AP: Stimulus Is a Bust
Jennifer Rubin - 01.11.2010 - 10:47 AM
The stimulus money to be spent on infrastructure really did nothing to save or create jobs. That’s not a conservative talking point; that’s the AP:
abcnews.go.com
Ten months into President Barack Obama’s first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis has found.
Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn’t matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama’s argument that more road money would address an “urgent need to accelerate job growth.”
Obama wants a second stimulus, but what would be the point? (”AP’s analysis, which was reviewed by independent economists at five universities, showed that strategy hasn’t affected unemployment rates so far. And there’s concern it won’t work the second time.”) The reaction of economists is instructive:
“My bottom line is, I’d be skeptical about putting too much more money into a second stimulus until we’ve seen broader effects from the first stimulus,” said Aaron Jackson, a Bentley University economist who reviewed AP’s analysis.
Even within the construction industry, which stood to benefit most from transportation money, the AP’s analysis found there was nearly no connection between stimulus money and the number of construction workers hired or fired since Congress passed the recovery program. The effect was so small, one economist compared it to trying to move the Empire State Building by pushing against it.
Nor are business people impressed. (”‘The stimulus has not benefited the working-class people of Marshall County at all,’ said Isaac Zimmerle, a local contractor who has seen his construction business slowly dry up since 2008. That year, he built 30 homes. But prospects this year look grim.”) But politicians love this stuff. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, they continue to parrot the same rhetoric. Economic adviser Jared Bernstein insists, “When you invest in this kind of infrastructure, you’re creating good jobs for people who need them.” But not really.
What did we get for all this? Maybe some temporary jobs, especially in the public sector. But that’s a far cry from “creating” jobs. And we know by the unemployment figures that the Obami have been spectacularly unsuccessful in keeping unemployment to 8 percent, which they promised would be the result if Congress passed the stimulus plan. Maybe it’s time to stop repeating the same failed Keynesian policies and try something different. Lower taxes and fewer mandates on employers might be good for starters. But I think that’s not in the cards anytime soon. Well, not until the Democrats get really, really scared about the 2010 elections.
commentarymagazine.com
Shrinking U.S. Labor Force Keeps Unemployment Rate From Rising
By Bob Willis and Courtney Schlisserman
Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- An exodus of discouraged workers from the job market kept the U.S. unemployment rate from climbing above 10 percent in December, economists said.
Had the labor force not decreased by 661,000 last month, the jobless rate would have been 10.4 percent, according to economists including David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff & Associates in Toronto and Harm Bandholz at UniCredit Research in New York.
“The actual unemployment rate is higher than shown by the official numbers,” Bandholz said yesterday after a Labor Department report released in Washington showed the economy unexpectedly lost 85,000 jobs in December while the jobless rate was unchanged.
About 1.7 million Americans opted out of the workforce from July through December, representing a 1.1 percent drop that marks the biggest six-month decrease since 1961, the Labor Department report showed. The share of the population in the labor force last month fell to the lowest level in 24 years.
December’s 10 percent unemployment rate matched the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. It was shy of the 26-year high of 10.1 percent reached two months earlier.
The so-called underemployment rate -- which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking -- rose to 17.3 percent in December from 17.2 percent.
The number of discouraged workers, those not looking for work because they believe none is available, climbed to 929,000 last month, the most since records began in 1994.
Length of Unemployment
The backdrop to the disillusionment is that it’s taking longer and longer to find work, economists said. Workers were unemployed for 29.1 weeks on average last month, the most since records began in 1948.
“Longer-term unemployment is one of the biggest problems,” said Bandholz. “Payroll declines will come to a halt in the next couple of months, but the people who are unemployed are having problems getting a job and it’s getting tougher by the month.”
Revised figures showed payrolls climbed by 4,000 in November. The gain was the first since the economic slump began in December 2007.
“Workers seem to be particularly discouraged by this recession,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York.
Participation Rate
The participation rate, or the share of the population in the labor force, fell to 64.6 percent in December, the lowest level since 1985, from 64.9 percent.
The labor force will probably grow this year as the economy continues to expand and Americans believe jobs will be easier to get. That will mean the unemployment rate will head higher because there won’t be enough jobs available to satisfy the demand for work.
“The exodus from the labor force can’t contain the unemployment rate indefinitely,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “We expect unemployment to resume rising over the next few months, peaking near 10.5 percent in the third quarter.”
Federal Reserve policy makers, while noting stabilization in the labor market, have expressed concern about unemployment and poor job prospects. That’s one reason policy makers will keep the benchmark interest rate near zero longer than most anticipate, said John Ryding.
Fed ‘On Hold’
“We continue to believe that the Fed will leave monetary policy on hold throughout 2010 in light of the high level of un- and under-utilized labor resources,” Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York, said in a note to clients. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News last month projected the first rate increase would come in the third quarter of this year.
Treasury two-year notes yesterday gained the most in three weeks following the worse-than-expected payroll numbers. The yield fell five basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 0.97 percent at 4:31 p.m. in New York.
President Barack Obama on Dec. 8 proposed additional spending on the nation’s transportation system, tax credits to spur hiring by small businesses and incentives to make homes more energy efficient in a second round of efforts to cut the jobless rate.
“We’re going to have to work harder to create jobs.” U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “This is a very stubborn recession.”
bloomberg.com |
