On Wednesday Barack Obama tried to sound upbeat:
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AFP) – President Barack Obama sought Wednesday to briefly divert attention from US oil disaster to his efforts to rescue the economy, predicting a report showing “strong” jobs growth in May.
It looks strong in you don’t care to bother with the details:
Total nonfarm payroll employment grew by 431,000 in May, reflecting the hiring of 411,000 temporary employees to work on Census 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Private-sector employment changed little (+41,000). Manufacturing, temporary help services, and mining added jobs, while construction employment declined. The unemployment rate edged down to 9.7 percent.
This seemingly huge number of jobs added is comprised almost entirely of Census worker jobs, which are intended to be temporary. Only 41,000 private sector jobs were added, with the net addition to the private sector being about 20,000 jobs.
Adding government jobs does nothing for the economy, because we pay for those jobs. WE are paying those salaries. Adding government jobs absolutely means either an increase in taxes or an increase in the deficit.
These jobs are supposed to the temporary and are supposed to be gone by late summer. If that happens it will have a tremendously negative impact on employment reports. And that is why I would bet that these jobs won’t be temporary. I think the Obama administration is going to retain these workers well beyond their usefulness because of the beating the adminstration would take once these workers are released and unemployment skyrockets.
And the effects on unemployment of the Gulf oil spill have yet to be felt. Shutting down many of the wells in the Gulf is going to have a compound effect on jobs and the economy and further slam the Gulf states.
So expect Obama to tout this as a wonderful report, but this is not good news. It’s terrible news.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.