June 01, 2015
Robert Samuelson used his Monday column to tell readers that the problem with the economy is that we are suffering the psychological fallout of the Great Recession:
“My main explanation for this — as I’ve argued before — is the hangover from the 2008-2009 financial crisis and the Great Recession. These events changed economic psychology, precisely because they were unanticipated and horrific. They transcended the experience of most Americans (that is, anyone who hadn’t lived through the Great Depression). Corporate executives and consumers alike became more defensive; they saved and hoarded a bit more. If a novel calamity struck once, it could strike again. They’d better prepare.”
The problem is that the data refuses to agree with his psychoanalysis. As I pointed out yesterday, consumption is actually higher as a share of GDP than it was before the downturn, indicating that fear is not keeping households from consuming in any obvious way.
Samuelson also points to the rise in temporary employment as evidence that firms are scared to commit themselves to permanent employees. The problem with this one is that temporary employment as a share of total employment is just rising back to the levels of the late 1990s, a time when the economy was booming.
If we look at the narrow category of temporary employment agencies, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports the number stood at 2,880,000 in April. That compares to 2,605,000 in December of 1999. Measured as a share of total employment, it stood at 2.03 percent in December of 1999, compared with 2.04 percent of total employment in April.
If we use the somewhat broader category of employment services, BLS reports the number at 3,547,000 in April. That compared to 3,776,000 in December of 1999. Measured as a share of total employment, jobs at employment service agencies fell from 3.77 percent in December of 1999 to 3.55 percent in April.
In short, if employment in temporary agencies is supposed to be a measure of insecurity, it doesn’t appear to be going in the right direction to make Samuelson’s point.
Addendum:
The most obvious explanation for the continuing weakness of the economy is that there is nothing to fill the gap in demand created by a $500 billion annual trade deficit (@ 3 percent of GDP). In the last decade, the demand generated by the housing bubble filled the gap, while in the 1990s the demand from a stock bubble filled the gap. In the absence of another bubble and a refusal to run large budget deficits, there is no obvious source of demand to fill this gap.
Unfortunately this explanation is far too simple to be used by economists or those writing on economy.
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