I was fortunate to be a guest Saturday morning on the show Up With Chris Hayes, where I discussed the latest jobs numbers, and the policies that might make those numbers improve.
During one segment, we discussed the varying theories for why unemployment is so bad, and a clip from Bill Clinton's speech was played, during which he said this:
On this point, Bill Clinton was incorrect. All of the evidence shows that lack of demand is the problem, not the structure of the economy.
There are a few different lines of attack against Clinton's argument.
The first is simply to point out that 3 million job openings is not very high.
Years into this recovery, the number of job openings across all non-farm industries (on a population adjusted basis) is still incredibly low.
During one segment, we discussed the varying theories for why unemployment is so bad, and a clip from Bill Clinton's speech was played, during which he said this:
We do need more new jobs, lots of them,
but there are already more than three million jobs open and unfilled in
America today, mostly because the applicants don't have the required
skills. We have to prepare more Americans for the new jobs that are
being created in a world fueled by new technology. That's why
investments in our people are more important than ever.
He didn't use the term, but what Clinton was saying was that a large
part of the unemployment problem was "structural" (the unemployed don't
have the proper skills) rather than cyclical (the result of of a lack of
demand).On this point, Bill Clinton was incorrect. All of the evidence shows that lack of demand is the problem, not the structure of the economy.
There are a few different lines of attack against Clinton's argument.
The first is simply to point out that 3 million job openings is not very high.
Years into this recovery, the number of job openings across all non-farm industries (on a population adjusted basis) is still incredibly low.
No comments:
Post a Comment