Here We Go Again

 

We Are Not In A Recession

 I don't think people know what the definition of a recession is.

Definition of recession: two consecutive quarters of decline in a country's real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) - the value of all goods and services a country produces.

The last decline in GDP occurred from 2019 to 2020 - during Donald Trump's term. 

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP

GDP has been steadily been increasing since.

https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product

Yes. You are better off under Biden than Trump.

The Dangerous Mythology About The US Labor Shortage

The dangerous mythology about the US labor shortage

In explaining the unimpressive quarterly jobs data recently, there is a dangerous mythology surfacing, a common refrain among pundits, that people don’t want to work because of stimulus checks and extended unemployment benefits.

Some argue that unemployed low-wage workers make more from these benefits than from their previous employment. This may be true, but in my nearly 10-year tenure as CEO of what has become the nation’s largest publicly funded workforce development system, where we have facilitated training and employment of over 70,000 people, I have never once heard anyone say they didn’t want to work.

This is a harmful, corrosive narrative rooted in class, gender and race bias; it is a fallacy meant to demean and stigmatize.

The truth underlying what’s being touted as a “labor shortage” is far more nuanced than glib jabs at the working class. Examining reality invites us to reassess our beliefs about work and workers in this country.

Low Pay, No Benefits, Rude Customers: Restaurant Workers Quit At Record Rate

Skills To Pay The Bills

More proof there is no skills gap or skills shortage. 

6 of the top 10 most in demand jobs in Wisconsin through 2026 require a high school diploma, or job-specific training, at most.

[source]

Midweek Reading

Daily case increase more than doubles in Milwaukee County, fewer hospital beds in use for COVID cases statewide

Banks Made $10 Billion In Fees Processing PPP Loans

Steve Schmidt Says It Out Loud: These Are Just Campaign Rallies

Republicans Suppress Their Own Voters

Some Sheriffs, Police Question Evers’ Shutdown

The World’s Bad Actors See Coronavirus as an Opportunity

How many workers are employed in sectors directly affected by COVID-19 shutdowns, where do they work, and how much do they earn?

A disturbing new study suggests Sean Hannity helped spread the coronavirus

No, The Economy Didn't Suddenly Get Strong Under Donald Trump

No, the economy didn't suddenly get strong under Donald Trump

Nagging details about job growth Trump won't like

New data shows economic growth far short of Trump's boasts, promises

Bucking Convention

Sorry to rain on the parade.

Milwaukee should be leery, careful and realistic with their assumptions and expectations regarding hosting the Democratic National Convention.

In general, events like this are a boom for some and a bust for others. And, if you're lucky, you'll break even. Yet, hosting these events is far from a no-brainer, win-win for everyone.

As U.S News reported:

According to economists Robert Baade, Robert Baumann and Victor Matheson – who looked at the effect of every national political convention between 1970 and 2005 – such events "have a negligible impact on local economies." They found that "neither the presence of the Republican nor the Democratic National Convention has a discernable impact on employment, personal income, or personal income per capita in the cities where the events were held."

As another researcher put it:

By focusing on the 'bright, shiny object' of a political convention, we might be losing focus on the real economic fundamentals that could bring long-term prosperity.

Milwaukee has already been transforming itself and the region - without an expanded convention center, without a political convention, etc.  The Democratic National Convention might be fun and lucrative for some, but don't expect long-term gains from this political circus.  At best, Milwaukeans should hope for infrastructure improvements coinciding with the convention - roads, rail, water, electric, etc. - that will also benefit the city as a whole.

For Further Reading:
Rejecting “Conventional” Wisdom: Estimating the Economic Impact of National Political Conventions 

Economic impact studies: Should journalists rely on them?

American Cities and the Politics of Party Conventions

Breaking with Convention

Scott Walker Is A Creep

Scott Walker Boasts About the Sun Coming Up in the Washington Post

Politicians like to take credit for things they have little to do with it. Serious newspapers point this fact out when it happens. 

The Washington Post fell down on the job in a piece that quoted Wisconsin governor Scott Walker saying, "There are more people in the workforce in Wisconsin than ever before in the history of the state." 

This is an pretty empty claim since it will be true most of the time (except recessions) for most states. Since populations generally grow, unless there is a downturn, in most months the state will have more people in the workforce than ever before. 

A more serious analysis would look at the percentage of the population in the workforce. This is not at an all-time high. In June, 54.6 percent of Wisconsin's population was in the workforce. This compared to more than 55.0 percent in 2000. 

It is possible that this drop is explained by demographic changes (more older people and children today), but the percentage of people in the workforce would be the real question, not the number. The Post should have pointed this out to its readers so they would not be deceived by Walker's nonsense boast.

Unemployment

The U-6 rate is the unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers who have quit looking for a job and part-time workers who are seeking full-time employment.

[source]

For Further Reading:

Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons

Alternative measures of labor underutilization

The Suburban Mystique

The Suburban Mystique

For decades, the suburbs were seen as havens where people moved to escape the crowding, poverty, and problems of the inner city. Despite the pervasive stereotype, the suburbs were never universally affluent or white, and since the 2000s, as a majority of Americans have settled in suburbs, the “burbs” have become increasingly diverse, both economically and demographically. Poverty has concentrated increasingly in poor suburbs, surpassing low-income populations in urban and rural areas and upending assumptions about what it means to “move to opportunity.”

As Scott Allard points out in his book Places in Need, despite the fact that white Americans make up the majority of the U.S. poor, and that poverty now concentrates in suburbs, media and scholarly portrayals still disproportionately focus on the “urban poor,” and white people settle in white neighborhoods because they associate black residents with poverty.

Suburbs—where most Americans, impoverished or otherwise, live—are increasingly the locus of work-life conflict and economic insecurity.

And since suburban identity is culturally tied to a myth of the American dream, not to mention a long legacy of racism—a space where the affluent have historically segregated themselves from the black and poor—admitting there is a problem, and creating policies to help poor and middle-income struggling families, requires introspection and new political will.

The So-Called "Skills Gap" Is Complete Bullshit

Another "skills gap" crusader:

LaSalle Network CEO Says There's a Huge 'Skills Gap'

Such a good little soldier for the privileged.

Too bad reality doesn't comport with that tripe.

The Myth of the Skills Gap

The problem is, when we look closely at the data, this story doesn’t match the facts. What’s more, this view of the nation’s economic challenges distracts us from more productive ways of thinking about skills and economic growth while promoting unproductive hand-wringing and a blinkered focus on only the supply side of the labor market—that is, the workers.

A Recession-Era Economic Myth Goes Up In Smoke

Throughout the slow recovery, journalists from major papers made a cottage industry of finding CEOs complaining that their hiring searches were coming up empty. Conservative commentators chalked up high unemployment to a so-called “skills gap”: companies needed more qualified workers, they insisted, than were currently on offer. 

But something wasn’t right. If companies really needed qualified workers, why weren’t they raising wages to attract them? Or why weren’t they lowering their qualification standards or offering training to less experienced new hires? If companies really did have jobs that desperately required filling, they would have been working harder to fill them.

Don’t Blame A ‘Skills Gap’ For Lack Of Hiring In Manufacturing

This “skills mismatch” theory is a favorite of corporate executives and the think tanks they fund. But it is based on scant evidence. Individual companies may be struggling to fill specific jobs, but the data shows little sign of an industrywide shortage of skilled workers. In fact, it’s not clear that companies are really trying hard to fill many of these jobs at all.

Talk of a skills gap in the labor market is 'an incredible cop out'

But is there really a skills shortage? If so, why have median wages been stuck in a rut for so long? Why aren’t companies investing more in training and labor-saving equipment? Why aren’t they asking workers to work longer hours? It doesn’t add up, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank in Washington.

The persistent myth of the “skills gap”

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman calls the skills gap a “zombie idea” that won’t go away despite being routinely debunked. The reason has less to do with ignorance than with power. After decades of rising inequality and an eroding labour share of income, the skills gap mythology downloads blame onto workers and costs onto government. Jim Stanford, writing in the pages of Academic Matters, puts it well: “According to this worldview, the biggest challenge facing our labour market is adjusting the attitudes, capabilities and mobility of jobless workers…The problem is with the unemployed.” The skills gap takes the onus off employers to pay decent wages and train workers, blaming labour market failings on workers instead.

For Further Reading:

The Mythological Skills Gap

The Zombie Skills Gap Meme That Won't Die

It's About Job Shortage, Not Skills Crisis
It's Not Structural Unemployment
Manufacturing
Structural Unemployment: The Data Doesn't Match
Varieties of Unemployment

Skills Shortage Sham

More Skills Gap Crap

Is There Really a Skills Gap?

The Skills Gap Is a Myth

Buying Jobs Appears To Be The Scott Walker Job Creation Strategy

Looks like Scott Walker's jobs plan for Wisconsin is to merely bribe companies into staying and/or coming.

With another election right around the corner, alongside Walker's disgraceful record on jobs, he's going all-in with Wisconsin taxpayer money and buying all the jobs he can, at any cost.

He now wants to give Kimberly-Clark money to retain jobs in Wisconsin. Walker wants to work with the Legislature to approve an increase in the tax credits available for job retention from 7 percent in current law to 17 percent.

Seems Walker's plan is to run up the bill for Wisconsin taxpayers, under the guise of job creation, buying jobs for the State, just in time for his next campaign.

What Would Jesus Do?

According to Scott Walker, Jesus would:

• require able-bodied parents of children on food stamps to work or get training to receive more than three months of benefits
• increase the existing work requirement for all able-bodied adults from 20 hours a week to 30

Walker added, "“With more people working in Wisconsin than ever before, we can’t afford to have anyone on the sidelines: we need everyone in the game. We want to remove barriers to work and make it easier to get a job, while making sure public assistance is available for those who truly need it."

Maybe instead of "training" and "removing barriers," Walker should be helping to create family-supporting jobs. Like the 250,000 he promised. Instead, he seems more interested in cutting taxes on the rich, gutting regulations for his donors, and lavishing subsidies on his cronies.

Such good Christians those Republicans. Those god-fearing, god-abiding moral pillars...as long as you're not poor.

Their blatant disregard for most humans and the environment, alongside their unwavering support for their rich campaign financiers, one has to ask Why Do Republicans Hate America?

For Further Reading:
Why Claims of Skills Shortages in Manufacturing Are Overblown

The Fake Skills Shortage

After All the Talk About a Skills Shortage in the U.S. Job Market, the Real Problem May Be an Employer Shortage

Scott Walker signs bill easing regulations on high cap wells

Wisconsin, under Scott Walker, no longer leads in conservation

Stripping wetland protections to have consequences, intended or not

Wisconsin Foxconn Deal Waives Environmental Regulations

Four disastrous pro-pollution policies from Scott Walker and Wisconsin GOP you haven't heard about

Scott Walker Cuts Higher-Ed Budget, Funds Corporate Welfare

Scott Walker’s $3 billion fraud

Walker shows his priorities with $250 million subsidy to NBA billionaires
Water Pollution Skyrockets Under Walker

Weekend Reading

Raise Wages, Kill Jobs? Seven Decades Of Historical Data Find No Correlation Between Minimum Wage Increases And Employment Levels

The results were clear: these basic economic indicators show no correlation between federal minimum-wage increases and lower employment levels, even in the industries that are most impacted by higher minimum wages. To the contrary, in the substantial majority of instances (68 percent) overall employment increased after a federal minimum-wage increase.

Filing Taxes Could Be Free And Simple. But H&R Block And Intuit Are Still Lobbying Against It

The makers of TurboTax and other online systems spent millions lobbying last year, much of it directed toward a bill that would permanently bar the government from offering taxpayers prefilled filings.

Fearing Germs Is Making Us Sick

We need to reconnect our kids with the microbes they need and, more generally, with the wild they need, however tiny that wild may be.

The Generation Of Nonsense In The Boston Globe

The main economic story of the last four decades is the massive upward redistribution of income that has taken place. The top one percent's share of national income has more than doubled over this period from roughly ten percent in the late 1970s to over twenty percent today. And, this is primarily a before-tax income story, the rich have used their control over the levers of economic power to ensure that an ever larger share of the country's wealth goes into their pockets. (Yes, this is the topic of my book, Rigged [it's free].) 

Anyhow, the rich don't want people paying attention to these policies (hey, they could try to change them), so they endlessly push out nonsense stories to try to divert the public's attention from how they structured the rules to advance their interests. And, since the rich own the newspapers, they can make sure that we hear these stories.

How Stephen Colbert Finally Found His Elusive Groove

On Nov. 8, Stephen Colbert was hosting a live election night special for CBS’s sister cable network, Showtime. A program that was built around an expected Hillary Clinton victory went off the rails almost as soon as it went on the air at 11 p.m. As election returns came in, audience members, who had been asked to shut off their phones an hour earlier, gasped as it became clear that Donald J. Trump could very well become president. Mr. Colbert looked dumbstruck. 

Sensing the gravity of the moment, Chris Licht, the executive producer of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” walked over to Mr. Colbert’s desk during a musical performance. 

“Stop being funny and go and just be real,” Mr. Licht told the host.

Record-Breaking Public Subsidy Lures Hated Football Team To America's Gambling Capital

Clark County taxpayers will contribute $750 million to the new arena, a record for a sports facility—about $354 per resident, taken from an increased tax on hotel rooms. That tax currently pays for schools and transportation, in addition to tourism-related expenditures.

Stanford economist Roger Noll said it was the “worst deal for a city” he had ever seen.

That it came together at all is remarkable.

Here's The Real Rust Belt Jobs Problem - And It's Not Offshoring Or Automation

Many struggling U.S. cities and states compete fiercely with one another to attract and keep firms that offer jobs. Unfortunately, these are not the “good” jobs that Americans are looking for, jobs with middle-class pay, benefits and security. This race to the bottom drains public coffers, preoccupies local leaders and fuels voter cynicism. “America First” sidesteps the problem.

Labor Market Progress and the Employment Situation

[source]

Stop Cryin' In Yer Beer

I've heard varieties of the "Obama hasn't done anything" idea spouted about in the media, from friends, by co-workers, etc.

Now, I wanted a more liberal agenda pursued, but nonetheless, I'm not blind to the fact that Barack Obama has accomplished very, very big things.

Government is shrinking, deficits are declining, employment is improving, health care inflation is subsiding, infrastructure projects have been completed nationwide ...

For Further Enlightenment:

PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS DONE A LOT! A LIST OF 340 ACCOMPLISHMENTS SO FAR, WITH CITATIONS

Obama's top 10 accomplishments

Obama's Top 50 Accomplishments

History will be very kind

In Defense of Obama

Weekend Walker Reading

How Do You Like Unions Now, Gov Walker?
Scott Walker Back GOP Plan To Overhaul Civil Service System
Board Delays Decision On Land Sale To Walker Donor
Scott Walker Can't Be President, So He's Back Ruining Wisconsin
Irrelevant Scott Walker Hits New Low
GOP Presidential Candidate Scott Walker To Propose Vast Union Restrictions
Scott Walker Proposes National Right-To-Work Law and No Bargaining For Federal Workers
Scott Walker's Exaggerated Claims Of Employment Trends In Wisconsin
Wisconsin: Where Has The Labor Force Gone?
Wisconsin Still Has High Poverty

Government & The Economy

[source]

Wisconsin's Private-Sector Growth Rate Lags Nation

Wisconsin's private-sector growth rate lags nation

A report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that Wisconsin gained 35,021 private-sector jobs in the 12 months from June 2013 to June 2014, a 1.5% growth rate that ranked the state 32nd among the 50 states. 

The state lagged the national growth rate of 2.3% for private-sector jobs in the period, continuing a trend that had been in place for the three previous years: Wisconsin has trailed the national rate of private-sector job creation since the second quarter of 2011, the data show.