Category Archives: jobs

An Obamacare Outcome

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Omaha, NE’s, WOWT television reports that an 11-restaurant Wendy’s franchise

has announced that all non-management positions will have their hours reduced to 28 a week.  Gary Burdette, Vice President of Operations for the local franchise, says the cuts are coming because the new Affordable Health Care Act requires employers to offer health insurance to employees working 32-38 hours a week.  Under the current law they are not considered full time and that as a small business owner, he can’t afford to stay in operation and pay for everyone’s health insurance.

The reduction will affect 100 Wendy’s franchise employees.  Here’s another example of Obamacare pricing those it claims to help out of the market.

Some Graphs on Unemployment

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Here are some graphical illustrations of the ongoing devastation of the Obama Recovery, from The Big Picture. 

The U-6 unemployment rate includes the rate for folks who are underemployed as well as the folks who are unemployed but still looking for work.

Think of the damage done to that teen-aged and early-20s cohort in terms of work experience and earning power lost.  This loss is made all the worse for occurring at the start of their careers, where the opportunity cost is the greatest, and it leaves them permanently behind in what they could have accomplished compared to their peers in past, real recoveries and their peers in future, real recoveries.  This is nearly as devastating to our society and to our economy as the as the physically lost generations from war are to nations’ societies and economies.

It doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better, either.  The only upside for that youth cohort is that they have time in their lives for (some) recovery.  Older age cohorts have no such time.

The rapid reduction in the size of our labor force is not at all being helped by President Barack Obama’s economic policies.

Finally, just to put the Obama Recovery in perspective:

 

h/t Spirit of Enterprise

Some Miscellaneous Tidbits on Our Economy

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Update: And here’s the actual post [sigh]:

The Wall Street Journal a short time ago printed an updated graph that’s been around for a while; here it is:

That same article pointed out that we currently have 4.2 million fewer employed than we had four years ago—that’s the strength of the failed recovery under President Barack Obama’s policies.  Somebody else also talked (here, here, and here) about where we’d be today were this administration’s policies focused more on employment and economic recovery and less on naked redistribution and outcome equalization.

A rule of thumb, as the WSJ also notes, says that unemployment generally falls by a half per centage point for every per centage point of growth above the long-run trend.  Note, though, the graph above.  We’re not even getting back to our trend, much less getting above it.   Which emphasizes the effect of our shrinking labor force as more and more Americans continue to give up hope of changing their situation and finding an actual job.

Now, the Federal Reserve Bank has cut its long-term growth forecasts: in early 2011, they put the long-term US growth rate at 2.5% to 2.8%.  Now they’re expecting a trivial 2.3% to 2.5%–which is not going to get us back to the long-run trend, much less above it so we can start bringing down our true unemployment rate and actually get Americans back into the labor force and back to work.

Excuses

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During the Great Depression, in an effort to help farmers, the FDR administration got legislation passed that put a floor under the prices farmers could collect for their produce.  At roughly the same time, in order to help out the working man in a time of enormous unemployment (ranging from nearly 16% to over 25%), FDR got legislation passed that put a floor under the prices a man could charge for his work.  With this combination of artificially inflated food prices and a unemployment exacerbated by artificially inflated labor prices, it became exceedingly difficult for Americans to buy food for their families.

The FDR administration “cured” this, not by removing their harmful pricing controls, but by inventing and issuing food stamps—subsidies for purchasing food.

Fast forward to the present, and look at Oregon.  In an era of government mandates for fuel efficiency in our cars (not all of which originated in Oregon, to be sure), governments are seeing falling tax revenue from decreasing private sector fuel purchases.  In Oregon, in particular, though, folks are buying fuel-efficient automobiles, with some vehicles getting over 55 mpg.  The Oregon state government is looking at “curing” this, not by stimulating its economy tax and spending reductions, but instead at creating a new tax.

Beaver State lawmakers, in their upcoming session, are expected to consider legislation that would impose a charge on vehicles that get at least 55 miles per gallon of gasoline, in an effort to make up for lost gas-tax revenue[.]

After 2015, owners of these high-efficiency vehicles would either have to pay an undetermined per-mile tax calculated by GPS technology, or some alternative flat rate option.

Hmm….

Any excuse to grow government, it seems, is a good excuse to grow government.

Another Fiscal Cliff

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From Fox News:

[A] potential strike by thousands of dock workers from Boston to Houston threatens to shock the economy as early as this weekend.  …it could cost billions, citing estimates that a 10-day port lockout in 2002 cost $1 billion a day—and caused a major backlog in shipments.

[The present] port strike would affect more than the East and Gulf coasts, where all these ports are located.  It could choke supply chains across the country.  Groups ranging from the automobile industry to the National Retail Federation to the US Chamber of Commerce to the Cheese Importers Association of America are warning of dire consequences.

The primary beef?  Management wants to cap the current container fee royalties, rather than letting them continue to rise according to International Longshoremen’s Association schedules.

It’s important to note that those royalty fees are little more than featherbedding on the docks.  As The United States Maritime Alliance, Ltd (USMX), notes,

[C]ontainer royalties were established in 1960 as a way to protect members of the International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO (ILA) in New York from job losses created by containerization and its introduction of automated cargo.

Because shippers are job welfare programs for the ILA, after all.  Keep those buggy whip workers employed, no matter the costs to Americans.  Never mind that there aren’t any buggy whip workers anymore, anyway.

[O]nly 136 of the 3,281 ILA workers at the Port of New York and New Jersey today were working at the port in 1968….

The Port of New York and New Jersey was the original and only port at which the ILA was active during the transition to container shipping.  The rest of the ports up and down the east and Gulf coasts through Florida began life with containerized cargo.

Moreover, containerization has been beneficial to labor.  ILA workers at ports like Savannah, Charleston, and the rest saw their job opportunities grow specifically because of containerization.

On top of this, the royalty payments don’t all make it into the pockets of the ones being featherbedded.  Ten per cent—which ran to $21 million in 2011—were raked off the top by the workers’ union management, as the union’s vig.

In the end, the union doesn’t care about the economic damage done by the strike they’re threatening, nor do they care that their strike has so little economic purpose.  This isn’t even about protecting a featherbedding perk—USMX is willing to keep paying the “royalty;” they just want an upper bound on a payment that has nothing to do with the work being done.

No, this is about union power and the unions’ decision to use extortionate-type actions to maintain/increase it.  It’s a legal version of the violence they threatened in Wisconsin and Michigan, and of the dishonesty shown by the Wisconsin Teachers’ Union a year ago.

Update: Michelle Malkin provides one:

A deal has been struck that for now averts a strike by 14,500 longshoremen at major ports on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, including PortMiami and Port Everglades.

A federal mediator announced Friday that an expired contract for workers in the International Association of Longshoremen would be extended for another 30 days while negotiations continue.