May, 03 2013, 03:04pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Michelle Bazie,202-408-1080,bazie@cbpp.org
Statement by Chad Stone, Chief Economist, on the April Employment Report
Today's jobs report shows that labor markets still bear the scars of the Great Recession despite 38 straight months of private-sector job growth and a drop in the unemployment rate from 7.9 percent to 7.5 percent since January. Unemployment remains stubbornly high and many people who would likely have a job in a stronger economy are not even looking for work. Consequently, the share of the population with a job remains well below what it was over the two decades before the recession started in December 2007 (see chart).
WASHINGTON
Today's jobs report shows that labor markets still bear the scars of the Great Recession despite 38 straight months of private-sector job growth and a drop in the unemployment rate from 7.9 percent to 7.5 percent since January. Unemployment remains stubbornly high and many people who would likely have a job in a stronger economy are not even looking for work. Consequently, the share of the population with a job remains well below what it was over the two decades before the recession started in December 2007 (see chart).
Some of the recent decline in labor force participation -- the percentage of people 16 or older who are working or actively looking for work -- reflects the aging of the population. Baby boomers are starting to retire and the share of people in their prime working years is falling. But the decline also reflects to an important extent an ongoing dearth of good job prospects. Some people retire earlier than they otherwise would or go on disability when they might be able, in a stronger job market, to find a job that accommodates their disability. Others become discouraged about their job prospects and stop looking until conditions improve. The unemployment rate doesn't reflect those decisions; to be counted as officially unemployed a person must be actively looking for work. But many of those people would start looking for work again if they thought jobs were available.
A robust jobs recovery that both reduces unemployment and brings people back into the labor force requires much faster economic growth than we have seen over the past few years. On the monetary policy side, the Federal Reserve remains committed to accommodating faster growth without raising interest rates at least as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6 1/2 percent and inflation remains contained. The problem is on the fiscal policy side. As the Fed's monetary policymaking committee this week stated flatly, "fiscal policy is restraining economic growth."
For example, lawmakers allowed the payroll tax cut to expire at the end of the year (while extending some of the high-income tax cuts that have much lower job-creating, bang-for-the-buck impacts) because they are focused too much on deficit reduction and not enough on job creation, and because many lawmakers insisted on preserving as much of the high-income tax cuts as possible. They have let sequestration's automatic spending cuts take effect rather than crafting a balanced alternative that would achieve the same deficit reduction over the longer term without hampering the economic recovery (and ideally providing additional short-term infrastructure investment or other stimulus).
The Fed has recognized that unemployment is too high and there is no immediate threat of inflation. It's time for lawmakers to recognize that unemployment is too high and there is no looming debt crisis. Spending money on job creation now is not incompatible with deficit reduction and debt stabilization over the longer run.
About the April Jobs Report
The April jobs report modestly exceeded expectations, but a robust jobs recovery remains elusive, especially since the full effects of sequestration have yet to be felt.
- Private and government payrolls combined rose by just 165,000 jobs in April and job growth in February and March was revised up by a total of 114,000 jobs. Private employers added 176,000 jobs in April, while government employment fell by 11,000. Federal government employment fell by 8,000, state government employment fell by 1,000, and local government employment fell by 2,000.
- This is the 38th straight month of private-sector job creation, with payrolls growing by 6.8 million jobs (a pace of 178,000 jobs a month) since February 2010; total nonfarm employment (private plus government jobs) has grown by 6.2 million jobs over the same period, or 162,000 a month. Total government jobs fell by 626,000 over this period, dominated by a loss of 428,000 local government jobs.
- Despite 38 months of private-sector job growth, there were still 2.6 million fewer jobs on nonfarm payrolls and 2.0 million fewer jobs on private payrolls in April than when the recession began in December 2007. April's job growth would be considered solid in an economy that had already largely recovered from the recession, but it is well below the sustained job growth of 200,000 to 300,000 a month that would mark a robust jobs recovery. Job growth in the first four months of 2013 has averaged 196,000 a month, but the pace has slowed considerably over the past two months.
- The unemployment rate was 7.5 percent in April, and 11.7 million people were unemployed. In April, the unemployment rate was 6.7 percent for whites (2.3 percentage points higher than at the start of the recession), 13.2 percent for African Americans (4.2 percentage points higher than at the start of the recession), and 9.0 percent for Hispanics or Latinos (2.7 percentage points higher than at the start of the recession).
- The recession and lack of job opportunities drove many people out of the labor force. After large declines in February and March, the labor force increased in April. Yet it remains 416,000 people smaller than it was in January. The labor force participation rate (the share of people aged 16 and over who are working or actively looking for work) was 63.3 percent in April; the last time it was lower was August 1978.
- The share of the population with a job, which plummeted in the recession from 62.7 percent in December 2007 to levels last seen in the mid-1980s and has remained below 60 percent since early 2009, was 58.6 percent in April.
- The Labor Department's most comprehensive alternative unemployment rate measure -- which includes people who want to work but are discouraged from looking (those marginally attached to the labor force) and people working part time because they can't find full-time jobs -- was 13.9 percent in April. That's down from its all-time high of 17.1 percent in late 2009 (in data that go back to 1994) but still 5.1 percentage points higher than at the start of the recession. By that measure, roughly 22 million people are unemployed or underemployed.
- Long-term unemployment remains a significant concern. Nearly two-fifths (37.4 percent) of the 11.7 million people who are unemployed -- 4.4 million people -- have been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer. These long-term unemployed represent 2.8 percent of the labor force. Before this recession, the previous highs for these statistics over the past six decades were 26.0 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively, in June 1983.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is one of the nation's premier policy organizations working at the federal and state levels on fiscal policy and public programs that affect low- and moderate-income families and individuals.
LATEST NEWS
Senate Hearing Exposes Big Oil's 'Campaign of Deception and Distraction'
"Company officials will admit the terrifying reality of their business model behind closed doors but say something entirely different, false, and soothing to the public," Rep. Jamie Raskin said.
May 01, 2024
The U.S. Senate Budget Committee held a hearing Wednesday morning on the ongoing efforts of major fossil fuel companies and trade groups to delay climate action while deceptively painting themselves as part of the solution.
The hearing was based on an investigation launched by the House Oversight Committee in 2021 into the activities and communications of Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Chamber of Commerce. Both committees released the resulting report, Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil's Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change, on Tuesday.
"Our investigation uncovered compelling evidence of aggressive industry deceit which continues to this day," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said in his Senate testimony Wednesday. "The joint report and documents we discovered show how, time and again, the biggest oil and gas corporations say one thing for the purposes of public consumption but do something completely different to protect their profits. Company officials will admit the terrifying reality of their business model behind closed doors but say something entirely different, false, and soothing to the public."
"Policymakers and prosecutors must act swiftly to hold this rogue industry accountable for the climate chaos it has knowingly caused and bring its days of drill, deny, and delay to an end."
Raskin detailed key findings of the House investigation. The companies and trade groups:
- Made public pledges to abide by the Paris agreement that they internally acknowledged were impossible;
- Shifted from denying climate science to boosting natural gas and lying about being part of the solution;
- Publicized investments in low-carbon technologies that they internally admitted were unlikely to work;
- Depended on trade associations to promote their climate deceptions and lobby against effective climate action; and
- Used partnerships with academic institutes to greenwash their image while also influencing research and gaining access to politicians.
"Big Oil's corruption is even more far-reaching than we feared," Cassidy DiPaola, spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay campaign, told Common Dreams in response to the hearing. "This investigation exposes how these companies have not only lied to the public for decades, but infiltrated the halls of academia to peddle their climate disinformation."
Raskin gave several notable examples of corporate malfeasance from the House investigation. For example, while BP promotes its commitment to the Paris agreement on its website, it admitted in an email that "no one is committed to anything, other than to stay in the game." He also noted that ExxonMobil spent almost 50% of the amount it used for researching and developing algae as a biofuel between 2009 and 2023 on advertising its efforts.
Further, the companies did not cooperate with the investigation: They had to be subpoenaed to provide meaningful information, and they buried substantial documents in a "paper blizzard" of useless files like mass emails.
"If the companies had fully complied in good faith, who knows what else we might have uncovered?" Raskin asked.
In addition to Raskin, the Senate committee also heard testimony from Sharon Eubanks, the former director of the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Tobacco Litigation Team; Geoffrey Supran, an associate professor of environmental science and policy and the director of the University of Miami's Climate Accountability Lab; Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and managing director of the Energy, Growth, and Security Program at the International Tax Investment Center; and Michael Ratner, a specialist in energy policy at the Congressional Research Service.
"As a scholar of disinformation, I do not use the word 'lie' lightly," Supran said during his testimony. "But no other word adequately describes the oil industry's brazen efforts to mislead the public about its history of misleading the public."
Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media said the hearing was a "huge deal, not just because of what it's revealing about Big Oil's history of climate deception, but because it's laying the groundwork for Congress to finally hold the industry accountable and make polluters pay."
Both speakers at the hearing and senators outlined various ways the industry might be held accountable. Raskin highlighted the similarities between Big Oil's lies about its products' impact on climate and the tobacco industry's lies about its products' impact on human health.
"More than 20 years ago, the Department of Justice brought a precedent-setting case against the cigarette companies," Raskin said. "That case liberated our minds from the tyranny of Big Tobacco and reverberated across America and the world. As a result, the public learned about the massive disinformation campaign waged by the tobacco industry; the companies were ordered to cease and desist their propaganda and to start telling the truth to the public; and governments and people around the world used the facts uncovered to battle the tobacco industry effectively for financial restitution and defense of the public health."
The possibility that the DOJ could bring a similar case against oil companies was reinforced by Eubanks, who told the Senate: "There exists solid evidentiary basis to move forward with a request to the Department of Justice to investigate the actions of the fossil fuel industry. Just as the Department of Justice investigated the tobacco industry and ultimately filed a civil racketeering complaint against the industry, given the similarities of the fraudulent acts, and the government's successful case against tobacco, there is adequate foundation for building a case."
In response, Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said, "It is time for the Department of Justice to step in and defeat Big Oil's efforts to withhold the truth from the American people."
Another avenue for accountability was laid out by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who spoke up in favor of his Polluters Pay Climate Fund Act, which would use science attributing carbon dioxide and methane emissions to specific companies to then charge those companies for their climate pollution, putting the funds to work for a just transition to renewable energy.
"The idea is simple: The companies who pollute the most, should pay the most," Van Hollen said.
Climate and good governance groups supported the move toward accountability.
"Policymakers and prosecutors must act swiftly to hold this rogue industry accountable for the climate chaos it has knowingly caused and bring its days of drill, deny, and delay to an end," DiPaola told Common Dreams.
David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Climate Program, said of fossil fuel deception, "It's criminal conduct, and our leaders and legal system should treat it as such."
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) pointed out that it is now possible to attribute rising temperatures, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and more frequent and extreme wildfires to the extraction and burning of oil, gas, and coal.
"This joint congressional investigation is an important step toward ending the fossil fuel industry's lies and obstruction of critical climate action," Kathy Mulvey, the accountability campaign director in UCS' Climate and Energy Program, said. "The internal industry documents released to the public and the testimony at this hearing add to the already considerable mountain of evidence illustrating misconduct by fossil fuel corporations and their surrogates. We urge policymakers and public prosecutors to move expeditiously to pursue accountability through every means at their disposal."
"We're getting to the point where it may be politically possible to actually take on the bad guys."
Reflecting on the hearing on his Substack, Bill McKibbenpointed to another important development it represented: a shift in the attitude of senior Democrats toward fossil gas, which both Raskin and Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) noted was not as clean as the industry pretended. In the past, Democratic leaders including former President Barack Obama had promoted the idea that gas could be a bridge fuel because it emits less carbon dioxide than coal when burned. But new evidence revealing how much methane its production leaks belies this claim.
"The fossil fuel industry desperately wants to lock in more dependence on fracked gas while they still can—that's why they reacted with such white-hot anger to the Biden administration's pause on permits for new [liquefied natural gas] export facilities earlier this year," McKibben wrote. "But the hope raised by today's hearing is that—if [President Joe] Biden wins reelection—that pause may become permanent, and the expansion of natural gas will finally be halted, recognized for the deep peril that it is."
While the Biden administration has so far focused on promoting renewable energy rather than reducing fossil fuel production, with measures such as the Inflation Reduction Act, the hearing showed that "we're getting to the point where it may be politically possible to actually take on the bad guys," McKibben said.
Indeed, Raskin did not mince works as he concluded his testimony. He referenced Jared Diamond's book Collapse and its assertion that one contribution to a civilization's demise is "the capture of political and social power by a narrow subset of society, which is committed to its own profit and power rather than the common good of the whole society and therefore refuses to take the steps necessary for collective survival."
"Big Oil's campaign of deception and distraction undermines the efforts we need to mobilize our people and government to save our climate, our habitat, and our species," Raskin said. "Unless the deception ends, and until the industry is held accountable, we are unlikely ever to be able to muster the national political will to effectively tackle climate change."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Dozens of UK Universities Warned of Criminal Liability Over Israeli Weapons Investments
"Aiding, abetting and in any other way assisting in the commission of a war crime including 'providing the means for its commission' is a war crime," said the director of a legal group.
May 01, 2024
As U.S. campus protests and the aggressive police response galvanized a growing number of British students to set up their own encampments at universities across the country on Wednesday, a legal group informed dozens of higher education institutions in the U.K. that their investments in weapons manufacturers could leave them open to criminal liability stemming from human rights violations by Israel.
The International Center of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) warned officers at 82 universities that if they have profited from investments in companies including Elbit Systems, Caterpillar, and BAE Systems, their financial holdings may be linked to weapons used by the Israel Defense Forces in its current escalation against Gaza.
"Aiding, abetting and in any other way assisting in the commission of a war crime including 'providing the means for its commission' is a war crime," said ICJP director Tayab Ali, citing Article 25 of the Rome Statute.
The companies in question also "have a track record of providing equipment that has been used in home demolitions, the illegal Israeli separation wall in the West Bank and around Jerusalem, and other tools of apartheid," said the ICJP, making the universities potentially complicit in Israel's policies in the occupied West Bank.
Dania Abul Haj, senior legal officer for ICJP, said in a statement that "the massive crackdown on civil liberties we are seeing in the U.S. is a huge catalyst" for the group's letter to the universities.
"This money is paid to the universities by the students, and yet their voice is being totally disregarded in how it is being immorally invested," said Abul Haj.
Solidarity encampments were set up at schools including University of Warwick, University of Bristol, and Newcastle University this week.
Students in the U.S., U.K., and other countries have demanded that universities divest from companies in tech, weapons manufacturing, and other industries that contract with Israel.
Student organizers at the University of York celebrated last week as administrators announced it had divested from companies that "primarily make or sell weapons," following mass protests, marches, and rallies held at the school.
"Investment in these companies was already morally bankrupt," Abul Haj toldMiddle East Eye. "In the current circumstances, it is beyond belief that universities, which are educational institutions, paving the way for future generations of leaders and politicians, would continue to invest in them."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Israeli Finance Minister Denounced for Calling for 'Total Annihilation' of Gaza
"But… did he say it on a college campus? Otherwise, it's just not news. Sorry, them's the rules," said one journalist sardonically.
May 01, 2024
In just the latest example of a top Israeli official openly calling for the elimination of Gaza and the 2.3 million Palestinians who live there, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Tuesday demanded the destruction of cities and refugee camps in the blockaded enclave.
"There are no half measures," said Smotrich at a government meeting. "Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat—total annihilation."
"'You will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven,'" he added, quoting the biblical story of the nation of Amalek, whose people God commanded the Israelites to exterminate and which right-wing Israeli leaders have long invoked to justify the killing of Palestinians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also referenced Amalek in the first weeks of Israel's current escalation against Gaza; Smotrich's comments came as he and other government officials pushed Netanyahu to forge ahead with a planned attack on the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1.5 million people have been displaced as other cities across Gaza have been decimated by Israeli forces.
Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), called on President Joe Biden to stop condemning thousands of U.S. college students who have demanded a cease-fire and an end to military aid for Israel and direct his ire toward the Israeli government, which he has repeatedly insisted is targeting Hamas despite its genocidal statements and indiscriminate attacks.
"In case the Israeli government's genocidal intent in Gaza was unclear to anyone despite its daily war crimes against the Palestinian people, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's words should serve as another wake-up call," said Hooper. "The intent of the Netanyahu government has always been Palestinian land without Palestinians, and violence has always been the route to achieve that heinous goal. Instead of condemning college students, President Biden must condemn Israeli leaders for making and acting on their genocidal threats."
In recent months, Israeli officials have stated that the "migration" of Gaza residents is their ultimate goal in relentlessly attacking the enclave, that all Palestinians in Gaza are "responsible" for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October and are legitimate targets, that the enclave should be "flattened," and that the Israel Defense Forces is fighting "human animals."
Journalist Mehdi Hasan sardonically suggested that Smotrich's comments will be deemed acceptable by the Biden administration, members of Congress, and the U.S. corporate media because he didn't "say it on a college campus."
"Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the security cabinet, ought to be fired immediately over his latest remarks," read an editorial in Haaretz Tuesday night that was published as police in New York were storming Columbia University to arrest students. "That's how any properly run country would act, and all the more so a country against which the International Court of Justice in The Hague has issued provisional measures requiring it to refrain from genocide, including one requiring it to deal properly with incitement to genocide."
Smotrich and others have objected to what National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on Tuesday called a "reckless" deal that would allow for the release of scores of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners who have long been detained in Israeli jails. The deal would include a 40-day halt in fighting.
CAIR also pointed out Tuesday that five units of Israel's security forces have been accused of committing a "gross violation of human rights," according to a U.S. State Department analysis.
"Our nation's repeated claim that it supports international law and human rights," said national executive director Nihad Awad, "is a cruel illusion."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular