More Jobs Disappear In August

As Labor Day approaches there is no good news for American workers, especially the more than 15 million workers who are out of work. President Obama spoke from the Rose Garden and tried to put a happy face on the job situation by pointing out that around 67,000 jobs were created in the private sector in August (and making an average of 78,000 jobs created in the last three months by the private sector).

But that happy face turns into a big frowning face when a couple of factors are considered. First, regardless of how many jobs were created it wasn't enough because more jobs were lost than were created. The fact is that there were 54,000 less jobs in this country at the end of August than there were at the end of July, and the federal unemployment figure rose from 9.5% to 9.6%.

The unemployment number has been over 9% for 16 straight months now (with little reason to believe it will fall below 9% anytime soon). The underemployment number (the unemployed combined with part-timers seeking full-time jobs) is now hovering just below 19%. And this doesn't even count the people who have been unemployed long-term and can no longer receive unemployment benefits.

Second, even if the 67,000 jobs the private sector created was positive job growth (which it isn't), it would not be nearly enough. It would require a positive job growth of over 200,000 jobs a month to keep up with the new people entering the job market and start to make a dent in the huge number of people out of work. So far, there is no sign that the economy can produce anywhere near that number of jobs any time soon. Even if it did, it would take several years to replace the jobs that have been lost.

The Republicans want to blame President Obama for the country's failure to produce enough jobs to begin healing the economy. They are partially right. He has not done nearly enough to stimulate the creation of new jobs. He has some new proposals, but they also fall far short of the massive government spending that is needed to truly stimulate enough economic growth.

But the Republicans must accept their share of the blame for the continuing jobless recession also. It was their policies that started this economic mess in the first place. In addition, they have opposed all efforts to stimulate new jobs -- including the new bill to cut taxes for small businesses and provide them with billions in new low-cost loans. The only answer the Republicans have is to keep the Bush tax cuts for the rich -- which would increase the deficit far more than any Democratic program (and help only about 3% of small businesses).

This recession will not end by making the rich even richer. The only way to end this recession is to stimulate the creation of a large number of new jobs. Sadly, neither party seems very interested in doing that. Democratic proposals would pretty much keep the recession at its current level, while the Republican proposals would make it much worse. Neither would end the recession.

So there will be little to celebrate on this Labor Day, and unless someone gets serious about job creation, the next few Labor Days will be the same.