President Obama’s economic stimulus was supposed to revive America’s economy and put people back to work. But nearly three years after Democrats rammed the bill through Congress, it’s a clear-cut failure. The nation’s 8.6 percent unemployment rate stands out as one of consequences. Then there is the high-profile Solyndra scandal and countless other government schemes gone awry. In a new video from Reason.tv, Jim Epstein takes a closer look at other examples — in a setting just a few miles from Capitol Hill. In Silver Spring, MD, government contractors pocketed …
As the debate swirls around regulations and jobs, it is refreshing to hear a businessman weigh in on the issue. This week, the CEO of Darden Restaurants, Clarence Otis, Jr., wrote that the excessive burden of new regulation makes it “increasingly difficult for businesses to see why and where creating new jobs makes sense.” Otis heads the parent company of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and LongHorn Steakhouse, so his experience creating jobs in the private sector is extensive. Unfortunately for Darden Restaurants and other businesses around the country, Otis notes …
In an exclusive interview with The Heritage Foundation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sharply criticized President Obama for engaging in class warfare and accused him of shifting the focus away from his own failed policies in advance of next year’s election. “My view is he’ll have a hard time convincing Americans he deserves four more years of this,” McConnell said. “There’s nothing he’s done that the American people approve of, so of course, he’s trying to change the subject.” McConnell addressed a range of issues during the interview, from …
Yesterday on Meet the Press, host David Gregory confronted Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod with the grim reality of America’s employment picture, the still-high unemployment rate, and the fact that 315,000 people dropped out of the work force last month, asking “Do the new numbers change the way the president looks at the economy?” Axelrod’s muddled reply: “We’ve never hung our hat on one number; and, obviously, we continue to have big challenges. But let’s recognize that we’ve created 2.9 million private sector jobs in the last 21 months.” He’s right …
After months upon months of unemployment stuck at or above 9 percent, the American people may finally see a sliver of relief in today’s jobs report from the Department of Labor. The report suggests the month of November saw 120,000 net new jobs created and the unemployment rate drop to 8.6 percent–driven in part by the 315,000 people who have given up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed. That news is cold comfort to the 13.3 million Americans who are still out of work and the 402,000 workers …
America’s unemployment rate is still stuck at 9 percent and nearly 14 million people are out of work, yet since the recession ended, job losses have fallen well below their pre-recession rates. So why are so many still out of work? Record-low job creation is the problem. In a new paper, Heritage’s James Sherk explains that unemployment remains high because job creation has fallen. In the following chart, you can see how private-sector employment would have changed if job creation returned to pre-recession levels in June 2009. (Article continued below …
Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the Senate floor and made a bold assertion–that there isn’t any evidence that regulations cost jobs, citing statistics from a Labor Department report that “last year, only three-tenths of 1 percent of people who lost their jobs were let go principally because of government regulation or intervention.” In a new paper, Heritage’s James Gattuso takes Reid’s assertion head on, writing “The statistics are of doubtful accuracy and have little to do with the primary cause of joblessness in the U.S. economy …
Travel in time back to January 2009 when President Barack Obama’s advisers painted a portrait of the future under the President’s recovery plan. It turns out that their prediction was much rosier than reality. With the plan, they predicted in their chart, unemployment today would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 6.5 percent. Today, after the President’s $787 billion stimulus, unemployment still stands at 9 percent. In a new paper, Heritage’s Rea Hederman, Jr. and James Sherk write, “The labor market is adding jobs and holding steady but not improving …
Want to get the economy growing again? McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner says that Washington needs to cut taxes and get spending under control in order to make that happen. The Telegraph reports: “The question is, how can we get the ox out of the ditch?” Mr. Skinner said. “In order to create jobs in America, you’re going to have to cut taxes… particularly in the business community. “We pay some of the highest [corporate] taxes around the world. There needs to be some levelling.” Asked about federal borrowing, he said: …
No news is good news–except when it means that the story about America’s slow-moving economy remains the same. A new report this morning from the Department of Labor shows that despite all of President Barack Obama’s promises and policies to grow the economy, there are still 14 million unemployed Americans. Meanwhile, the President is still spinning his job creation wheels, signing executive orders and pushing for misguided and expensive policies that lack support in Congress. The word from the monthly jobs report shows that unemployment was little unchanged at 9 percent …
