LATE REPORT ON THE ECONOMY

The July 31, 2015, report from the U.S. Labor Department sounds ominous: Second quarter salaries and benefits for private sector workers grew at the slowest pace in the past thirty-three years.  Moreover, it appears companies are able to find workers they need without boosting pay, a sign the job market remains mired in the Great Recession.  Nonetheless, federal spokesmen from President Obama on down repeatedly laud the nation’s vibrant economy and extol an unemployment rate currently at 5.3%—all as millions of Americans search vainly for suitable jobs, while millions more have simply given up looking. 

How is it possible for the official unemployment rate to be in the 5% range while perhaps 20% or more of employable adults remain unable to find work?  It’s because of the gimmickry which the Labor Department employs in the counting.  By employing an official definition of unemployment as only “persons without jobs that have actively looked for work within the past four weeks,” they may ignore the vast bulk of jobless citizens.  This doesn’t help put anyone to work, but it makes the administration look good—which is what the political business is all about.

Playing games with the economy is nothing new.  It’s been done by ruling establishments for the full span of recorded history.  A recent example: The German Weimar Republic sought to pay huge First World War reparation obligations by merely creating printing-press money.  The result: The cost to mail a letter rose from 5 marks in 1921 to 20 billion marks by 1923.  Another illustration: Before the U.S. government began simply throwing money at the Great Depression of the 1930s, the slump was initially denied by then President Herbert Hoover when he famously declared that “Prosperity is just around the corner”—a corner which took a full decade to round. 

What can the citizenry do to remedy the problem?  I’m sorry to report that as a group, nothing much.  Prosperity is not a collective endeavor; it must be a personal accomplishment.  This was never better expressed than by an unnamed man who, during an earlier recession, declared: It’s every rat for himself.