Comments for Romney and Robert Samuelson Are Wrong: Employers Are Not Reluctant to Hire at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 7 out of 7 comments http://www.cepr.net Wed, 19 Jun 2013 01:21:50 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/romney-and-robert-samuelson-are-wrong-employers-are-not-reluctant-to-hire#comment-18756 Perhaps checking a graph of Capacity Utilization would help with some of the consternation in this thread. - fuller schmidt Mon, 10 Sep 2012 11:19:25 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/romney-and-robert-samuelson-are-wrong-employers-are-not-reluctant-to-hire#comment-18739 David, the problem is Dean's chart does not support his argument regarding Obama. The Republican claim is that business has not hired since Obama took office due to his kenyan muslim socialist policies. The claim is clearly wrong, as his policies are mainstream Republican circa 1990, government employment has decreased sharply, tax rates are down, profits and margins are up, etc. Lack of demand is clearly the real problem. However, Dean points to the failure of average hours worked to increase as evidence that lack of demand is the problem. His chart shows an increase in average hours during the Obama years. In other words, Dean is right and the Rs are wrong, but not for the reason Dean cites in this post. If Dean's argument is that an increase from 33.75 to 34.5 is meaningless, he could have been a lot clearer, using a different scale and showing longer term data. - foosion Mon, 10 Sep 2012 02:29:06 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/romney-and-robert-samuelson-are-wrong-employers-are-not-reluctant-to-hire#comment-18738 If you compare the BLS data by month, in most months the variaton was less than a few tenths of an hour, averaged over all sectors. Dean's choice of scale gives the wrong impression that the variation is statistically significant. - David Mon, 10 Sep 2012 02:11:16 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/romney-and-robert-samuelson-are-wrong-employers-are-not-reluctant-to-hire#comment-18737 Foosion, relative to the pre-recession levels, avg work hours/wk have not risen, in fact it's below "business as usual". The drop in Fall 2008 was due to the freefall in demand. Sure there's uncertainty: about demand and whether customers will come in. It's most obvious in small retail shops, but even at Sears, Best Buy (if Samuelson reads the stock pages, he must be blind). No, the libertarian monster refuses to face the reality that it has failed, economically and ethically. - David Mon, 10 Sep 2012 01:54:46 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/romney-and-robert-samuelson-are-wrong-employers-are-not-reluctant-to-hire#comment-18736 The range on the ordinate of the graph (33.75 to 34.75) is one hour per week. Hard to convince me that that is beyond statistical noise. - Ron Alley Mon, 10 Sep 2012 01:45:28 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/romney-and-robert-samuelson-are-wrong-employers-are-not-reluctant-to-hire#comment-18735 [quote]... employers are reluctant to hire because they are scared by regulations and taxes.[/quote] Taken literally, this also implies employers are eager to fire as well even in the face of claimed existing sufficient demand, because they are "scared" by regulations and taxes associated with existing employees going forward (instead of working employees less hours as Baker would say due to less demand.) There's a critical difference between between certainty and uncertainty regarding regulations and taxes. Uncertainty means the risks are unknown because the direction of change is unknown, while certainty means the risks are predictable whatever quantitative values involved. (For example a claim that high taxes are killing jobs is a claim about certainty, not uncertainty.) Take the cost-plus contracts awarded to private military contractors that Romney wants to preserve as needed government stimulus spending to create jobs. That's rock solid certainty if it ever was, so contractors don't hesitate to hire for the confirmed demand, just as they must fire if cuts are made. In contrast, it is primarily the Republicans who have intentionally created uncertainty for the private sector in general (beyond military contractors) by intentionally derailing every effort to fill the huge gap in private sector spending with targeted government stimulus spending (or in reverse, created the certainty of killing any and all stimulus forever). The only "certainty or uncertainty" in question is about stimulus spending and demand, not [i]unknown changes in regulations and taxes[/i] which are fairly certain (most electoral promises are lies). Businesses actually are quite certain for the forseeable future that no sufficient demand to justify hiring is forthcoming either from the private or public sector. - Last Mover Mon, 10 Sep 2012 01:45:15 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/romney-and-robert-samuelson-are-wrong-employers-are-not-reluctant-to-hire#comment-18734 The caption above the chart is "Unemployment Rate for College Grads: Age 25 and Over" but the chart seems to be hours worked. The chart shows a rather steady increase in weekly hours worked for all employees from mid 2009 to 03/12, with a recent leveling off, yet the text suggests that due to inadequate demand hours worked have not increased. - foosion Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:18:05 +0100