The President is hosting job faire. Major employers from Boeing and FedEx to AT&T and Pfizer will be setting up kiosks in the White House Rose Garden. They’ll be laying out brochures and handing out embossed business cards that say “call me.”
It sounds great.
Unfortunately, since party posers Tareq and Michaele Salahi sailed passed Secret Service security checkpoints to crash the President’s state dinner, it’s going to be tougher than ever for jobseekers to get through the West Gate.
With the economy still on shaky ground, new jobs paying a living wage are hard to find. Unemployment is at 23-year high of 10.2 percent and still climbing.
Christmas may be in the air. But the continued climate of job insecurity has thrown a dark cloud over the holiday spirit. Other than discounters like Wal-Mart and Costco, sales across the retail spectrum are off, further evidence that even shoppers with the means to buy are still feeling the pinch.
Wrong Choice
Everyone knows the President is concerned about rising unemployment and job creation. But a job summit is not the answer. It’s merely political window dressing and a collection of sound bites.
If the President is serious about jobs, he need look no further than the history of the Great Depression. Job creation programs are the cornerstone of Keynesian economics.
During the 1930s, departments like the Civil Works Administration, Public Works Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps and, most prominently, the Works Progress Administration, created thousands of jobs for the unemployed. While it was not the ultimate solution, it gave folks struggling to make ends meet a renewed feeling of dignity and a second chance.
There is no question the President feels a sense of urgency about unemployment, and he is using this summit to underscore his vow to attack the problem. But the President is also constrained by the limits of a budget deficit that already has reached a record $1.4 trillion for this fiscal year.
The President does need to hold a summit to find out what he already knows. He’s not going to learn anything new from the CEOs and academics who attend.
He’d learn more if he spent a cold afternoon standing in line while unemployed fathers and mothers in Detroit or Baltimore waited to see if they qualified for jobless benefits. He’d learn more if he talked to store owners in Springfield or shopkeepers in Peoria who have been forced to lay off longtime loyal employees because their credit lines have been slashed.
Instead of talking to CEOs, the President should be holding a jobs summit with key leaders in Congress and his Cabinet to explore additional means by which the government can jumpstart the employment market. The President’s nearly $800 billion stimulus package will not be enough to keep the heat on this winter for thousands of able-bodied Americans who are without jobs, and he knows it.
Focus on Small Businesses
Rising federal deficits are meaningless to the millions of families more worried about paying the rent than holiday discounts on the latest Sony PlayStation. These folks weren’t out looking for deals on Black Friday or Cyber Monday; they were looking for hope.
The U.S. dollar already is in the toilet. It’s going to remain there.
Despite the political cost, and the marginal risks of inflation; if the President is serious about battling unemployment, he needs to take a page out of FDR’s playbook.
Bring back the likes of the WPA or the Civilian Conservation Corps. Most folks standing in unemployment lines or facing the termination of their benefits, don’t care about the type of jobs available. They just want to work.
The President also needs to find ways to get more money into the small business pipeline. Every economist agrees that 70 percent of all new jobs will come from this sector, not from the businesses run by the CEOs attending the President’s summit. But entrepreneurs and small business can’t hire if they can’t get access to the credit they need to grow, let alone keep the lights on.
Republicans and fiscal conservatives on Capitol Hill will feel compelled to rail about another budget-busting liberal spending program. In the end, they will bow to the pressure from their Main Street constituents whose lunch counters and store aisles have been emptied by the recession.
With healthcare reform on the line and the task of selling skeptical Americans on a further escalation of the Afghan war, jobs have taken a backseat on the President’s political bus. Mr. President, unemployed Americans need more than a high profile summit attended by a bunch of guys who’ll be flying in to Washington on private jets. They need jobs. They need answers.
As Mark Twain was fond of saying, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does a darned thing about it.” Stop talking, Mr. President.
John Cohn is a senior partner in the Globe West Financial Group based in West Los Angeles. He may be contacted at www.globewestfinancial.com
