This summer, faced with a persistent unemployment rate of around 9 percent, labor-force participation lower than at any time since 1983, and a pessimistic public deeply dissatisfied with its elected leaders, President Barack Obama "pivoted" away from a divisive debt ceiling debate toward the subject of jobs. "I"¦won't stop," the president vowed in his weekly radio address of Aug. 13, "until every American who wants a job can find one." In Michigan, where the unemployment rate is 10.5 percent, Obama proclaimed, "We know that there are things that we can do right now that will support job growth." Things like building roads, extending unemployment benefits, cutting payroll taxes, and investing in clean energy.
The press and Obama's fellow Democrats echoed the president's concern. "A political system that responded rationally to the country's problems would be concentrating on creating jobs," The New Yorker's John Cassidy complained. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accused Republicans of having "passed bills that would destroy up to 2 million jobs"”nearly 10,000 jobs per day" since she was booted from her role as House speaker. But Pelosi, like Obama, has been talking about what she has serially referred to as "jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs" since January 2009. All that talk"”and multiple pieces of related legislation"”have yet to increase the net number of Americans at work.
Republicans have their own jobs agenda, but they mostly prefer to talk trash about the Democrats. "Spurring jobs and the economy is always next on the Obama administration's to-do list," sniped current House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in an August 3 blog post, "right after more spending, more taxing, and more regulating."
Meanwhile, voters are raising a collective eyebrow at both parties on the employment front. A July Pew Research poll showed an even 39"“39 split on which party Americans trust more on jobs. A CNN/ORC poll released in August found that only 29 percent of respondents think there will be more jobs in their communities a year from now, and 26 percent think there will be fewer jobs.
What are some free market ideas for boosting employment? reason asked some of our favorite economists, writers, professors, and entrepreneurs to name one concrete policy change they would recommend to increase job growth. "”Lucy Steigerwald
Liberate Labor
Peter Schiff
To make the greatest impact on persistent unemployment, the government should pursue policies that allow the free market to set wages, benefits, and all issues related to employment. Just as employees are allowed to leave jobs for whatever reason, employers should be allowed to hire and fire based on any criteria without fear of litigation. In other words, liability cost for hiring employees should be minimized. Employees become easier to hire once employers know that their downside risks are minimized. In addition, all protective labor laws, including minimum wage laws, should be repealed.
Employment is a voluntary relationship between two parties. Our laws should reflect and support that concept to the highest extent possible. Employees do not qualify for special privileges (inappropriately labeled worker's rights) simply because they accept a job, and employers do not lose their rights and become subjected to special obligations just because they hire. The playing field should be level. Β
Peter Schiff is the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital and the author of How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes (Wiley).
Repeal ObamaCare
Robert Higgs
Repeal of ObamaCare would probably do wonders to spur hiring, especially for permanent positions. Compensation for such jobs usually includes a benefits package with health care insurance, as well as a money wage or salary. Health care insurance often constitutes a major part of the employer's cost of keeping a permanent worker on the payroll, and anything that makes this cost difficult to forecast makes employers leery to take on new workers.Β
ObamaCare"”the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"”is a gigantic statute, and it would be a big bite for employers to digest in any event. But as it stands, it serves mainly as an announcement that a large number of legal black boxes must be filled with new regulations that various administrative agencies will eventually promulgate. As Gary Lawson of the Boston University School of Law has written, "Implementation of the Act will require many years and literally thousands of administrative regulations that will determine its substantive content and coverage."
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That WPA image is seriously flawed. NOBODY is leaning on a shovel.
In Team Blue Land, the only real jobs are government jobs.
We Don't Want Full Employment, We Want Full Lives! http://www.whywork.org/
Not clickin' it, White Indian.
I remember when I was a kid that my parents and their siblings, who were all "Greatest Generation" and thus experienced the Depression firsthand, always responded with mocking laughter when I brought up the WPA or FDR. It was my first clue that what I was being taught in school--that FDR was a miracle worker and everybody loved him--was actually bullshit.
That was then, Sammich. Nowadays, FDR ranks right up there with the greatest minds ever.
Never could figure that out.
People are more stupid now.
Yep - it's due to the influence of Big Stupid. Which is in evidence here when Urine, xaM, Injuuuun Blanco and others stop by. Good times!
I am surprised his profile is not next to Mao, Stalin, Lenin and Marx on leftie t-shirts.
Most of the real FDR worshipers were kids in the 1930s and didn't have a clue as to what was going on. They then went on to fight in World War II and their respect for Roosevelt was cemented by the fact that he was commander in chief during the war.
I think you get a lot more balanced view from people who were actually adults when he was doing all of this shit.
Re: John,
Many FDR worshippers today conveniently forget that FDR won two elections mainly by bribing those states that went the other way in the previous elections, through many of those wonderful make-believe work programs and grants. He wasn't popular at all before the 1940 election.
No he wasn't. And he didn't run on the New Deal in 1940. He ran on there being a war coming and he was the guy to lead it. People knew the New Deal was a failure. And as soon as the war was over they elected a Republican Congress that killed most of it.
Re: John,
Exactly. Also, his body was barely cold when an amendment was passed to impose a term-limit on the presidency. I mean, he was that popular... Like Stalin was popular.
For years the hard-core and soft-core Socialists have been bitching that States that benefited from the giant monuments to government, like TVA, do not show enough appreciation for Democrats. Whenever you hear Team Blue whine about all the "government welfare" going to Red States, this is exactly what they are talking about. They cannot fathom that lots of people don't like the feds all over the place.
Ain't NOBODY leanin' on no fuckin' shovels 'less I give the say-so.
I suggest that Reason institutes a text filter on the Hit 'n Run comments, so that every time someone types "union," it is displayed as "labor mafia".
Who's with me?
Second.
Let's talk about Lincoln?
Things like building roads, extending unemployment benefits, cutting payroll taxes, and investing in clean energy.
All politicians lie through their teeth. But I am begining to think Obama actually believes the shit he says in public.
I think he does. He really believes in the green job unicorns.
I think that Obama giving the Queen of England an iPod was one of the most telling moments of his early years. He's just another hipster doofus that doesn't understand the technology that he is fascinated with.
it was. What an amateur.
He is one stupid fuck....but he is a socialist and means this country no good!
He really is stupid. It drives liberals nuts when you tell them that. But he really is. I will tell them straight to their face that smart or not Obama believes and espouses absolute nonsense.
He has that rare capacity to make absolute gibberish sound like gold. It truly is amazing.
He should've killed her with a sword, shouting "That was for Richard Stockton, you bitch!" Then, as her security guards rush towards him, he quietly informs them that he either walks out of the room and safely returns to the U.S., or Joe Biden nukes London.
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