Time for a Federal Jobs Program? (Urban Institute)

From the Urban Institute:

“Unemployment is likely to remain at or above 10 percent for most of next year. The numbers look especially dire for youth and minorities: the unemployment rate stands at 18 percent for 20- to 24-year-old men. In fact, less than half of black men in this age group hold a job—many have simply given up. Most economists expect the recovery to proceed modestly, so jobs will be created at a slow pace and high levels of joblessness will persist for several years.”

“If these projections prove true, the nation will suffer trillions of dollars of lost income. Much unemployment is long-term; 40 percent of the unemployed have already been jobless for at least half a year. As their time out of work drags on, they lose valuable skills and occupational knowledge and become less employable when jobs do open up. For many young workers, the drop in their earning power will be permanent, hitting hardest less-educated and lower-income workers who don’t qualify for unemployment insurance and other public assistance.”

“So far, the American Recovery and Reconstruction Act (ARRA)—the administration’s economic stimulus package—has helped restart growth in gross domestic product. But, employers are thinking twice about taking on more workers since they’ve managed to raise productivity and output while employing fewer people. And ARRA spending next year won’t be sufficiently targeted or labor-intensive to dent unemployment very substantially.”

Read Full Story: Time for a Federal Jobs Program.

Dog Catcher’s Thoughts: We need to focus on small business. It is common folklore that small business creates the majority of jobs in America. Below is the reality of that impact.

Per the Small Business Administration (SBA) small firms:

• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
• Employ just over half of all private sector employees.
• Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.
• Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
• Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers).
• Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
• Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 30.2 percent of the known export value in FY 2007.
• Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.

SBA Source: http://www.sba.gov/advo/stats/sbfaq.pdf