Wisconsin Jobs and Governor Walker

Governor Walker needs new jobs more than most governors given the controversies over deficit reduction and public employees. The governor’s plan to create private sector jobs sounds like lots to expect from deficit reduction and business tax cuts, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes enough about jobs to assess his chances for success.

Wisconsin reached a monthly average high of 2,884,400 establishment jobs in 2007, but it had 2,833,800 jobs in 2000. In 2010 the monthly average of statewide employment was down to 2,725,900, an average that is off by 107,900 jobs since 2000. The decline in jobs came as a net decrease of 128,500 private sector jobs and a 20,700 net increase in public sector jobs.

Like most states Wisconsin has a decline in manufacturing jobs. In 1990 it held fifth place for states with 22.8 percent of statewide jobs in manufacturing. It reached first place in 2009 even though manufacturing jobs dropped to 15.7 percent of Wisconsin establishment jobs. Now manufacturing jobs are down 165,300 from the high of 594,700 in the 1990’s.

Wisconsin has the best record of states in limiting manufacturing job losses, yet it still needs 165,300 new jobs to replace jobs lost in manufacturing. That will be difficult because some Wisconsin services have a decade long record of decline. Wholesale and retail trade, utilities, information services that include publishing, broadcasting, phone and Internet, real estate services, and repair-maintenance services show a modest but steady decline in jobs and declining percentage of Wisconsin jobs from 2000 to 2010.

Higher labor productivity limits manufacturing jobs but labor saving computer technologies have limited jobs in service industries like wholesale and retail trade. The use of computers for barcodes, inventory management and Internet sales raise sales per work hour and limits jobs. Digital technologies allow Craigslist to supply free classifieds with a few dozen out of state jobs, while netflix knocks out jobs at video stores. Higher quality for automobiles, appliances and machinery limits the need for repairs and the need for repair jobs.

Wisconsin job losses occurred in 11 industry sectors defined and reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Combined these sectors dropped 8 percent of Wisconsin jobs from 2000 to 2010: 55 to 47 percent. While some jobs in construction or transportation should recover in a stronger economy, jobs already decimated from computer technologies and higher labor productivity and with a decade or more of decline will not recover their previous share of Wisconsin jobs.

Percents must total one hundred which guarantees an 8 percent loss equals an 8 percent gain for other industries. Expect new jobs to come from the limited number of services that had higher growth over the last decade. Health care picked up 73 thousand jobs, which were more new jobs than all other private sectors combined. Health care, government jobs including education combined with private education jobs many at colleges were the big gainers since 2000. These three accounted for over 70 percent of the 8 percentage gains over the last decade. The remainder of replacement jobs came from selected professional and financial services, accommodations, restaurants, personal services like salons and laundries and non-profit membership associations.

The governor’s plan eliminates government as a source of new jobs, but health care also needs government support, which the governor apparently opposes. Tax incentives to generate investment capital are risky for creating state jobs because the funds might leave Wisconsin for investment elsewhere.

People in Wisconsin should ask themselves, “Where will I work in the economy the governor wants to have?” I confess it might be in another state.

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Texas Jobs

In the Time magazine April 4, 2011 issue on page 20 you will find a story “Where the Jobs Are.” There is a U.S. map with a red line pointed to the state of Texas. The caption reads Texas added 211,800 jobs in 2010.

I checked the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Survey file for statewide Texas jobs and found the numbers to compute the increase. As Time reported Texas establishment jobs were up 211.8 thousand for the 12 months ending December 2010.(1)

Citing the 12 month increase when jobs are going up generates a larger number than comparing another commonly cited figure: the monthly average of jobs for the year. Texas reached its highest monthly average of 10.6 million establishment jobs per month in 2008. Jobs declined to 10.3 million in 2009, but the monthly average improved by only 35 thousand in 2010.

Texas jobs from 2000 to 2010 are up by an average monthly increase of 910.4 thousand, a bigger increase than any other state. However, Texas also had the biggest increase in population in the same period, which was up 4.3 million between 2000 and 2010. Despite the new jobs, population growth was four times faster than jobs.

The figure Time magazine cites suggests a better future for Texas jobs, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes 159 data series that give statewide details of Texas jobs by industry sector and sub sector. As the old saw goes the devil is in the details.

Texas had just under a million manufacturing jobs back in 1990, which was 13.3 percent of statewide employment. Only 811 thousand remain, which is now 7.8 percent of Texas jobs. The 5.5 percentage decline means Texas needs faster than average growth in service industry employment to make up for the declining share in manufacturing.

Trouble is higher productivity restricts jobs in services not just manufacturing. Computer technology limits jobs in wholesale and retail trade where the use of computers for barcodes, inventory management and Internet sales raises sales per work hour and limits jobs. Amazon computers put Borders books in bankruptcy as netflix knocks out jobs at video stores.

Craigslist offers free classified advertising with a few dozen out of state jobs while fewer and fewer bother with the Yellow Pages. More enjoy the convenience of on-line banking from their home computer while fewer drive to a bank to exchange paper with a teller. More use continuously updating Internet stock quotations instead of newspapers.

Services like wholesale and retail trade, newspapers, communications and finance including insurance and real estate dropped as a percentage of statewide jobs between 1990 and 2010, which makes them like manufacturing because they have to be replaced by a declining number of other services.

In all, 12 sectors defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics lost 11 percent of Texas jobs from 1990 to 2010. Small share losses in natural resources, accommodations and personal services should recover with a better economy, but jobs lost to productivity gains and computers will not recover their previous share of Texas jobs.

The reality of shifting jobs between service sectors together with the long term decline in manufacturing limits the opportunities for Texas jobs. Percents must total one hundred which guarantees an 11 percent loss equals an 11 percent gain for other industries, but the sectors that gained a percentage of Texas jobs over the last two decades will have to continue to do so if Texas can meet its job requirements.

The biggest share of replacement jobs came in health care. Health care picked up 643 thousand new jobs equal to a 3.6 percent bigger share of statewide jobs. Public and private education jobs are up 485 thousand jobs over the last decade, 1.6 percent of statewide jobs. Texas has to support education and further health care expansion and concentrate on producing its health care needs within its borders to expect to meet the need for new jobs.

Private sector services in selected professional and business support services gained another 3.3 percent of Texas jobs. These include 280 thousand more jobs in careers like accounting, architecture, engineering, computer design, management consulting, and scientific research, but also business support services with 318 thousand new jobs in administrative and facilities services, employment services, temporary help services, telemarketing, security, janitorial maintenance, landscaping and a few more.

Professional services give a chance to bring in spending from outside Texas to support jobs with exported services. For 20 years growth rates nearly double the statewide average helped Texas meet its job needs with professional services. However, professional services are increasingly produced and delivered by computer as part of competition in the high productivity global economy. The reality of competition from other states and other countries makes it risky to expect above average job growth for professional services.

After professional services it was leisure and hospitality jobs including 401 thousand more jobs at restaurants that gained percentage share of Texas jobs. Construction, transportation, and repair services, mostly auto repair, also made small percentage gains.

Like so many other states, Texas jobs are shifting out of high productivity industries in the global economy and into low productivity industries in the local economy. Low productivity is the friend of jobs, but low productivity jobs can be divided into career jobs with generally self supporting salaries in health care and education and lower paid jobs in business support, leisure and hospitality as janitors, waiters, waitresses, maids, cashiers, ushers and ticket takers.

In politics the Democrats promise jobs and fail to deliver, the Republicans promise jobs and fail to deliver, and back and forth. Jobs are a long term problem. I reference 1990 and 2000 to emphasize that point. If Texas politicians want jobs they will need to put away their free enterprise slogans and develop some new policy for the long term. But that is a topic for another article.

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Note(1) All job and employment number citations are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor, Current Employment Survey. No exceptions.

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Ohio Jobs and Governor Kasich

Ohio Governor Kasich has picked a tough policy challenge for himself, but far more with jobs than politics. Ohio ranks second for statewide jobs losses over the last decade. Only Michigan did worse.

Ohio establishment jobs are down a monthly average of 603 thousand in 2010 compared to 2000. The Governor's plan to turn jobs around looks doubtful. In the mean time the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes plenty about Ohio jobs to assess his chance for success. Note (1)

All of Ohio’s 603 thousand job losses came from the private sector. Ohio state and local government including public education is up by 5 thousand jobs, but losses to federal jobs in Ohio offset the gains. Ohio had 785 thousand government jobs in 2010, the same as 2000, even though statewide establishment jobs dropped from 5.6 to 5 million.

Ohio had just over a million manufacturing jobs back in 1990, which was 21.7 percent of statewide employment. Only 624 thousand remain, which is now 12.4 percent of Ohio jobs. The 9.3 percentage decline means Ohio needs faster than average growth in service industry employment to make up for the declining share of manufacturing.

Trouble is higher productivity restricts jobs in services not just manufacturing. Computer technology limits jobs in wholesale and retail trade where using computers for barcodes, inventory management and Internet selling raises sales per work hour and limits jobs. Amazon computers put Borders books in bankruptcy as netflix knocks out jobs at video stores.

Craigslist offers free classified advertising with a few dozen out of state jobs while fewer and fewer bother with the Yellow Pages. More enjoy the convenience of on-line banking from their home computer while fewer do paper transactions with Ohio’s 21 thousand remaining bank tellers. More use continuously updating Internet stock quotations instead of newspapers.

Computer technologies helped decimate trade jobs in Ohio, which declined 144 thousand since 2000. Information services like newspapers and communications and finance including insurance and real estate lost another 56 thousand jobs with them. Worse these services are like manufacturing because they have a declining percentage of Ohio jobs that have to be replaced by a declining number of other services.

In all, eight industry sectors defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics lost 8.6 percent of Ohio jobs from 2000 to 2010. Small share losses in construction, utilities, and transportation should recover with a better economy, but jobs lost to computers will not recover their previous share of Ohio jobs.

The biggest share of replacement jobs came in health care. Health care picked up 134 thousand new jobs equal to a 4 percent bigger share of statewide jobs. Government jobs including education did not increase, but government jobs excluding education picked up 1 percent of Ohio jobs. Even though public education jobs are off slightly, private education more than made up the difference. Public and private education jobs are up 1.1 percent of statewide jobs over the last decade.

A service sector defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to report jobs for offices of holding companies and corporate, subsidiary and regional managing offices added 23 thousand jobs, a .6 percent share increase. Ohio has lost so many jobs there were small percentage gains for utilities, transportation, selected professional services, accommodations, restaurants, and personal services even though all these services lost a few thousand jobs from 2000 to 2010.

Governor Kasich plan cuts spending and jobs in the principal sectors that did well enough to relieve the misery of statewide job losses over the last decade. Free enterprisers like Governor Kasich ignore the shift out of high productivity employment and the necessity of looking for anything leftover. Increasingly what is left are jobs in health care, education, government and a smorgasbord of low productivity services in accommodations, restaurants, business and personal services.

More health care means more jobs. Ohio desperately needs to keep its manufacturing jobs, but Governor Kasich and the Washington establishment ignore jobs moving abroad in search of cheap labor. Ohio has many jobs left to lose. Gains will be harder, especially with Governor Kasich on the attack.

Note (1) All job and employment number citations are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor, Current Employment Survey. No exceptions.

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There is Power in a Union

There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America, Philip Dray, (NY: Double Day, 2010), 674 pages, $35.00

There is Power in a Union has the narrative history of America’s labor movement from its early beginnings in Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1820’s until 2010. It is a survey, but at 674 pages it is a thorough survey with room for details.

At Lowell, young women from the surrounding farms manned the looms in the textile mills for $2.25 to $4.00 a week. Many lived in boarding houses as the mills expanded and Lowell grew to 18,000 people by the mid 1830’s, but the young women grew restive working 12 and 14 hour days in the dusty, noisy mills. When management ordered a wage cut after a bad year, the women staged a defiant and unified strike; 800 walked out of the mill at once.

The women lost their strike. Management had a big inventory, but it was the beginning of a more expansive effort to organize labor. As industrial production developed labor organizing developed with it. The Lowell Female Labor Reform Association was part of a broader effort to set a 10 hour work day throughout New England factories.

Organizing trades was common in the early years with many of the early labor unions evolving from the discontented in the laboring ranks. Organizers built a following honing their speaking skills preaching a philosophy of personal rights and fair play.

Readers feel the growing violence and mayhem in the era after the Civil War and especially following the 1873 depression as labor relations soured badly when the Erie Railroad failed to meet payroll in March 1874, claiming financial setbacks. Worse came in July 1877 when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad announced a second wage cut in a year. Oddly the rail workers were not organized but left work anyway. Management brought in scabs, then the police, then the militia, but the violence escalated and spread to other cities and to organized labor in a national labor revolt. One sage from the period was quoted: “The rapidly spreading railroad strike was difficult for authority for the simple reason that it was unorganized.”

Unions primarily sought higher wages and shorter hours in the years before the civil war, but that changed after 1873. Many lost faith in the political system as government and the courts entered labor disputes on the side of business. Courts ruled that labor unions were illegal conspiracies and jailed and executed organizers. Government sent the army along with plenty of ammunition.

Readers learn the background and personal qualities of the socialist and anarchist philosophers of the era who wrote for hundreds of socialist and anarchist daily and weekly newspapers. Outspoken writers like Albert Parsons, August Spies, Johann Most, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman and Eugene Debs contrast with the more conservative Terence Powderly, or the more goal oriented and practicable Samuel Gompers, or the dedicated and determined Mother Jones, and Jacob Coxey.

Dray follows a general chronology which at times feels like an account of one strike after another. The tide of strikes and shutdowns in 1877 was followed with accounts of the McCormick Reaper strike and Haymarket Square bombing in Chicago, the Homestead strike in Pittsburgh and the Pullman Palace Car strike in Chicago; all that by 1894.

Narrative in these chapters highlights the varied and chaotic nature of labor protest and the organizing of new unions from the late nineteenth century well into the twentieth. Strikes by unions were everywhere in everything: mining, manufacturing, transportation, government services. Out west Bill Hayward organized the Western Federation of Miners in 1893 after a failed copper strike. In the east, Eugene Debs organized the American Railway Union while Samuel Gompers organized the American Federation of Labor as an amalgamated craft union. A coalition of groups, east and west, organized the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905 as an industrial union open to all.

Organizing inevitably translated into action. Dray narrates the peculiar details of the United Mineworkers strike of 1902, the International Ladies Garment Workers strike of 1909, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, the Lawrence Massachusetts “Bread and Roses” strike of 1912, the Patterson New Jersey Silk strike of 1913, the awful events in Ludlow Colorado during the strike against John D. Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in 1913, and two Arizona Copper strikes and violence in 1917. The year 1919 was another bad year with a general strike in Seattle, the Boston Police strike and strikes in the steel and coal industries.

The election of Franklin Roosevelt brought moderation from government as well as an advocate in Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins, who announced that the Department of Labor should be the Department FOR labor. Labor leaders like John L. Lewis and Sidney Hillman got a chance to influence new labor policy and legislation as insiders: the Norris LaGuardia Act, the National Labor Relations Act.

Labor got new rights and respect and Dray covers the depression era’s legal and political events with expanded detail, but the labor protest continued. Strikes in Toledo at Electric Autolite by the American Federation of Labor, in San Francisco by the International Longshoreman, in North Carolina by the United Textile Workers, in Minneapolis by the Teamsters turned 1934 into days of rage and violence. The renowned GM sit-down strikes in Flint Michigan, the Ford strike where company toughs beat up Walter Reuther at the “Battle of the Overpass” and the violent and deadly Republic Steel strike came in 1937.

The World War II years turned out to be an interlude which Dray covers in a few pages, but the post war labor movement started changing immediately after the war. An industry steel strike, miner’s strike and railroad strike soured public opinion and gave business the opportunity to get Congress to pass limitations to organized labor in the Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, events covered in detail.

Much of the 1950’s labor news was the McClellan Committee hearings of corruption and misuse of union funds by labor leaders. Robert Kennedy made a name for himself questioning the Teamsters Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa. Labor proved defiant but Congress passed the Landrum-Griffin Act with more restrictions on labor.

Business opposition to organized labor remained the same, but organized labor divided in search of a new identity and a broader social justice. Dray captures the frenetic pace and the internal division of what was inevitably a varied and messy process. Internal battles developed as more people recognized the connection between civil rights, social justice, the Vietnam War and the labor movement. Martin Luther King was one of those people and Dray covers his efforts on behalf of labor including the Memphis sanitation strike. The Vietnam War split organized labor and there is extensive narrative describing these divisions. The principal labor antagonists were Walter Reuther and George Meany, although there were others. Walter Reuther comes off as the more reflective, thoughtful and effective representative of labor interests. Readers feel the end of an era with his loss in a plane crash.

Remaining narrative in these late chapters includes discussion of automation, health and safety issues, the history and background of farm labor and the rise of Cesar Chavez, the Karen Silkwood episode, the Patco strike and Clinton era disputes at Hormel, Caterpillar, United Parcel Service and Russell Athletic wear.

There is Power in a Union is an American book with virtually nothing about foreign labor movements. It reads easily and it is extremely well documented with a lengthy bibliography and thousands of text citations. It was possible to find some of the obscure citations on Internet media services from 19th century newspapers like the New York Times in 1874 and 1877. It was new to me to read entire articles of America’s yellow journalism.

As I finished reading I realized an advantage to a history that combines the separate elements of working America in a unified narrative. It is possible and probably common to know the labor movement in separate details as labor law, human resources, labor economics, labor organizing or specific historical events. In Dray’s narrative there was room to address many details, sometimes in twenty or thirty pages, but events in time move along in a chronology that helps reveal common and long lived threads running through America’s labor movement and American culture.

The accounts of a steady stream of strikes reveals a long and continuous managerial class refusing to bargain or respect strikers who were fired and replaced with scabs. Angry strikers picketed plant sites and blocked gates followed by violent clashes between strikers and requested police, militia or federal troops and attacks from a hostile press. It was a scenario repeated over and over with one class of people lined up against another. It is calmer and less violent now, but is it different? I doubt it, but do some reading and decide for yourself.

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Boehner vs. Bush on Jobs

Back on August 11, 2005 the Associated Press ran a story reporting President Bush’s comments on a transportation-spending bill. “President Bush calls the massive $286.4 billion transportation spending bill he signed into law Wednesday a job creator.” The article goes on to describe the bill that pays for 6,000 favored projects in the districts of nearly every member of Congress. Even though the legislation is $30 billion more than the President recommended he is quoted as “proud to sign it.”

Where is George Bush when we need him? Instead we look at the grim-face of glum and gloomy John Boehner. The Washington Post wrote “House speaker John Boehner dismissed concerns Tuesday about the potential for federal job cuts, saying he thinks the government can’t afford to keep so many workers.” Boehner was quoted when he said “Over the last two years since President Obama has taken office, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal government jobs. And if some those jobs are lost in this, so be it.”

Actually the Federal government excluding the Post Office has 140,800 more jobs since January 2009 as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which does not offset the losses to jobs in state and local government. State jobs excluding education are down 82.6 thousand from their high in August 2008. Local jobs excluding education are down 203 thousand from their high in July 2009. State and local education jobs reached a high in September 2008, but they are also down by 145 thousand jobs as of December 2010.

Government including education at the state, local and federal level has 22.2 million jobs as of December 2010, which is 17 percent of total establishment employment. Government employment undercounts jobs that are the result of government taxing and spending such as employment in the highway, street and bridge construction industry. These jobs are on private payrolls even though their jobs are really the result of government spending. The terms government contractor, outsourcing and privatization all connote private businesses, but they are private businesses doing government funded and government sponsored work. Government employment added to government sponsored employment is more than a mere 22.2 million: much more.

Private sector jobs dropped 653 thousand during the eight years George Bush was in office from January 2001 to January 2009, which was also a 1.2 percent drop in the percentage share of private sector jobs. Yet the record shows Republican George Bush understood the connection between spending and jobs even as he pursued policies favored by business.

Now Republican Boehner blithely promotes government spending and job cuts with a glib put down, “So be it.” If government jobs are allowed to decline, private sector jobs will decline with them. If Mr. Boehner doubts that he should talk with George Bush.

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Obama’s Failure on Jobs

President-elect Obama set a goal to create 2.5 million jobs in the first two years of his administration, which he revised upward to 3 million in the early months after taking office. When he made his pledge in December 2008 the seasonally adjusted monthly average for jobs was already down 3.6 million from December 2007. By December 2010 jobs were down another 4.1 million to 130.2 million. (1)

The loss of 7.7 million jobs underestimates America’s job needs because the adult civilian population keeps growing. At current population growth America needs 1.7 million new jobs a year to keep up with the increase of the working age population. Like “Alice through the looking glass” America needs all the jobs it can get just to stay in place. Yet the December 2010 job totals are 303 thousand below December 1999. More than a decade of job growth, gone.

Like many democrats President Obama maintains a genial and sympathetic tone toward labor while taking the labor vote for granted and defending poor job news. On January 7th he applauded 103 thousand more jobs reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but failed to mention that 24.5 thousand of the new jobs came at restaurants, along with another 16.1 thousand more jobs at establishments doing amusements, gambling and recreation and 15.9 thousand more jobs in temporary help services.

President Obama and too many others continue to act as though Americans can spend their way into full employment. That policy started with Franklin Roosevelt and continues today. When jobs lag behind we hear proposals for a tax break or two, and the great cry sounds to “get some training” but spending into jobs remains the primary policy.

The president’s plans for more jobs will fail because working Americans no longer earn enough on the job to spend our way to higher employment. To keep ourselves employed we must have steadily rising spending in areas where labor productivity is not growing too fast. America cannot rely on new spending in agriculture, mining, and manufacturing to create jobs since the relentless tide of productivity growth keeps restricting these jobs to a smaller percentage of America’s establishment employment.

Gains in labor productivity in service industries in the 1990’s were enough that jobs in information services like newspapers, broadcasting, phone and the Internet started dropping after 2000, along with other service industry jobs limited by productivity gains. Computer technology increases labor productivity in trade with barcodes, inventory management and Internet sales. Retail and wholesale sales volumes per work hour are up and sometimes at rates comparable to productivity in manufacturing. The expanded use of computers and digital technologies in financial services like banking, lending and insurance limits job growth as Americans slowly shift to a paperless economy and computers replace driving to the bank to exchange paper with a teller.

Jobs in just four sectors of manufacturing, trade, information services and finance have a twenty year record of lower than average growth that guarantees a gradually declining share of America’s jobs. Combined these sectors had 40 percent of establishment employment in 1990, which means they needed 12.1 million more jobs just to maintain 40 percent of jobs in 2010. Instead these jobs declined to just under 4 million to 30.6 percent of establishment jobs, assuring that 16.1 million jobs shifted to other sectors.

As the economy changes a limited number of service sectors have to absorb an ever bigger share of America’s jobs. Health care including social services, primary, secondary and post-secondary education and professional services were the three big gainers from 1990 to 2010. Professional services have jobs in law firms, accounting, architecture, engineering, computer design, management consulting, scientific research, advertising, and veterinary services.

These three sectors have more than two-thirds of percentage job gains from 1990 to 2010. Otherwise it is restaurants, amusements, gambling and recreation, along with temporary help services mentioned above and a few more office and business support services that became replacement jobs for the sectors decimated by higher labor productivity and computer technologies.

The need for more health care, education and professional service jobs to meet America’s job requirements strains our politics and creates ominous signs for the future. Health care relies substantially on government support and funding from taxes, which are taxes and funding many in Congress clamor to cut.

Education relies on local property taxes to fund slightly over 8 million public school jobs, and state funding goes for 2.4 million more education jobs, many at state colleges. Falling home prices and foreclosures threaten local school finance. State budgets are in deficit, which further threatens education jobs. Local public school jobs reached a seasonally adjusted high in September 2008, but lag 160 thousand below their high as of December 2010. Jobs in neighborhood schools are spread out geographically and help maintain a core of jobs in many communities. If these jobs are allowed to decline, other jobs will decline with them.

Professional services reached their highest employment in April 2008, but these jobs remain 363 thousand below their 2008 high. For twenty years these jobs acted as a vital source of career employment for people with college degree skills. Professional jobs are up almost 3 million from 1990 and another 900 thousand since 2000, but there are ominous signs for the future.

Architecture, engineering and related services, computer systems design and related services and management and technical consulting services are the three biggest professional service sub sectors with nearly 50 percent of 2010 jobs, but it is computer based work no longer constrained by borders. More and more of it is moving abroad.

Since 2000 private sector employment is down 2.2 million, a decrease of 1.36 percent of establishment jobs. Government jobs at the local, state and federal level including education are up 1.7 million with a corresponding 1.36 percent increase in the government share. The shift to government occurred even though jobs in health care, private schools and professional services gained in percentage share of America’s jobs from 2000 to 2010. The private sector has not delivered jobs.

In our politics the Democrats promise jobs and fail to deliver, the Republicans promise jobs and fail to deliver, and back and forth. They will continue to fail if they treat jobs as a short term recessionary problem. Jobs are a long term problem. I deliberately reference 1990 and 2010 to emphasize that point. It is time for Americans to accept their long term employment problems and discuss long term solutions.


Note(1) All job and employment number citations are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor, Current Employment Survey. No exceptions.

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A Presidency in Peril

Robert Kuttner, A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama’s Promise, Wall Streets’s Power, and the Struggle to Control our Economic Future, (White River Junction, VT, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010), 274 pages, $25.00

In his second book on the Obama presidency, Robert Kuttner contrasts what President Obama promised in his campaign with what he is delivering as president. He promised a progressive program of change from his predecessor: George Bush. By 2010, the Obama promises started looking like more of the same.

The book opens with a short declaration: Barak Obama is at risk of being a failed president. Kuttner delves briefly into the Obama personality before going on in journalistic fashion to explain how and where he deserted his campaign promises and stopped doing what he said he would do in his campaign.

Following the introduction, the next five chapters take the reader through the issues and policies of Obama the campaigner compared to Obama the President. First, in the Politics of Capture, Kuttner contrasts the campaign and the campaigners with the group that took over after the election. The careers and experience of those that took control had a record of policies and positions from previous work on Wall Street or in previous administrations. The record left by Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Rahm Emanuel and a few others lets Kuttner differentiate the influence of the new people from the progressive speeches of the campaign.

Chapter two titled Continuity and Collusion sketches the fateful choices and feeble policies toward the mortgage mess, bank failures and the timid recession stimulus plan. The discussion emphasizes the similarities of the Bush policies with the Obama policies. Even though Kuttner evaluates the Bush-Obama policies in historical perspective and makes alternative policy suggestions chapter two and the three chapters that follow become a well documented issue oriented narrative of disappointment in Obama, the President and politician.

When Kuttner narrates the reform efforts of former Federal Reserve chair Paul Volker to restore the Glass-Steagall banking act, Obama voters feel what they voted to change slipping away. When Kuttner recounts the reform efforts of Elisabeth Warren to create a new consumer financial protection agency, and describes the tepid efforts to control financial derivatives, Obama voters feel disappointed as the Obama administration abandons reform for the status quo.

In crony capitalism we meet the insiders from Citi bank and Goldman Sachs and the double standard of negotiations and policies between financial bailouts and the bailout of the auto industry. By now readers realize Kuttner was taking daily notes and doing regular interviews as he followed the path of the Obama administration during its first year. Readers get details of policy discussions between Obama insiders and their differences with dissenters in Congress, the independent agencies and the administration.

Chapter six, titled Political Malpractice, returns to the theme of a presidency in peril. It starts with a reminder that a Republican, Scott Brown, easily beat a Democrat, Martha Coakley, in the Massachusetts special election to fill Senator Kennedy’s senate seat. In a famously democratic state the Republican won by 57 to 37 percent as disgusted voters switched parties. Kuttner cites other polls, commentary and events to reinforce the mood of the voters and their growing refusal to accept the President’s apparent identification with narrow financial interests or his refusal to fight for the changes he supported before the election.

The final chapter begins by comparing Obama in the first year with other Democrats, especially Bill Clinton and Harry Truman. The feisty and blunt talking Truman abandoned private negotiation for public confrontation: highlighting differences between the parties in the process. The Harry Truman review stands out in stark contrast to Obama with his bland explanations of behind the scenes dealing.

Kuttner digresses with fiscal, tax and global economic policy suggestions that deliver more for working people, before returning to Obama the organizer and the need for a social movement. In a section, It takes a Movement, he remembers the “stunning capacity to inspire Americans after decades of dashed hopes and failed politicians,” but then admits Obama the organizer is dead, or transformed into an organization man who wants to be accepted by the group he needs to confront.

It is clearly hard for Kuttner to accept his own words because he takes nearly nine pages to describe the historical trials and tribulations that go with organizing effective social movements and the part presidents might play in them. When he writes “Interacting with a President who has been a source of both great hope and disappointment is a tricky affair,” he expresses the same frustration there was with President Clinton and President Carter. Their label was Democrat but they failed to lead social movements or stand up for working people and Democratic causes.

Kuttner ends with a note of optimism that the economy is weak enough, the Republicans empty enough and President Obama practical enough to bring change for a larger social and national interest. Maybe, but Kuttner does a better job showing that the disappointed are a large enough group to elect a Harry Truman candidate who will think big. Who that might be is a good question. I have to confess that reading A Presidency in Peril makes me doubt it is Barak Obama.

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