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Think Progress | Meet The Conservatives Who Think Today’s Job Numbers Are A Conspiracy

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released an unexpectedly strong monthly jobs report on Friday, finding a dramatic drop in unemployment to 7.8 percent and revised the number of jobs added in July and August up from initial estimates. While for most Americans, the growing economy is good news, conservatives immediately expressed their skepticism in the jobs report’s credibility.

1) Minutes after the report was released, Jack Welch, who famously cooked General Electric’s accounting books when he was CEO, accused President Obama of manipulating the numbers to distract from his debate performance:

2) Conn Carroll, a senior writer at the Washington Examiner, doesn’t think the problem is the BLS, but a widespread conspiracy of Democrats lying about their unemployment:

3) Former Rumsfeld Chief of Staff Keith Urbahn questioned the timing:

4) Stuart Varney on Fox News claims the drop in unemployment five weeks before the election is too “convenient”: (link to video)

5) Also on Fox News, Charles Payne “guarantees” that unemployment rate will be revised back up to above 8 percent after the election: (link to video)

Fox News’ Eric Bolling:

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What was I just saying earlier about right-wingers distorting reality when reality didn’t fit with their narrative? This is hilarious. 

GOP have kept unemployment high to win back White House

Mr. Obama can make a convincing case that his policies — especially the stimulus and auto industry rescue — helped cushioned the effects of the recession he inherited, which pushed the jobless rate from an already elevated 7.8 percent in January 2009 to 10 percent by October 2009. It has come down, more or less, steadily since then. But it is still higher than when he took office — a point that Mitt Romney and Congressional Republicans have seized upon as evidence of failed policies.

Actually, it was the Republicans’ relentless opposition to constructive policies that has kept unemployment high, from their resistance to the 2009 stimulus to their blockage of Mr. Obama’s proposed $450 billion jobs bill in late 2011. Federal aid to states was a mainstay of both of those efforts. As the stimulus ended and further aid was delayed and denied, the effect on state budgets — and on jobs — has been catastrophic.

A recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that the loss of public-sector jobs, largely because of state budget cuts, has been the biggest hit to job growth over the past three years.

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Conservative voters/supporters will deny this all day, but it’s obvious all of this was a well orchestrated effort to make the president look like a failure. 

5 Ways Republicans Have Sabotaged Job Growth

New numbers released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the economy added a mere 80,000 jobs in June. That’s down from an average of 150,000 jobs a month for the first part of the year, and far too little to keep up with population growth.

Republican intransigence on economic policy has been a key contributor to the sluggish recovery. As early as 2009, Republican fear-mongering over spending and their readiness to filibuster in the Senate helped convince the White House economic team that an $800 billion stimulus was the most they could hope to get through Congress. Reporting has since revealed that the team thought the country actually needed a stimulus on the order of $1.2 to $1.8 trillion. The economy’s path over the next three years proved them right. Here are the top five ways the Republicans have sabotaged the economic recovery since:

1. Filibustering the American Jobs Act. Last October, Senate Republicans killed a jobs bill proposed by President Obama that would have pumped $447 billion into the economy. Multiple economic analysts predicted the bill would add around two million jobs and hailed it as defense against a double-dip recession. The Congressional Budget Office also scored it as a net deficit reducer over ten years, and the American public supported the bill.

2. Stonewalling monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve can do enormous good for a depressed economy through more aggressive monetary stimulus, and by tolerating a temporarily higher level of inflation. But with everything from Ron Paul’s anti-inflationary crusade to Rick Perry threatening to lynch Chairman Ben Bernanke, Republicans have browbeaten the Fed into not going down this path. Most damagingly, the GOP repeatedly held up President Obama’s nominations to the Federal Reserve Board during the critical months of the recession, leaving the board without the institutional clout it needed to help the economy.

3. Threatening a debt default. Even though the country didn’t actually hit its debt ceiling last summer, the Republican threat to default on the United States’ outstanding obligations was sufficient to spook financial markets anddo real damage to the economy.

4. Cutting discretionary spending in the debt ceiling deal. The deal the GOP extracted as the price for avoiding default imposed around $900 billion in cuts over ten years. It included $30.5 billion in discretionary cuts in 2012 alone, costing the country 0.3 percent in economic growth and 323,000 jobs, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute. Starting in 2013, the deal will trigger another $1.2 trillion in cuts over ten years.

5. Cutting discretionary spending in the budget deal. While not as cataclysmic as the debt ceiling brinksmanship, Republicans also threatened a shutdown of the government in early 2011 if cuts were not made to that year’s budget. The deal they struck with the White House cut $38 billion from food stamps, health, education, law enforcement, and low-income programs among others, whilesparing defense almost entirely.

There have also been a few near-misses, in which the GOP almost prevented help from coming to the economy. The Republicans in the House delayed a transportation bill that saved as many as 1.9 million jobs. House Committees run by the GOP have passed proposals aimed at cutting billions from food stamps, and the party has repeatedly threatened to kill extensions of unemployment insurance and cuts to the payroll tax.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, those policies — the payroll tax cut, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and discretionary spending for low-income Americans —have the highest multipliers, meaning more job boosting potential per dollar.

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GOP Reality Check: Reagan Added Public Sector Jobs During a Recession

This is a huge reason for the stubborn unemployment! President Obama doesn’t have the benefit of adding public workers to the payroll, like Reagan did.

Lets start right at the top, the Federal level. Under Reagan, federal government employment increased by 100,000 from the middle of the 1982 recession until the 1984.

Compare this to President Obama, and employment at the federal level has remained virtually flat!

Now let’s look at the state level government employment. Under President Reaganstate employment increased by 100,000.

Under President Obama employment at the state level DROPPED by 120,000.

Now finally, we look at local government employment. Under President Reagan, local government employment stayed mostly flat.

While under President Obama, local government employment dropped by 500,000.

Over the course of President Obama’s first term, all government employment lost about 600,000 jobs, while under President Reagan, total government employment INCREASED by 225,000 jobs in his FIRST TERM!

This is why the Wall Street Journal actually pointed to the fact that if government employment stayed at 2008 level, unemployment in the USA would be 7.1%

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Studies: Increasing The Minimum Wage During Times Of High Unemployment Doesn’t Hurt Job Growth

A group of House Democrats recently proposed legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour, roughly where it would have to be to match the peak buying power the wage reached in 1968. Cities and states across the country are taking action on their own, raising their minimum wages in an effort to help low-income workers.

Opponents of minimum wage increases contest that raising the minimum wage will be costly for businesses and have a negative effect on job growth and employment. An analysis by the Center for American Progress’ Nick Bunker, David Madland, and the University of North Carolina’s T. William Lester, however, found five recent studies showing that increasing the minimum wage — even during periods of high unemployment — does not have a negative effect on job growth:

A significant body of academic research has found that raising the minimum wage does not result in job losses even during hard economic times. There are at least five different academic studies focusing on increases to the minimum wage—including increases ranging from 7 percent to 12.3 percent made during periods of high unemployment—that find an increase in the minimum wage has no significant effect on employment levels. The results are likely because the boost in demand and reduction in turnover provided by a minimum wage counteracts the higher wage costs.

Similarly, a simple analysis of increases to the minimum wage on the state level, even during periods of state unemployment rates above 8 percent, shows that the minimum wage does not kill jobs. Indeed the states in our simple analysis had job growth slightly above the national average. […]

All the studies came to the same conclusion—that raising the minimum wage had no effect on employment.

While increasing the minimum wage likely has no effect on job creation, it does have a tangible benefit for workers. Eight states increased their minimum wage at the beginning of 2012, providing extra benefits to 1.4 million workers. More than half of the workers directly affected by a minimum wage increase, as well as more than half who would be indirectly affected, are women, meaning increasing the wage provides help to a segment of the population that already faces significant disadvantages in the workplace.

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Why Don’t We Pay People Enough? 8 Facts About America’s Struggling Working People

One.  How many people work and are still poor? 

In 2011, the US Department of Labor reported at least 10 million people worked and were still below the unrealistic official US poverty line, an increase of 1.5 million more than the last time they checked.  The US poverty line is $18,530 for a mom and two kids.  Since 2007 the numbers of working poor have been increasing.  About 7 percent of all workers and 4 percent of all full-time workers earn wages that leave them below the poverty line.

Two.  What kinds of jobs do the working poor have?

One third of the working poor, over 3 million people, work in the service industry.  Workers in other occupations are also poor: 16 percent of those in farming; 11 percent in construction; and 11 percent in sales. 

Three.  Which workers are most likely to be working and still poor?

Women workers are more likely to be poor than men.  African American and Hispanic workers are about twice as likely to be poor as whites.  College graduates have a 2 percent poverty rate while workers without a high school diploma have a poverty rate 10 times higher at 20 percent. 

Four.  What about benefits for low wage workers?

Ten percent of US workers earn $8.50 an hour or less according to the US Department of Labor.  About 12 percent have health care and about 12 percent have retirement benefits.  Nearly one in four get paid sick leave and less than half get paid vacation leave.

Five.  What rights do the working poor have?

Most workers have a right to earn at least the federal minimum wage of $7.50 an hour.  Tipped employees are supposed to get at least $2.13 each hour from their employer and if the worker does not earn enough in tips to make the $7.50 minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference.  People who work more than 40 hours in a workweek are entitled to one and one-half of their regular pay for each hour of overtime. 

Six.  What about wage theft from the working poor?

Many low wage workers have part of their earnings stolen by their employers.  Examples include not paying people the full minimum wage, not paying required overtime, stealing from tipped employees, or fraudulently classifying workers as independent contractors.   A survey of over 4000 low wage workers in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York conducted by university and non-profit researchers found: 26 percent of the workers were paid less than the minimum wage in the previous week, a majority were underpaid by more than $1 an hour; a significant number worked overtime the previous week and were not paid the legally required overtime; many were required to come early or stay late and work “off the clock” and were not paid for it; almost a third of the tipped workers were not paid the minimum wage and more than 1 in 10 tipped workers had some of their money stolen by their employer or supervisor. 

Seven.  What is a living wage in the US?

Dr. Amy Glasmeier of Penn State University has created a Living Wage Calculator that estimates the hourly wage needed to pay the cost of living for low wage families in the US.  It breaks down the cost of living by state and locality across the nation.  In New Orleans, a mom with one child needs to earn $17.52 to make ends meet.  In New York, the mom with one child should earn $19.66 to make it.   If we now realistically calculate the number of people who work and do not earn a living wage, the numbers of working poor in the US skyrocket to several tens of millions.

Eight.  What about jobs for the unemployed and underemployed? 

The US Labor Department estimated recently that 13 million people were unemployed.  Another 8 million people were working part-time but wanted full-time work.  Even more millions who are not working are not counted in those numbers because they have been unemployed so long. 

A study by Northeastern University found that in the poorest families, unemployment is nearly 31 percent. Underemployment is also much more of a problem in poor homes, with over 20 percent of those workers reporting they are working part-time but seeking full-time work. 

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Re: you are only entitled to the wages and benefits you negotiate

This position assumes that everyone plays by the rules.

I busted my ass at my old job, like, SERIOUSLY. I once went three months working 12 hour days without a day off, I would come in when they called me at 3am to fix a server no one else wanted to touch. I took every training class I could and tried to get as much experience as possible on every piece of equipment I could get my hands on.

I took on special projects, traveled all over the country, and was the “go to” guy when it came to any kind of complicated electronic or computer problem, I asked for promotions and was constantly told “it was coming” right up to when I was laid off and replaced by a guy right out of college that they paid half of what they paid me. This was after I put up with wage freezes, the cost of my health insurance doubling and loss of profit sharing bonuses. 

And yes, I looked for another job, even before being laid off. It was bullshit, there was nothing out there. After getting laid off, it took me eight months to get another job and what I was continually told every time I was turned down is that I was “over qualified” or that they “couldn’t pay me a wage that my experience would demand.” - That’s great for business and the bottom line, but it’s also part of the reason we are in the mess that the U.S is in now.

Of course unemployment is high, companies are expecting more from less people, work the employees more and if they bitch about it, damn near 9% of the population doesn’t have a job, it’s easy to replace you.

Of course the economy sucks, people are being paid the same adjusted for inflation that they were ten years ago, but now gas is damn near $4 a gallon, food’s gotten more expensive, everything costs more than it did before and people are feeling crunched.

Technically, yes, you are only entitled to the wages and benefits you negotiate for, but what if the wages everyone negotiates for are shit, no one’s willing to offer up a good living wage any more because they know every sorry motherfucker out there is desperate for a job.

When I first entered the corporate workforce in the mid 90’s, companies would call ME, offering me a job, I would say, “Well, so in so over at (other company) offered me $2 an hour more plus a company car”.

And they would say, “Well, we’ll pay you $3 an hour more, pay for your gas and pay you $200 a month extra to drive your own car”.

You try that now days, and they will say, “Next!” - corporations do owe us a fair and decent wage, if there is prosperity it should trickle down, not be concentrated at the top, this economic model isn’t sustainable.

It’s a race to the bottom, it’s like they feel they won’t be competitive until wages are comparable to a factory worker in a third wold country.

Is that REALLY what we want for our country?

Census data: Half of U.S. poor or low income

By HOPE YEN | Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

The latest census data depict a middle class that’s shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government’s safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

“Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too ‘rich’ to qualify,” said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.

“The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal,” he said. “If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years.”

[FULL STORY]