2009 Job Losses Were Worse Than Reported
Tags: Obama Depression, Unemployment.
The news:
…Revised data from the Texas Workforce Commission now show that the Austin metro area was losing jobs from the very beginning of 2009, and that the job losses were deeper than experts thought.
The revised data also show that Texas as a whole had a tougher job market last year than thought. The state lost 354,000 jobs in 2009, which is 78,000 more than the 276,000 previously estimated, according to the updated data…
…The California Employment Development Department on March 1 reported the state had lost 292,000 more jobs in 2009 than officials had thought; the new estimate is 871,000 jobs cut, compared with the earlier estimate of 579,000. Oregon reported losing 28,000 more jobs in 2009 than previously estimated.
Why the difference? Because when you get a number in, say, March of 2010 for February, its an estimate. A bunch of data is collected but its not really hard data – the hard data is the actual tax rolls. If a business had to send tax money in to the government for an employee, then we know there was certainly an employee working. The new numbers are based upon comparing those tax-roll numbers with previous tax-roll numbers.
The happy-talk numbers we’re getting now on employment and retail sales are, just like the initial employment numbers of 2009, a guess. A guess with some validity to it, but still just a guess. It’ll be months before we know the full story. But we can assume that whatever numbers are being given to us now will be revised downwards as time goes on – so the supposedly rosy picture of March, 2010 will become a much cloudier figure in, say, June. Keep that in mind as you hear economics stories.
My contention is that the private, productive economy continues to shrink. I base this upon the fact that employment in things like construction continues to decline while sale tax revenues are still going down rapidly. If we were on the verge of a recovery, we’d see at least stability or only minor drops in those two things. We’re not – not yet, and thus my assertion of a contracting economy.
Its not a matter of if we’ll have a double-dip recession, but how long the government and the bankers can mask its existence. The banks, their books still filled with worthless assets, simply cannot afford another down turn – many of them would simply go out of business. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury, naturally, don’t want another crash – especially at Treasury where the primary goal is to get some sort of good economy in the public mind by 2012.
The entities which pull the financial strings will do everything they can to keep the fiscal ball in the air. They’ll print, they’ll borrow, they’ll use financial hocus-pocus. Their hope is that some how, some way the economy will genuinely recover, thus allowing them to cover the bad assets on the books. How long will they be able to keep it up? Beats all heck out of me – but the longer they hold it off, the worse it will be.
HAT TIP: Mish’s
Mark Noonan is co-author (with Matt Margolis) of Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority. He also blogs at Nevada News and Views. Follow Mark on Twitter.
5 Responses to “2009 Job Losses Were Worse Than Reported”
Caucus of Corruption
…and that the job losses were deeper than experts thought.
Sounds like the old drive-by media line during the Bush years: “X number of jobs were added in X-month, more than expected.”
Keef,
So true – the “experts” in economics may be defined as “those who know least about the economy”.
Or they teach. I minored in Economics in collage. Keynesian theory was just beginning to wane, and Friedman was just coming to the fore. I only had one professor who even sounded as though he knew what he was talking about and believed what he taught. I had another professor — Labor Econ, I believe, whose favorite preface to almost every statement was, “all things being equal”. Yeah, that was inspirational.
I haven’t talked to an economist or economics professor lately, but I’ve always been of the firm belief that successful economic theory has to address both the demand and supply side of the equation. I read an article years ago that made a pretty convincing argument for the boom following Reagan’s tax cuts being largely due to the fact that the demand side was also stimulated by falling oil prices. It would be interesting to go back in a time machine, cut spending and see what would happen. The last time that was tried, in the early 20’s, it worked beyond imagination.
spook
you do not get to control people who are financially sound.
This is about the subjugation of America.
Neo,
And what’s cool is that, thanks in no small part to the TEA Party movement, the public is starting to realize that.