Despite understandable optimism regarding the latest jobs report, the Professor is not pleased.
Here's why (my emphasis):
First, note that there are still about 6 million fewer jobs than there were at the end of 2007 — and that we would normally have expected to have added around 5 million jobs over a four-year period. So we’re 11 million jobs down — and we need at least 100,000 jobs a month just to keep up with working-age population growth. Do the math, and you’ll see that it would take 9 or 10 years of growth at this rate to restore full employment.The "decade away" part isn't much in dispute by those who are truly looking, like our Professor. The real question is, Why aren't the political types looking with the same good eyes?
Alternatively, note that during the Clinton years — all 8 of them — the economy added around 230,000 jobs a month [and] the unemployment rate fell about 3 1/2 percentage points — which is about what we’d need from here to get back to something that felt like full employment. ... [T]his suggests that we’re looking at something like a decade-long haul to have full recovery.
So yes, this is better news than we’ve been having. But it’s still vastly inadequate.
Of course, a cynical person might answer that:
(1) The bipartisan elites (Our Betters) have decided that high unemployment is "the new normal".
(2) Billionaire Beneficiaries of the modern tax code really are the true "job creators" and nothing should damage them:
[A] fair number of people who consider themselves centrist [say] that high-income individuals are “job creators” who must be cherished for the good they do.(3) It's too bad really, sad but necessary, that lowered expectations be therefore sold to the Rubes. (So look out Trust Fund.)
(4) That's just the task at hand (and why they get the big bucks — from said Beneficiaries).
Might I be that cynical person? Not me; I'd never say such a thing.
GP
