Sat Sep 03, 2011 at 03:47:40 PM EDT
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| As we pass through Labor Day Weekend and the upcoming week when many politicians and the rest of us return to normal tasks, lets talk JOBS - "right track and wrong track" as the pollsters say. Yesterday's jobs report, indicating that nationally employers added no new net jobs, reinforced the need for policies to put people back to work. Nationally unemployment remains at 9.1% and in harder-hit New Jersey at 9.5%. On Thursday President Obama will present his initiatives. Help from the federal government is important, but our state government also needs to do more. |
| Bill Orr :: NJ JOBS - Putting People Back to Work: Wrong Track |
| It is time for politicians and policymakers to focus less on the debt and budget deficit and more on the jobs deficit, less on the ideology that splits Republicans and Democrats and more on the solutions that benefit New Jerseyans. These divides are only crippling recovery efforts and perpetuating a sluggish economy.
Our Governor continues to relish the idea of lowering the number of public sector jobs. "That's the way you get the economy back. It's not through government spending, it's through the private sector," he says. Such an approach can make sense in strong economic times, but with high unemployment it threatens our NJ economy. Jon Shure (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) says, These are people who no longer have a pay check, who are not buying things. You're not just laying off a worker, you're laying off the clerk at the grocery store where they shop." Governor Christie boasts he has added 50,000 new private sector jobs during his first 19 months in office. However, New Jersey shed about 29,100 state and local government jobs during the same period - more than any other state except for New York and California. In the same period, the total number of jobs in New Jersey - accounting for gains in the private sector and losses in public jobs - rose by 20,300. That ranks New Jersey behind 38 other states in percentage of job growth. In his determination to shrink government Christie also shrinks job opportunities - a lousy record and one that contradicts his stated desire to do the opposite.
Our governor is not the only politician taking the wrong track. Republicans uniformly are more concerned with decreasing debt and budgets than increasing jobs. Even some Democrats are taking the wrong track. Reprsentative Rob Andrews (D-1st) says, "In reducing the federal deficit by 40 percent, Congress would be sending a clear message to corporations that the climate is safe to spend, hire and expand." The problem as already mentioned is that reducing government spending leaves more people without jobs and reduces the very consumer demand which is needed for companies to hire and expand. Representative Bill Pascrell (D-8th) in a district where high unemployment is a primary concern says he would likely vote against free trade pacts with Colombia, South Korea and Panama that don't adhere to fair labor standards, putting U.S. companies at a disadvantage." Such is another short-sighted approach which ignores the fact we will always have to compete with other nations with lower wages and standards. Our longer term way to gain an edge over developing countries is through strengthening education, innovation, and automation.
In the next part of NJ JOBS I will discuss some of the Right Track ideas that might help raise us out of our morass. |
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