Understanding Government

Another month,another grim unemployment report by the Labor Department. The U.S. economy shed 263,000 jobs in September bringing the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent (The unemployment rate is now 15.4 percent among African Americans). In December 2007, the number of unemployed was 7.5 million — it’s now 15.1 million. And the unemployment rate doesn’t take into account the under-employed or people who have quit looking for a job.

One stat that jumps out is that 53,000 government jobs were lost in September. That civil servants are losing jobs shows that, despite howls of socialism, Obama and Congress are hands-off about certain elements of the recession. Unlike a manufacturing or retail job, it’s not like there is no longer the consumer demand for a police officer or school teacher. Most of these layoffs are likely the result of state fiscal crises — besides the stimulus bill, Washington has not provided emergency stabilization money to states, that, unlike the federal government, must balance their budget each year. Simply providing the money to preserve state and local government jobs confronts unemployment more directly than sophisticated infrastructure projects or zero interest lending to Wall Street firms