While better than expected, Friday’s employment numbers showed that the national economy still had a long way to go to fully recover. Though down from its peak of 10.1 percent in late 2009, April’s unemployment rate reflects only those Americans who are still actively looking for work.
As such, economists said the April jobs report was part of a larger picture of the economy that remained mixed. The rise in the unemployment rate reflects the survey of households, which indicated a 190,000 decline in employment in April. And recent data on initial jobless claims and other employment indicators have been weak.
“Millions of people are unemployed and many have left the labor market and given up,” Mr. Shapiro said. “Against that we are maybe creating 244,000 jobs. That is all well and good but it just shows you how much further we have to go to make a dent into what has happened in the labor market.”
“It gets the basic debate out there about the economy,” he added. “Is all we have seen the product of government stimulus, and are all the problems coming back or not?”
Don’t get too excited by this: of the 244,000 jobs created in April in the private sector, approx 62,000 of those were at McDonalds. Nothing wrong with working at Micky D’s, but they aren’t likely to repeat that feat in May, and a lot of those are burger flipper jobs which will not represent any positive tax revenue to speak of. In fact, they could lead to more “taxpenditures” through the earned income credit (lovely term to be sure…..).
As we come up to summertime, remember that last summer was supposed to be “recovery summer”. Well if you are Ben Bernake counting money flows, you might be able to divine a recovery of some sort. But if you have been out of work for months on end, or if you are a new grad who still hasn’t landed your first job interview, this doesn’t look like much of a recovery.
I’m going to jump in here and tell it like it is here in Los Banos, California and the San Joaquin Valley:
These employment figures are totally misleading. The ONLY real job growth here in town has been in the fast foot business……period! Yes, we do have several big box chain stores here……Target, Lowe’s, Home Depot, WalMart, etc……but all of the other growth has been contributed to by McDonald’s (3), Chili’s (1), Starbuck’s (3), Taco Bell (2), and various other small fast foot businesses…..including pizza parlors. And of course, they all start off by paying minimum wage, which is hardly conducive to the economic well-being of their employees…..many of whom are struggling to support themselves and their families while going to school at our branch of Merced College.
Tuition is rising, teaching staff are being cut to the bone both here and in Merced, fewer courses are being offered, and job training is suffering as a result. Meanwhile, if any new companies DO come to the area, guess where they locate to? Merced, of course! Merced is 35 miles from here, and with the cost of gas now averaging $4.27 at the pump, it is becoming prohibitively expensive for people to drive 70 miles round trip five days or more every week! Public mass transit? That’s a laugh!
Unless and until more businesses are either lured from big cities to a beautiful small city like ours with thousands of desperate people looking for jobs that pay well, we are going to continue to stagnate. One sure way of luring them here is to slash our tax structure, but convincing the powers-that-be to do that is like pulling hen’s teeth. California’s tax laws have driven business OUT of the state, but are our politicos doing anything to slow the exodus? You gotta be kidding! Sure, Jerry Brown’s been slashing spending left and right, but that’s been like a cow swatting at flies…..it doesn’t help the people who are trying to find work! The need for jobs is still there…..it isn’t going away, but big business isn’t doing a thing to help. “Make it cheaper for us to do business there, and maybe we’ll take a look at your town. Otherwise, forget it!”
Yeah, the CA taxes are job killers and pretty much everything else in the state. I had a warehouse in City of Industry in the mid-1990’s and they hiked the inventory tax significantly (an extra $100,000/yr out of my pocket) and CARB came sniffing around and demanded that we publish all kinds of hazard plans and we had to have a hazardous materials person on staff. Oh, and how about that traffic around the COI? We picked up and moved over to Nevada. Saved the $100k, the headaches from CARB, and the Hazmat person. Never looked back.
I haven’t seen [i]one thing from private industry[/i] that would help the people who are in such desperate straits in our area…..[b]not one![/b] Nor have I seen or heard a thing from Jerry Brown on how he would help the unemployed find jobs that pay anything more than the minimum wage…..[i]absolutely nothing![/i] Our city has consistently been on the short end of the stick, and we are sick and tired of this rotten treatment. [b] Our people are crying out for well-paying jobs, yet nobody seems to care about them.[/b] Only major tax reform will help us in our area, but the politicos have deaf ears. In the meantime, however, some of our Tea Partiers are ready to march on Sacramento to demand action. I’m not a Tea Partier, but believe me, I’m sorely tempted to join them in that protest!
C-13: speaking as a former business person, what is it about your area that might make me want to move my business there?
Let me say that as a business would view it: “I don’t care about your area’s needs, tell me how you will make me more profitable”.
Do you have a local Chamber of Commerce that is activily marketing the positives of your area to business? If they aren’t, then that may be part of the problem. Your area needs to stand out in some fashion to businesses looking to expand/start up operations. If your politicos are the problem, vote them out. If the voters don’t understand how business works, then voter education might be the need. good luck!
All of the above have been discussed and action has been taken where and when appropriate. Part of our problem, though is, the absence of viable light passenger transportation (we’ve been assured that it’s ‘in the planning stage, but is years away from reality, and will not be located in our area.’), even though we’re ‘the Crossroads of California.’ This is an area where the main industry is agriculture, and where there is plenty of available land.