The new monthly jobs report wasn't quite as strong as some had hoped, but it wasn't necessarily awful news, either. As Matt Yglesias noted, "[M]ake no mistake -- this economy is growing and has been growing steadily for months. It's not booming and it's not undoing the damage of the prolonged labor market weakspot, but it's definitely growing and the situation is definitely improving."
I think that's right, but I also wonder whether Congress will screw it up.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said something the other day that stuck with me: "Something has gone terribly wrong, when the biggest threat to our American economy is the American Congress."
That's profoundly true. Americans elect officials to serve and advance their interests, not act against those interests, and yet, arguably the single greatest threat to a more robust economic recovery in 2013 is posed by congressional Republicans.
Last week, before the fiscal agreement was crafted and approved, Neil Irwin reported:
The pieces are in place for 2013 to be a year of solid economic gains. But the big, dark cloud on the horizon is located right in the middle of the District of Columbia. Look for the building with the giant dome.
It is not simply that the federal government could mess up what should, by all rights, be a good year. It is that there are so many different ways that government policy could mess things up, a long menu of options for how things could go awry in Washington, with gloomy consequences across the United States. As economists at Goldman Sachs put it in their title to a research note last week, the story of the United States in 2013 is one of "Economics vs. Politics" -- and the open question is: Which one will prevail, the improving economic fundamentals or the rapidly deteriorating political fundamentals?
For what it's worth, Irwin pointed to three specific steps Congress could take to screw things up, and one of them -- the Dec. 31 deadlines popularly known as the "fiscal cliff" -- has already passed. The other two threats -- debt-ceiling "hijinks" and "too much austerity" -- remain in place.
Taken together, there's reason for some economic optimism in 2013, just so long as the congressional Republicans voters put in office don't deliberately make things worse.
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The problem is that we're not really growing. This is basically fake growth, in the same way that we had fake growth during much of the Bush administration. Real growth is backed by real income, not increases in debt. The economy is barely growing simply because the Fed has lowered interest rates to nothing.
This has been the Democrats' and Obama's biggest problem. Obama fails to see the necessity for stimulating demand directly. While you can increase aggregate demand via gov't spending, it's problematic because it is blocked by Republicans, and because it adds to the deficit, at least in the short term.
A better way, I think, to stimulate demand is to do it directly. Raise the freaking minimum wage, already! The minimum wage should be about $12.00 now. This would provide a direct stimulus to our economy immediately, and would cost the tax payer nothing.
In the late 60's/early 70's we were raising the minimum wage every year. By the time the value of the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, reached it's peak at about $11 an hour, unemployment went all the way down to 2.7%. This was the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.
Republican Reps would block that, too, citing a business owner's right to pay what they decide, not to have the courts decide. That was the reason behind voting against the Equal Pay bill, so that Congress could not dictate what an employer pays women vs men. "Free Enterprise" will always do the right thing in the eyes of the Republicans.
Missy, I agree that Republicans would block it, but it would be nice if Democrats even lifted a finger to fight for it. They haven't in years.
Uh Missy and Alva, the War on Women was a stupid campaign ruse aimed at stupid people by the Obama campaign. Looks like it worked. Employers pay employees what is fair and commensurate with ability and their productiveness. Ask Condoleeza Rice or any number of successful Republican women if Republicans are unfair. Looks like you're projecting again.
Demand-side Keynesian policy is just as wrong as supply-side Keynesian policy......There is NO policy that the Rs or Ds can do that involves spending, cutting, creating or industrial policy that will do anything positive to our economy EXCEPT in the very narrow short term (like 6 months or less). As the government, at all levels grows, the economy slows down and unemployment goes up (or more correctly labor participation goes down) due to making people and business expensive to employ/risk. As the that same government grows it not only needs more revenue....it like any bureaucracy employ regulations and laws to increase it scope (power). We have/will crest the 40% GDP mark (for government) and it looks like that not enough for Ds. It will only get worse. After 8 years of Barry, you will see all metrics of economic well being down (poverty, food stamps, income, inequality up.....). Of course the idiot Mr B will say it is Bush's fault et al of the previous 30 years. A law that requires every Ds to take basic and intermediate macro/micro before they are allowed to vote or speek is what we need. The utter stupidity is shocking for people who claim the intellectual mantra. At least I know that the Rs are just corrupt....you all are a whole different ballgame...and vastly more dangerous.
Countless economic studies have shown that raising the minimum wage is actually harmful to the most vulnerable segments of our society, low earners. It reduces, stalls, or sends negative hiring trends for low wage jobs.
Moreover, a relatively small portion of our society earns minimum wage. Only 5.2% of the total population earns that much, and of that portion something like a third are in jobs where that pay rate is in addition to tips, which aren't figured into their hourly earnings.
California already has a minimum wage in excess of the Federal Minimum Wage. Yet as a single state, our economy is in worse shape than any other in the entire union. Great lot of good that extra bit of minimum wage did here.
100% correct. GROWTH IS DEAD. It's not a head fake, it's a PRICE FAKE.
there are only 3 aspects of real growth; LAND, PEOPLE, PRODUCTS of life support and minimal comfort. Beyond that it is all PRICE JACKING and fraud - the purpose of which is to keep ownership VALUATIONS high since the cash flow no longer supports the prices - thus the fed quantitaive easing and interest rate reductions.
to commit valuation fraud in a dead growth economy (aka growth fraud) you need to print "credit" (aka consumer debt) in order to maintain high prices and then issue currency to pay circulate cash to permit foolish consumers to make debt payments. IT'S A SCAM PEOPLE!!
We will not survive this!.... without a PLAN B!
Raising the minimum wage will not help. Small business like myself will just let people go if I cannot afford it.
so, raising the minimum wage is the last thing we need. If you think not, then lets raise it to $15.00 an hour. See how that works, more fair right?
Anyway. So wish we had a Mitt Romney, true job creator in the WH...
Thanks for your comment. It is a basic economic fact that someone will only be employed if they produce more value for their employer than the total cost of their employment. If a company has too many employees who don't meet that basic criteria it will soon go out of business. Raising the minimum wage doesn't make low skilled employees more valuable, it just makes them more costly, thus less employable.
Except increasing the minimum wage has ALWAYS cost the economy jobs. Google it up.
But the whole structure of our Government is that people elect representatives who will, hopefully, represent their constituents' interests in the hope of being re-elected. The key points are:
There was a very great deal of money made from the financial collapse and recovery so far, even though the net effect on our economy was enormously negative. Where there's that much money to be made, there's a serious incentive to engineer a repeat performance.
True, DC. Our representatives have ceased to represent us. I thought Mike Gravel had a lot of loony ideas, especially on economics, but I rather liked his National Initiative idea, for this reason: It would help bypass this problem of wide spread bribery on Capitol Hill.
Alva, you don't want a National Initiative process. Trust me. I'm a resident of California, and we have a state initiative process. It has caused us huge spending problems in this state.
Perhaps we need to back up a bit and take another look at legislation aimed at Citizen's United. If Congress can regulate how much money - both named donors and "dark money" donor - can contribute to a campaign, maybe those gerrymandered Reps would have to think twice about actually getting work done that gets them re-elected, rather than just assuming a deep pocket will help them win districts that are already heavily poplulated with party voters. I truly feel this whole mess started when SCOTUS ruled corporations are voices and can contribute endless cash to selected campaigns.
The premise of Citizens United was that Congress cannot prohibit people from doing collectively what the Constitution guarantees them the right to do individually.
All well and good if the corporation in question isn't a foreign entity. So Congress could at least give a try at restricting the unlimited advertising to (exclusively?) United States owned corporations.
Not good enough. The whole concept that corporations are people is sick and perverted. If I kill someone, I'm going to prison, maybe even be executed. But if BP kills 11 people on an oil rig in the Gulf due to their wrongdoing, no one pays. Sure, they get fines, etc., but there is no jail time, no death penalty. The corporation is not a person---it is better, it is a SUPERPERSON, with more privileges and rights than an individual, and none of the responsibilty. NO corporation should be allowed to donate to political campaigns! The people who work for the corporation can and do already contribute, so why should corporations get to pile on top? Personally, I would love campaigns for national office to be totally funded by the government, with strict limits as to how much can be spent at each level. Money has totally corrupted the system, from elections bought by billionaires, to legislation written by corporations that are passed by their purchased legislators, to cushy lobbyist jobs that await politicians once they have served their corporate masters and are ready to leave office and cash in.
Fact: Obama has a credit card with no limit. He has us in such a mess our own grandkids will get he bill! To me this is unacceptable! Obama is not a leader, he is a failure.
But unions did NOT have the same restriction. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
What a load of BS!! Unemployment at 7.8% or higher for over 4 years, the debt is spiraling out of control, Dems in congress and Obama talk about cuts to spending but then never do it.
When our credit rating drops (because the credit rating banks know that Dems aren't doing anything about our 16.7 trillion dollar debt) then it will cost more to borrow money. Do any of you know how much we borrow for every dollar we spend? Just trying to see if any of the low information voters know anything about the reality of fiscal matters today?
Jack. Brilliant! yes, Barack Hussein Obama has no plans to cut any spending. :) He won, elections have consequences, some dire, like now.
I hope this is a fast 4 years so we can get this man out of office.
I wish it would be fast, too, but it will be as slow as the last four miserable years have been. Maybe even slower.
What a complete crock of garbage. We've had pitiful GDP growth now for years and its been propped up by borrowing and spending. The biggest single threat that WILL undo our country is out of control spending and the inability to pay back borrowing and interest. Higher taxes and over spending has destroyed california, illinois - its driving population out of Maryland and New York - it's collapsed European economies. If all anyone needed to do was print money, take money and spend money to grow an economy - then ANY nation could be an economic powerhouse you empty-headed morons.
We are now on a path where America WILL have a severe, severe crisis. When all is said and done liberals and Obama will be held accountable by history and facts.
Crisis, then the King can come to the rescue (Obama), and he will maybe get that third term. sigh..
I'm really struggling with this headline... and with the commentary I read here. The Reuters piece on today's job news makes sense as it begins: "U.S. employers kept their pace of hiring steady in December, falling short of the levels needed to bring down a still lofty unemployment rate and pointing to lackluster economic growth in 2013." We are in big trouble, kids, and until there is some genuine leadership in DC it will just get worse. The "fiscal cliff" solution is a joke. The CBO says it adds $4 Trillion to the debt in the next decade. How dare the Senate include pork provisions in such a thing! The President lieads the public into thinking taxing the richies actually has a positive effect. The House whimpers and goes along. We need some grownups to cut up the credit cards, actually create and comply with the (legally mandated) budget process, and put a halt to the breathtaking spending spree. It reminds me of the time I fell asleep at the wheel on a freeway in LA... 75 mph, left lane. Rumble strips brought me to my senses just in time to swerve away from the Jersey barrier. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! ...and please stop trying to put lipstick on this pig!
On track to get us back to where we were in 2008 by . . . .wait for it. . .2025.
That's got to be the worst economic recovery from recession on record. If the labor-force participation rate was now the same as it was when Obama first took office, we'd be looking at a current unemployment rate of 10.4%. . . .in other words, worse than at the height of the recession.
Trust MSNBC to report stagnation as progress.
And you can thank 2 unpaid for wars, 2 massive tax cuts, and an unpaid drug benefit for the disaster we are living through now, all courtesy of a repub president and repub senate and house. Shame on dems for not fixing this immediately, right? As I recall, Hitler turned Germany into smoking ruins, and it wasn't fixed overnight either.
If you have a problem with the war you can thank BILL CLINTON for not taking out Bin Laden when he had the chance. As for the financial mess that collapsed our economy - Bush warned congress starting in 2001 that the housing / mortgage industry was going to collapse - after decades of DEMOCRATS AND LIBERALS forcing banks to lend more money and lower their lending standards (community reinvestment act) - REPUBLICANS in congress tried to institute regulation to reign in lending and it was voted down by party line - DEMOCRATS opposed it - as Barney Frank told everyone Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are fine and should lend more - at same time the BIGGEST recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pac money were DEMOCRATS and then senator OBAMA was #1 recipient. Go ahead and google "Barney Frank Fannie Mae Youtube" and watch CSpan clips. You're simply too ignorant of facts to offer an opinion. Go read the New York Times some more.
Uffdaguy: obama extended 99% of the bush tax cust , so you may want to start screaming at him for unfunded X .
Also Obama spends more in one year on means tested welfare (1 TRILLION) ... than the entire Iraq war....
Labor participation rate was 66.2% when Obama took office. It's now down to 63.7%. In other words, 6,000,000 fewer Americans are working now than when Obama took office and a pluarality voted for four more years of this??
Uffdaguy is typical of the "free Obamaphone" mentality that gave us this guy again? They'll still be blaming Bush four years from now.
Obama's top second term priorities were stated as Afganistan, immigration, gun control, climate control and education.
Not even a mention of economic growth or jobs. We need the GOP to constantly remind Obama that there are 24 million people struggling with employment and millions more like me, who hae just given up looking.
Without the GOP to remind him, he seems to forget since he has a job.
As an African American, I'm sorry we helped do this to America!
Yeah we are on our way to recovery .. if it was 1983..
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
We have the lowest labor force in 30 years.... did aliens abduct several million working adults and no one notice?
Sean Cash. As usual you are right on. Open borders, illegals getting our jobs, Obama giving our money to his cronies, raising the minimum wage, giving money to enemy countries. No wonder our finances are exploding.
The economy is idling at best, with sputters and stalls.
Benen is an Obama boot licking idiot.
Not even idling. I believe unemployment is way more than 7.8... way more. Look at black youth unemployment?
We should have had Romney/Ryan. I believe small business would be growing even now.
We have a small business. Had 10 guys working for us in 2012, now we have ZERO. Thanks Obama.
The amount of crap masquerading as economic judgement is astounding! What in the world has been done by the administration to improve the corporate income statement? Have they cut the cost of healthcare? NO. Have they cut the cost of regulation? NO. Have they made it easier to start a business? NO. Have they made credit more available for small business? NO.
Economic growth boils down to the income statement. If they don't do something that directly impacts corporate profits in a positive way the economy will continue falter. You can wish for it to be another way all you want but business won't improve unless the environment for business improves.
From the beginning of this administration I have said that they should fire all their economic advisers and hire a couple accountants from a major accounting firm! It still appears to be true.
I find it most intriguing that on the MSNBC page, there is essentially not one person defending this corrupt column. Finally, the fiscal cliff nonsense may have made a few more people wake up and see just what is being done to us. This president and this congress are not improving anything, are using clever fiscal tricks to make things look much better than they are -and fools like Benen are applauding enemic growth, soaring debt, and do-nothing legislators and president who are congratulating themselves for barely averting a self-imposed crisis by making Bush's policies permanent for most people. No wonder these corrupt clowns sat on this until after they were safely re-elected to "act." Next up, the next phony crisis - the debt ceiling which Mr. Obama insists must be eliminated for him to do his good work. Our situation is dire, people. The more we cheerlead based on party allegiance, the more entrenched these fools become. Sadly, I forsee a collapse and an uprising in our future. I fear for my children's future which is being sold cheap for goodies today. Shame on us all for not seeing through this a long time ago.
"I foresee a collapse and an uprising..." - I agree 110% - this administration AND the liberal media has pitted Americans against one another, they've worked in complete collaboration to dismantle the principles that built this great Nation. In the end they WILL lose - throughout history this kind of diseased lust for power has caused more suffering than anything else - but it ALWAYS fails. WE MUST hold those responsible accountable - not just the Democrats and Obama, not just the far-left anti-American groups or the crony capitalists but the lapdog media as well.
You've been telling us "the economic recovery is on track" for four years. I say "you" because MSNBC is nothing but a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration. You're not fooling anybody, including most of the people who voted for Obama in November.
The sad fact is that Obama was re-elected because the Democrats have divided the country by race and income so thoroughly that people voted on that basis, regardless of the fact that Democrat policies have been a total failure. Nobody voted for Obama because they think he's doing a great job. They voted for him because of the color of his skin, and because the Democrats have convinced them that the Republicans are a party only for "rich white people". Hatred for the rich and hatred for white people, promoted and inflamed by the Democratic Party and their propagandists in the media, is what decided the election.
And so we are condemned to a lost decade under the economic tyranny of the left, which does not care one bit if people are suffering, as long as the suffering is shared equally. Economic growth and prosperity are irrelevant to the left, and in fact they are seen as bad things because they "destroy the planet".
Playing Pravda and/or "Baghdad Bob" and repeating "the economy is improving" like a mantra doesn't fly when people are living the truth every day.
What are you smokin' Steve B? Our economy stinks! Its dismal! Stop the worship of Mr. O please. He is doing a lousy job playing leader. He plays golf better than president.
I so wish we had hired a real job creator, Mitt Romney... The economy would be booming already. Instead.. look at the unemployment for young blacks.... dismal.
Why would it not be the President who screws up the economy by refusing to address the debt issue? I mean, he's the leader of the country... right? No?
I'm not sure what kind of accounting or economics Mr. Benen has been taught but it is rather simple. If you take in 2 dollars and spend 3, you go broke. We have revenue of 2.6 trillion, the president wants to spend 3.8 trillion, that is 1.2 trillion of new debt. If you confiscate all the earnings over 250,000 that debt would be about 1 trillion. That is a tax increase to take all money over 250 k. So no amount of tax increase will counter spending more than the revenue you take in. Mr. Benen will never discuss this because he is a publicist for the democrat party. It is not the policy of the president. It is the only way to destroy our country and he is doing it with help from the senate. The senate is going into the 5th year without passing a budget. How does the publicist Benen explain 5 years without a budget in a democrat party controlled senate? He doesn't. He simply doesn't acknowledge it or speak about it because if he refuses to, he pushes his party line which is the only thing he is interested in doing. He doesn't need truth as a publicist for the democrat party.
Mim.wage hurts the poor, and those that are just entering the market. If we want to the economy to take off, we should increase take home pay! Repeal the FICA taxes, that would give the worker 7% more pay, and it would give the employer 7% more profits. Replace the FICA tax with a FAIR tax on all goods purchased in the US. This would increase employment in our national companies, and it would make goods produced in the USA cheaper, it would make foreign goods more expensive. This would help reduce our balance of payments. At the same time, make Social Security and old age insurance program, where if you have after tax income over $100,000 you do not get Social Security, because you don't need it. This would increase employment quickly.
If you want a recovery, we must repeal all FICA taxes on payroll. This would give the working person 7% more take home pay, while giving the US employer 7% more profits. To make up the lost in revenue, we should tax all goods sold in the USA with a FAIR TAX, this would make USA produces goods cheaper, and foreign goods a bit more expensive. It would increase the employment. We should also make Social Security an old age insurance plan, where if you are over 65 and have after tax income of less than $100,000 you get a Social Security check, if you earn more you do not need it. This would help the economy grow.
Can we stop with blaming the GOP? I know this is a liberal website, and I only come here for a laugh, but the buck stops with your president.
Obama will not stop spending our grandkids money. Yes, I know the House holds the purse strings, but no one has the guts to tell Obama NO.
As many in the comments have noted, the ship of fools called MSNBC is maybe beginning to crash on the rocks. Huffington Post too- go check out Barbara Boxers latest article and the comments. No one here is buying this kind of Obama-shill BS. The problem is spending and everyone with a 10th grade education could recognize that if they just took a look at the OMB spread sheets that are right on the WH OMB website. The government is now borrowing 35 cents of every dollar it spends; the receipts the last 4 years were only off 6% but the expenditures were up 33%; no budgets for 3 years, etc. The problem is not the rich not paying their 'fair share'- that's a drop in the bucket and a deflection from addressing the real problems that Obama doesn't have the guts to even talk about. It's the expenditures stupid- go fix it and address the structural problems.
Wait until Obama and the Democrats start to raise taxes on those earning under $250,000. The economics do not support uncontrolled spending. In addition, the Baby boomers are starting to retire and that will drive up the payments under SS and Medicare. The real increase will occur when ObamaCare is fully implemented.
The reports at MSNBC will continue to praise the great job Obama and liberals are achieving while the majority of the American people will be applying for welfare.
All of you Maddow fans are sheep. Imagine if MSNBC ever revealed the fact that King Obama is way in over his head. His idea of leadership is hope & blame so spend away you dopes :smh:
I blame George Bush.
There's just no way that trillions in deficit spending, crony capitalism and massive tax hikes could hurt the economy more than congress.
It's just sad reading how liberals are obsessed with Bush and the republicans. Democrats have controlled 2/3 of the house/senate/president since 2006 and all 3 from 09-11. First off, despite us having the greatest economic engine in the history of mankind we have all witnessed a very atypical recovery. Sure, we were scruud severely by Wallstreet but as hard as we fell we should have recovered.
Just look at the graph and how in late 09/early 2010 the employment was starting to really take off and then ... BOOM. The stimulus did nothing real, only psychological and it was the Feds aggressive money push to banks that started the recovery in late 2009. The effects of legislation take time. It took 7 years for the FMA to allow Wallstreet to destroy the country. So, it took roughly 1.5 years for business to figure out that Obama and the dems are pure poison to our economy and instead of allowing business to recover they have been busy exacting their liberal revenge on America through insane regulatory burden, a ridiculous "healthcare bill" and an overtly hostile administration to the very group of Americans that are needed to help the recovery.
This crappy economy is not a function of congress but the result of arrogance and incompetence of the guy with whom the buck stops.
Liberals will never admit that Obama is the problem. To do so they would have to admit that there economic policies don't work despite the abundant evidence that they do not in fact work. Today's left can't even get Keynsian theory right. According to John Maynard Keynes government should build up a "surplus" in good times to provide stimulus to the economy during recessions. He would have never advocated stimulus spending in the face of huge structural debts. The only way for our economy to grow again and regain its dynamic characteristics is to gradually reduce government spending to its historical level of 18-20% of GDP, reform our tax structure, reduce and streamline regulations, fully develop our abundant oil and gas natural resources and for good measure gut and restructure our K-12 public school system replacing it with a two track college prep and state of the art vocational education system like they have in Germany.
While growth is good we're not having enough of it. 150,000 jobs is barely keeping pace with growth in the labor force. So at best we're treading water. I do like that Obama and his allies in the Lapdog MSM already have their targets picked out who to blame should the economy stop growing or job growth to slow. And December was a slowdown slight but still slower than the month before.