85,000 Americans Join the Unemployed in December

A survey of economist by Thomson Reuters estimated that the economy would lose 8,000 jobs in December.  Instead, the economy lost 85,000 jobs last month.  If one of my estimates was off by more than a factor of ten, I would be more than a bit embarrassed.  If I worked as an economist in the private sector, I might even be worried about my own job.  Neither worry seems to apply to government economists.

Unfortunately, the employment situation is far worse than the 85,000 number would lead you to believe.  The actual number of employed Americans fell by 661,000.  The difference, 576,000, consists mostly of Americans who are unemployed and have given up looking for work.  6.1 million Americans, approximately 40% of the unemployed, have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer.  That’s more than half a year without a job. In addition, 9.2 million Americans don’t count as “officially” unemployed because they are working part-time jobs while looking for full-time jobs.

Meanwhile, my company is hiring – in India.  I would love to hire Americans, but the cost of compliance with government regulations makes it economically infeasable.  I can’t afford to hire people in the United States.  The U.S. government is pushing American businesses towards insolvency through crippling taxes and onerous regulation.  The government is killing the goose thay lays the golden eggs and all Americans will suffer as a result of this short-sightedness.

Until the American people find a way to curb the governments appetite for money and power, a real economic recovery will not be possible.  I’m not talking about voting the Republican Party back into power — the Republicans have only been marginally better than the Democrats at maintaining fiscal responsibility.  If the Republican Party wants to be part of the solution, it has quite a bit of work to do in order to earn back the trust of the American people.