Disturbing facts from former labor secretary (2001-09) Elaine Chao:➢ Canada created more net new jobs last month (28,400) than we did — and we have nine times their population.
➢ weekly initial unemployment claims [have now run] higher than 400,000 . . . for the last 13 weeks. The weekly initial claims figure must drop to [the] mid- to low-300,000 range. . .before significant job growth can occur.
➢ First-quarter GDP growth was [1.9%]. In contrast, coming out of the 1981-82 recession, we had five straight quarters of 7%-to-9% GDP growth.
➢ creation of new businesses — the traditional engine of job growth — was down 23% in 2010 from 2007.
But the most disturbing job fact of all comes from a story by the Weekly Standard’s Jeffrey H. Anderson. He writes that since the June 2009 official end of the recession, the percentage of Americans who are employed has actually dropped, while most Americans who are employed are now making less money than they were during the recession. Why?
Anderson quotes the Heritage Foundation’s James Sherk:
Private-sector job creation initially recovered from the recession at a normal rate. . . Within two months of the passage of Obamacare, [however,] the job market stopped improving.Here’s Sherk’s chart, which shows dramatically how Obamacare stopped job growth:
[Obamacare] discourages employers from hiring in several ways:
• Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty;
• Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise — they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and
• Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.
2 comments:
We could only dream of having a Canadian-style single-payer healthcare system in the US, of course. Better healthcare results for less money, employers don't have to worry about the ever-rising costs of insurance, and workers don't have to worry that an inconvenient illness combined with loss of job will bankrupt them and their families. There may be multiple reasons why the Canadians has been outperforming the US economy of late, but if you're arguing that their healthcare system is one of them then I'm right there with you!
Unfortunately the Heritage Foundation, like Mitt Romney, wants to disown a health care strategy that began in their offices. It was their idea to begin with! Funny they didn't recognize its potent "job-killing" power until it was implemented by a Democratic President and Congress... without a single Republican vote.
The reason why the jobs recovery stalled is simple: The stimulus ran out, and has been replaced by austerity all around (states first, and now Federal), aka reduced government spending, aka fewer jobs. The fact that this happened on a similar timescale to the first (very partial) healthcare reforms has now proven useful to the hacks at Heritage, who have their weekly anti-Obama propaganda quotas to fulfill.
I expect better from you, though. Maybe next time?
Aloha,
Derek
Thank you for your comment!
Juan Williams was talking with Jon Stewart tonight about how we Americans are in two camps that don't listen to each other. Williams has a point. Krugman's economic arguments are as predictable to me as the Heritage Foundation's work is to you; though oddly, Krugman may be as anti-Obama these days as are the Heritage Foundation's scholars ("hacks," as you call them).
Post a Comment