heritage.org - Since the beginning of the last recession (December 2007) the private sector workforce has shrunk by 6.6% while shedding more than 7.5 million jobs. Over that same time period, the federal government workforce (excluding Census and Postal workers) has grown by 11.7% while adding 230,000 jobs.
This trend has continued throughout the Obama Administration. Since President Barack Obama was sworn into office, the private sector workforce has shrunk by 2.6% while shedding 2.9 million jobs while the federal workforce (excluding Census and Postal workers) has grown by 7% while adding more than 144,000 jobs.
Now, President Obama's FY 2012 budget budget proposes adding even more people to the federal payroll. Specifically, the President wants to create an additional 15,000 federal government jobs including 4,182 additional Internal Revenue Service employees 1,054 of which will be need to implement Obamacare alone.
The problem with all these additional government jobs is that government spending does not create the economic growth needed to sustain private sector job growth.
Comments via Heritage analysts James Sherk and Rea Hederman - "The resources the government spends do not materialize out of thin air—they are taken from the private sector. Research shows that government spending crowds out private investment. Each $1 increase in government spending reduces private-sector investment by between $0.46 and $0.97 after two years and $0.74 and $0.95 over five years.
Government spending substitutes for private-sector investment; it does not supplement it. Increased government spending further reduces private-sector investment, making the problem of low job creation worse. Moreover, government spending misdirects economic resources. Political priorities, not economic return, drive government spending. The desires of influential Members of Congress and political fads determine where government appropriations are allocated. This often differs greatly from the use that creates the most wealth and jobs.
This is one of the main reasons why countries in which the government spends heavily to create jobs—such as France and Germany—do not enjoy higher employment rates. In fact, countries with greater government spending and larger public-sector payrolls have higher unemployment."
Blog author's comments - Interesting information from the Heritage Foundation concerning the Federal workforce jobs and the private sector jobs created.
I think that the 8.9% unemployment rate released today is a highly suspect number. Gallup says unemployment is 10.3% and underemployment is now 19.9%. It is my belief that the Federal Government is playing with the numbers, which is why we are seeing a gradual drop in the unemployment rate, which seems to me began since the November midterm elections.
The goal for the Obama regime is to spin the unemployment number to 8% or less prior to the election of 2012, which they hope will make the economy a non-issue and pave the way for a second term for Barack Obama.
The recent jobs numbers say that unemployment is down. But the unemployment statistics are drawn from those who are filing claims for unemployment benefits; once a person exhausts their benefits they are no longer counted among the unemployed even though they are, obviously, still unemployed. That makes the situation look better than it actually is.
Also not counted are those people who have stopped looking for work, the underemployed and many part-time workers who would prefer a full time job but cannot find one.
Per Gallup - unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.3% in February -- up from 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is now essentially the same as the 10.4% at the end of February 2010.
