Reform Talk Doesn't Add Up

The good news is employment rose in April by 290,000 jobs – the largest gain in four years, but the bad news is the unemployment rate moved up to 9.9 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While some see the job generation as a step in our economic recovery, a one-month report hardly constitutes a pattern of positive growth. The impact of the financial meltdown is far from over, and those who claimed they’ve changed their free-spending ways haven’t proved a thing except: Talk is cheap.

Still, many folks long discouraged by the lack of available work since the recession began in December in 2007 are once again seeking jobs, the bureau reports, noting an uptick in the labor force. This boosted the unemployment rate, from 9.7 to 9.9 percent, with the total number of unemployed standing at 15.3 million.

Jobs were added in manufacturing, professional and business services, health care, and leisure and hospitality. Federal government employment also rose, reflecting continued hiring of temporary workers for Census 2010, the bureau reports.

Jobs were axed in state and local governments, which are grappling with budget issues; transportation and warehousing firms; and information companies, mostly telecommunications firms.

The number of underemployed individuals, those employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) remained unchanged at 9.2 million in April, according to the bureau. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

Another sobering statistic was the number of long-term unemployed -- those jobless for 27 weeks or more hit 6.7 million. Nearly half (45.9 percent) of all unemployed people have been jobless for 27 weeks or more, the highest percentage since the bureau began tracking that indicator in 1948, according to Rachel Kaufman, blogging for MediaJobsDaily.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for whites (9 percent) edged up in April, while the rates for adult men (10.1 percent), adult women (8.2 percent), teenagers (25.4 percent), blacks (16.5 percent), and Hispanics (12.5 percent) showed little or no change, the bureau reports. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.8 percent, not seasonally adjusted.


"Companies feel more comfortable that growth in the economy and in their own sales is here to stay and that they can start preparing for the future and add to their payrolls," Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, told the Associated Press.

The unemployment rate rose as 805,000 people without jobs entered the labor force in April to search for work.

"Individuals are gaining confidence in their ability to find a job and are now throwing their hats into the ring," John Challenger, CEO of outplacement firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, told the AP.

Many economists predict the unemployment rate will continue to rise as people who had given up on finding a job feel better about their prospects. The labor force includes employed people and people actively seeking work -- not those who have stopped looking.

President Barack Obama called April's job growth "very encouraging news" but said much remains to be done to put more Americans to work, according to the AP.

Obama, since taking office, has pegged U.S. economic recovery to health care reform, which the president and a bitterly divided Congress approved after a highly partisan debate that left most of the American public upset, confused and worried.

Some on both sides of the aisle, as well as independents, continue to insist job creation should have taken center stage, not health care reform in the middle of the worst recession America has seen in decades. They argue: What good is health care if one does not have a job to pay for it?

It’s true U.S. officials, during Obama’s tenure and under the previous Bush administration, pushed through so-called stimulus packages and a variety of “tax relief programs” – George Bush urging us to all shop and Obama giving us more in our paychecks (only to repay at end of the year in higher federal income taxes).

But neither Bush nor Obama provided any long-term gains for the middle class, with the notable exception of bridge, road and highway improvement projects. The orange road-work signs have sprouted this spring like dandelions and, to their credit, officials are wasting no time in making use of available federal funds. If you’re lucky enough to have a job, at least your commute will be on smoother roads and safer bridges!

Bush, a Republican, and Obama, a Democrat, urged us to spend our way to economic health. Remember, Bush and Obama are opposite sides of the same coin – the tax-and-spend crowd. Party labels are meaningless, except for the extreme right and left in partisan politics, a position We Mean Business firmly defends.

Here’s a novel idea for our leaders: exercise some fiscal restraint, purchase only what we really need, not necessarily what we want, and stop passing debt onto generations not yet born. Imagine if they had used that strategy right along? We might not be hearing “years” in the time it may take for a full recovery.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com.