December 08, 2014
Sorry, I usually find Matt’s stuff interesting, but I couldn’t resist the cheap shot. Anyhow, Matt seems to have gotten himself stuck in the mud of a silly debate between Obama haters and Obama apologists.
The haters are saying that all the jobs created under the Obama administration are part-time jobs — pointing out that full-time employment is still below the pre-recession peak. Meanwhile the apologists are pointing out that most of the jobs created under Obama have been full-time jobs. With the wisdom of someone other than Solomon, Matt pronounces them both right.
Okay, let’s step back for a moment and deal with two separate issues. The first is overall employment. We saw a huge fall in employment that began before Obama stepped into the White House and continued for his three months in office. Since that point the economy has gained back more jobs than it initially lost. However since part-time employment (both voluntary and involuntary, a distinction to which we return momentarily) is well above pre-recession levels, full-time employment is still below its pre-recession level.
How should this appear on the Obama scorecard? Well, it’s pretty damn silly to blame Obama for the downturn. He walked into an economic disaster that was not of his doing. We can argue that the recovery should have been more robust. I know the Republicans blame Obamacare, taxes, regulations and the Redskins’ defense, but none of these explanations can pass the laugh test.
The more obvious explanation, which some of us did say at the time, is that the stimulus was not large enough to fill the hole in demand created by the collapse of the housing bubble. There is a question as to whether Obama could have gotten more stimulus through Congress, either at the time or in subsequent efforts, but the main problem was congressional opposition, not the actions of President Obama.
The other big problem with the part-time story is that part-time work is not necessarily bad. The number of people who are working part-time but want full-time employment is still up by more than 2 million from its pre-recession level (although down by more than 2 million from its recession peak). This is a serious issue as these people need full-time employment to make ends meet.
However voluntary part-time employment is also up. The November number was more than 400,000 higher than the level in November of 2007. These are people who say that they do not want full-time employment. Some of them are spending time with young children. Some may be partially retired. Many may just appreciate the chance to work fewer hours while they go to school or pursue other interests.
The Obama administration is likely to blame for this rise in voluntary part-time employment. As a result of the Affordable Care Act millions of workers are now getting insurance through the health care exchanges or Medicaid. These workers are no longer dependent on working at full-time jobs to get insurance from their employers.
The Obama bashers may think it’s a bad thing that workers have the option to work part-time so that they can spend more time with their kids, but the rest of the world probably wouldn’t see things that way. So, if someone wants to make a case against the Obama administration on part-time employment, they should at least restrict their focus to involuntary part-time, unless they think the government should be forcing people to put in a 40-hour workweek.
Comments