Some Unemployed Workers Keep Losing Ground. Thanks Congress

The Wall Street Journal has a nice story today reminding us about the plight of the long-term unemployed. While the economy is growing, and the labor market has been improving since February 2010, it hasn't improved fast enough for the economy to climb out of the Great Recession-sized hole in employment.

During the recession the U.S. economy lost more than 8.8 million private-sector jobs. During the recovery over the last three years, the economy has added 6.9 million private-sector jobs. This still leaves a deficit of 1.9 million private-sector jobs. When you add on the 600,000 government jobs lost during the recovery (thanks for helping Congress) we still have a 2.4 million jobs deficit.

In short, it's not a surprise that unemployment remains above 7.5%.

But it didn't have to be this way. Yes, the hole was deep. Yes, we are making progress. But if Congress had been more focused on jobs, more focused on stimulating the economy, then unemployment would be much lower today.

Instead of fighting unemployment Congress became distracted and began fighting deficits. Despite historically low interest rates (real interest rates have routinely been below 0%) and no evidence to support their belief, Congressional leaders argued that more borrowing was bad. Essentially, Congressional leaders chose to ignore the teachings of economics and implemented a contractionary fiscal policy. Not surprisingly, the economic growth hasn't been strong enough to lift us out of the hole yet.

Today, our unemployment rate remains too high. Today, too many families continue to suffer. Unfortunately today, Congress is still not fighting the right battle.