Stimulus aside, we're not seeing increase in jobs


Jun. 6, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic


Egghead economists may judge economic progress in all sorts of ways, but to the man and woman on the street, the only thing that matters is jobs.

And if the billions of dollars being spent on the economic stimulus are not producing those jobs, then they are contributing to a toxic byproduct: debt. Enormous, dangerous, economically counterproductive national debt.


Stock markets took a huge tumble Friday on news of job gains that proved lower than anticipated, with the Dow Jones industrial average dropping an unnerving 3 percent to a close of 9,931.

There were a number of factors driving the down draft, including news that yet another member of the European Union, Hungary, is joining Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy on the list of debt-laden countries dragging down the European currency, the euro.

But, in the U.S., the lack of new jobs unrelated to federal stimulus spending is what is shaking investors.

The economy will kick into gear again when the private sector begins adding jobs. Investors were spooked Friday because it isn't doing that yet. Of the 413,000 jobs added in May, just 41,000 of them were in the private sector, barely a fifth of what economists expected, and many of those jobs were temporary ones. Speaking of which, virtually all the public-sector job increases were the result of temporary workers hired by the U.S. Census Bureau.

"We know that employment is the lagging indicator, but . . . we've been saying that for a year. There comes a time where we're really going to have to see that number pick up," said Robert Froehlich, senior managing director of the Hartford Mutual Funds.

Even anemic job-growth numbers would have been enough to cheer investors, who have come to expect a slow, shallow recovery. But a report showing essentially no private-sector job growth links the worst fears the Europeans are facing - unsustainable debt - with a growing concern here that the nearly trillion-dollar federal stimulus package has failed to accomplish anything more than add to this country's debt.

The Keynesians who advocate for bigger stimulus spending to avoid a double-dip recession are beginning to bump up against the limits of their argument that deficit spending can lead the economy back to a growth cycle. The stimulus spending has to show some private-sector results. We can't keep pointing to the census workers, teachers and other public-sector jobs that have been "kept" thanks to stimulus money.

Why not? The best answer to that question is unfolding in Europe. No, the U.S. is not Greece. Nor is it Hungary. Nor Ireland nor Spain.

But by trillion-dollar strides, we are getting closer to that precarious model. And by the evidence of the first stimulus, a second such addition to the deficit would bring the U.S. one giant stride closer.


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