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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (35561)	3/19/2004 9:55:48 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793690

White House, East Room - George W. Bush No flight suit with a "mission accomplished" sign. Rove will be a long time living down that mistake.

To: Lane3 who wrote (35561)	3/19/2004 9:59:41 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793690

Post editorial Responding to Job Cuts Friday, March 19, 2004; Page A22 THE CAMPAIGN rhetoric about "offshoring" and "Benedict Arnold companies" risks leading the nation toward mistaken policies, notably expensive restrictions on government procurement from companies that do some work abroad. But the rhetoric also stifles debate on a more deserving subject. Something is ailing the job market, and Congress needs to come up with a response that addresses the hardship while avoiding undue meddling that could harm the economy in the long run. The extent of the jobs ailment is obscured by some surprisingly good news. Since the economy slipped briefly into recession in March 2001, workers who managed to keep their jobs have done better than in past downturns. In 2001 and 2002, real wages rose, because workers were growing more productive; low-paid workers shared in the advance, according to government data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute. Only in 2003 did real wages fall modestly, and even then tax cuts kept disposable income on an upward path. The problem lies with workers who did not keep their jobs. Admittedly, the headline unemployment figure is 5.6 percent, below the average for the 1980s or the 1990s. But if you add in discouraged workers -- those who have ceased to be classified as part of the workforce in the past three years because they've stopped searching for jobs -- unemployment rises above 7 percent, and long-term unemployment is as high as it was in the recession of the early 1990s. The distress is most acute among blacks, Hispanics and younger workers. Even college graduates in the 25-to-35 age bracket, a group with newly minted skills, are suffering the lowest employment-to-population ratio since 1979. The answer to this bleak news is not to fall into a protectionist panic. There's no reason to believe that the economy won't start generating new jobs, or that these new jobs will be inferior. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts, for example, that between 2002 and 2012, the number of positions in management, business, finance and the professions will grow from 43 million to 52 million; as the Cato Institute notes, jobs in computing and math-based professions are expected to increase from 3 million to 4 million, notwithstanding the competitive threat from Indian software firms. But in the short term, job growth has been much slower than expected. It may pick up next month, or it may pick up a year from now. Nobody can be certain, and meanwhile, people who have lost jobs are in trouble. Society's answer to this is unemployment insurance. In most states laid-off workers are eligible for 26 weeks of benefits, and in the past a federal program has extended the coverage for a further 13 weeks. But in December the federal program expired, and by the end of February some 760,000 workers' state coverage dried up, with nothing to replace it. Majorities in both the House and Senate have recently voted in favor of reinstating the federal program, but the Republican leadership in Congress has frustrated their efforts. President Bush, who has been ducking the issue, should call on the leaders to drop this obstructionism. The traditional reason to be skeptical of unemployment benefits -- that they cosset workers who could find jobs if they really tried -- is weak when jobs are as scarce as they are. Federal unemployment insurance should be restored, at least temporarily.