Trump's top economist offers solution to unemployment: More government jobs

[DonViejo]

Source: Politico




In the latest edition of the ‘POLITICO Money’ podcast, Council of Economic Advisers Chair Kevin Hassett discusses tax policy, drawing Americans back into the workforce and his ‘Dow 36,000’ prediction.

By BEN WHITE 11/01/2017 05:13 AM EDT

President Donald Trump’s top economist has an unusual idea for dealing with the problem of long-term unemployment: Just have the government hire people.

That’s a New Deal-style idea more closely associated with highly progressive Democrats. But Kevin Hassett, the conservative chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, believes some Americans are so disconnected from the workforce that the best idea to get them working again could be a federal jobs program that would ultimately lead to private-sector employment.

“We’ve not done a good job as a society at thinking about how do we take people who have become discouraged and reconnect them,” Hassett said in the latest edition of the “POLITICO Money” podcast. “And it’s such an urgent problem that government programs that directly hire people might be part of the solution.” This and other unusual ideas could emerge next year when the White House hopes to pivot from its current tax cut push to an infrastructure bill aimed both at rebuilding crumbling roads, bridges, ports and other national assets and at addressing the shrunken size of the labor force.

To Hassett, long-term unemployment often leads to family breakdown and descent into addiction and other maladies. “People who have been unemployed for more than a year very often don’t ever reconnect to the labor force,” he said. “And very often they fall into sort of downward spirals of personal despair where they end up abusing substances and have a higher risk of divorce. Some of the literature in this area is just absolutely disturbing.”



Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/01/trump-economist-jobs-money-dow-jones-244397?lo=ap_a1

[More_Cowbell]

1. The party of small government isn't hiring more people

In fact, they haven't filled existing positions. What a crock.

[logosoco]

2. How exactly is that supposed to work?

This administration is not is filling vital government roles. Budgets are being cut. With the tax cuts there will be less money collected.

This sounds like fake jobs?

[groundloop]

6. Nobody said those people will ever get paid.

[lagomorph777]

9. Paid in Trump Bucks?

i.e. "volunteer coffee boy" jobs?

[jmowreader]

8. You never heard of volunteerism?

Trump loves volunteers. He loves them so much he has volunteers working on all his construction problems. So it goes without saying all these jobs will be volunteer positions.

[keithbvadu2]

3. Retrain them for lower paying same jobs in their own field

Retrain them for lower paying same jobs in their own field

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141902019

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-coal-retraining-insight/awaiting-trumps-coal-comeback-miners-reject-retraining-idUSKBN1D14G0?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=59f9b29304d3012a85a6ab7f&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

Bob Levo, who runs a GMS training program, offered a measure of realism: The point of the training is to provide low-cost and potentially short-term labor to a struggling industry, he said.

“That’s a major part of the reason that coal mines have been able to survive,” he said. “They rely on us to provide labor at lower cost.”

[Kolesar]

5. good article, thanks, eom

[Javaman]

4. I guess this moron forgot that the orange menace put a

freeze on government hiring.

[matt819]

7. This is actually a good idea

There are gaping holes in government services, and hiring would fill those gaps.

It is exponentially less expensive to hire employees than to farm out these services to contractors. The rationale for contractors is that when the services are no longer needed, the contracts are not renewed. Okay, fair enough. But the contractors are charging the government 3-4 times the annual salary of what would otherwise be government employees, some (many?) of whom could be shifted to other departments and locations. Oh, and of those 3-4x rates, the actual person doing the work is being paid more or less what the government employee would make, the balance lining the pockets of the contractors.

It's been demonstrated many times over in the past that adding payroll bolsters local businesses.

But, of course, the morons in charge are trying to squeeze the life out of government, and when they're not squeezing the life out of government they have to make sure that their donors (contactors) are maximizing their profits at the expense of the taxpayer. The lies they have perpetuated for 40 years are astounding.