Pictures always tell the story, don't they? Today's unemployment numbers came out and while they weren't as awful as last month's, they weren't great either. But they mostly weren't great because the public sector continues to shed jobs nearly as fast as the private sector adds them.
In August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the private sector added 17,000 jobs, but the public sector lost the exact same number (those numbers have since been revised). This month, the private sector created 137,000 jobs, but the public sectorcontinued to hemorrhage jobs, losing 34,000. As Matt Yglesias notes, “month after month we see a labor market that’s basically treading water primarily becausegovernment employment is shrinking rather than keeping pace with population growth.”
That's exactly how conservatives like it. Shrink the government; grow the private sector. It would be an interesting exercise to compare the average salary and benefits of some of the private sector jobs with those lost in the public sector. Intuition tells me they won't compare at all, because when private employers (non-union) create jobs, they do it with the lowest benefits and pay scale possible.
I get hoarse repeating this, but I have yet to see conservatives really grapple with the fact that month after month we see a labor market that’s basically treading water primarily because government employment is shrinking rather than keeping pace with population growth. Had we had government employment growing along with the population, this would still be a weakish labor market recovery, but it would be a real recovery with the unemployment rate falling bit by bit each month. Such a scenario might even boost general optimism and spur a greater level of business demand and new housing construction. But even without the optimistic “multiplier” progressive story, simply the direct impact of government hiring would be a slow-but-steady recovery.
Economic sabotage? Yes, but it stretches deeper than that. Rick Scott's cynical, sneaky attempt to privatize public prisons was as much about throwing some profit in the direction of his buddies as it was about shrinking state employment rolls. The same holds true for the efforts to starve public school systems until they shriek to be privatized. It's less about education reform and more about profit centers for these people.
I believe part of the reason that large corporations are sitting on huge capital reserves instead of reinvesting in growth right now relates to their hope and expectations that new markets will emerge in the form of privatized government services rendered for profit. Corrections Corporation of America is only the beginning. Rupert Murdoch's investment in education, the privatization of "charter management services" to oversee charter schools and more are waiting to explode as the result of conservative privatization efforts.
Is it any wonder there's no love lost between corporations and the rest of us? Ezra Klein's really smart editorial on Friday breaks it down well:
But the problem isn’t that politicians are mean to corporate America and that no one listens to their great ideas. It’s that corporate America -- and, yes, the federal government -- has lost the trust of ordinary Americans. The theories, policies and rationales of the past decade have failed in the most profound and painful ways, yet the politicians and CEOs who made those decisions are doing better than ever. Have any congressmen ended up homeless? Have any ex-White House staff members had to fear for their child’s health insurance? Have any former Wall Street CEOs stood in line for bread?
Of course not. But those things have happened to many, many Americans, and they’re angry about it. If the folks in power want leeway to pursue their solutions, they’re going to need somehow to convince the public that the fortunes of the people and the powerful are once again intertwined. Respect isn’t something you get. It’s something you earn.
This is why the Occupy Wall Street movement has gotten so much traction so rapidly. People are angry. They're tired of being treated like the red-headed stepchild while the corporations get away with robbing them blind. It isn't like we all just woke up one morning and rolled out on the wrong side of the bed. It's been years and years and years of policies and philosophies that place the interests of ordinary people dead last.
