs are still going bye bye. And they won't be returning anytime soon. Those are the policies the Bush Crime Administration continues to use to screw the american worker. Try again.
Being called "krustyfuck" by a lame, leftist scumbag such as yourself makes me feel good all under. Now I know I am on the right track, and thinking clearly. Thanks again! I'll be here all week!
Rating Journalists on a scale from 1 to 100 with 100 being the best:
George Will 98
Krauthammer 97
Ann Coulter 95
Bill O'Reilly 90
Paul Krugman 0
EJ Dionne 1
Molly Ivins - minus 50
Tom Friedman - 40
William Safire 80
Maureen Dowd - 3
Al Franken minus 100
Michael Moore minus 200
Sean Hannity 75
Walter E. Williams 90
Victor Davis Hanson 99
Laura Ingraham 72
I saw a phrase there "when their unemployment benefit runs out". In Europe we don't stop people's benefits beacuse they haven't found a job, although peopel do come under some pressureto take any job after about two years.
So please tell me, I'm not familiar with the social safety nets in the US.
If a person loses their job, how long does their welfare benefits last?
Then I cut their heads off! Works everytime, for the encouragment of the others.
It lasts 26 weeks and then an extention of 13 I believe. The amount you recieve depends on how much you've earned in the previous 5 quarters.