Today, our job saver / creator–in–chief, had a big gatherin’ in Pennsylvania.
He was celebratin’ the latest unemployment figures, showin’ that the economy only lost 11,000 jobs last month (November).
And, that the level of total unemployment dropped to only 10%.
I’m thinkin’ those folks without jobs still ain’t celebratin’ much.
Those new 11,000 hands who lost their jobs in November joined 5.9 million others who had lost their jobs earlier.
Now that 5.9 million as counted by the government, are people who are seriously looking for work, people who haven’t accepted some job well below their capabilities, or as Obama once said, “below their pay grade”.
Add those folks in, and there's a lot more people not workin'.
Add those folks in, and there's a lot more people not workin'.
Almost six million folks who want to work can’t find companies who want to give them jobs.
That’s more people than live in all of Cook County, Illinois, Obama’s home turf.
That’s more folks than live in Orange County, California, or Maricopa County, Arizona, or Miami Dade County, Florida, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, or even New York County, New York.
Yep, Obama was celebratin’.
Celebratin’ that his stimulus program had created or saved all those other jobs.
'Cept it hadn’t.
The Congressional Budget Office, that non-partisan group charged with keepin’ track of these sorts of things, says that the stimulus program may have created between 600,000 and 1,200,000 jobs by the end of the year.
(Those folks are way too smart to even begin to address the concept of “jobs saved”, knowing that there ain’t no way in hell to tally those.)
But here’s the amazin' number: Those CBO folks say that each and every job created by Obama’s stimulus bill will cost $300,000 per job.
300,000 bucks! Per job! Each damn job!
In another recent study, that same CBO said that the real median earnings of men who worked full time, year-round in 2007 was $45,113.
For women, the corresponding wage was $35,102. (Yep, fillys make less, but that’s a conversation for another time.)
So Obama’s usin’ our tax dollars to create a small number of jobs that pay over 7 times the national median wage.
7 times.
There’s gotta be a better way.
This oldtimer can think of a couple bunches.
How ‘bout sending a whole passel of companies a check for fifty grand with the understanding they had to use the money to hire one unemployed person and train them for a new position?
Pay for a year’s worth of retraining of a worker who could use a new skill, while at the same time adding to that company’s ability to generate revenue?
And as a side benefit, generate a bit of tax revenue from those additional company revenues?
That would put six times as many people back to work for at least a year, and maybe do some real stimulatin' to the economy.
That might just be enough to offset that 11,000 job loss for last month, and put a few more of the six million back to work.
And, that would be a real cause for celebratin’.
“It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man. “ – Benjamin Franklin
“Never confuse motion with action. “ – Benjamin Franklin
