Stockman: “Jobs outlook worse than people think”

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  We’ve heard a lot about how the economy has created one million jobs since the end of the recession in 2009, but until recently we haven’t heard anyone break down what those jobs are like.

  That changed last week when David Stockman appeared on CNBC.

Stockman interview begins three minutes in

 “The jobs that they count every month and people get excited about are really part-time jobs,” he said.

  Stockman separates the “breadwinning jobs” – jobs that average $50,000 a year – from the part-time jobs – jobs averaging $20,000 a year. Once you do that it you start to see a clear reason for working class discontent.

 “if you take core government plus the middle class economy (65 million jobs), that’s the breadwinning economy, if we take some numbers – how many jobs in the “core economy” in November – zero; how many jobs since last December: net zero; how many jobs since the bottom of the recession in June 2009: still a million behind from when the recession ended.”

 Stockman destroys the myth that you can simply accept a headline economic number, like so many have.

 Two-thirds of all the jobs created since the end of the recession have been these part-time, $20,000 a year jobs. You can’t build a recovery on that.

 “there is 35 million jobs in that sector, with an average wage of $20,000 a year: that is not a breadwinning job, you can’t support a family on that, you can’t save on that. Those jobs will not generate income that will become self-feeding into spending.”

  David Stockman served as budget director in the Reagan Administration and was considered one of the architects of the modern tax system. Since then he’s had a change of heart. In the last six months he’s made a clean break from his own legacy. The topic of the break concerns the Bush Tax Cuts.

  Five months ago Stockman burned his bridges with the current GOP.

 We’ve arrived at a historic turning point as a nation that no longer needs outside enemies to destroy us, we are committing suicide. Democracy. Capitalism. The American dream. All dying. Why? Because of the economic decisions of the GOP the past 40 years, says this leading Reagan Republican…

  Stockman rushes into the ring swinging like a boxer: “If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt … will soon reach $18 trillion.” It screams “out for austerity and sacrifice.” But instead, the GOP insists “that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.”

  In the past 40 years Republican ideology has gone from solid principles to hype and slogans.

 Stockman has said that extending Bush’s tax cuts will bankrupt America and that both political parties are “on a race to the fiscal bottom”.

 There has been a lot of discussion about the tax cuts recently, but little of it has been in the context of whether we can actually afford any of the tax cuts. Both parties have framed it on the issue of fairness. The Tea Party has only opposed the new spending, not the loss of revenue that will cause our deficits to become chronic and “Greece-like”. The Tea Party’s concern over deficits has been exposed as phony in record time.

  Recently Stockman has said that Republicans have adopted a theology of tax cuts.

 What Stockman has done is something increasingly rare in today’s political world – look at the raw numbers and draw logical conclusions. No one wants to here that in today’s world.