President Trump is fighting for American workers who want to work at good paying jobs. Free stuff, cheap labor, and outsourcing erode the American dream.
Even Non-Fake News Media Can’t Resist Sticking It to President Trump
The media, even the most-friendly to conservatives, can’t resist “sticking it” to President Trump with the month of May “pull-back” in “jobs creation” story the latest example.
The scolds at the Wall Street Journal cherry-picked some “bad news” instead of highlighting the continued lowest U.S. unemployment rate in 50 years and President Trump’s incremental progress in growing the country’s workforce participation. More than the jobs report, workforce participation represents a better indicator of the true health of the country.
Everything that President Trump is doing on the Three Ts – Trade, Tariffs, and Taxes – is geared to rebuild our cultural norm of the American work ethic
In an op-ed in its June 8-9 weekend edition, the Walt Street Journal, couldn’t resist the following headline: “A Jobs Warning for Trump.”
“Employers added a mere 75,000 jobs last month, but even those paltry gains were erased by the Labor Department’s downward revisions for April and March,” the WSJ intoned gravely. (By the way, do we need a Labor Department when the ADP pretty much tracks the same unemployment figures)? Never mind that the unemployment rate in the United States held firm at 3.6 percent, which is statistically full employment. Based on the survey methodology, that number can hardly go any lower.
Let’s remember that there are millions of open jobs in the United States. The “jobs creation” number is essentially irrelevant, if there is full employment. What does matter though is that workforce participation has inched up under President Trump. Why does this matter? Because the greater the percentage of people participating in the workforce, i.e., the economy, the more people are vested in the country’s overall health and success, rather than those who choose to accept government (unemployment, disability, food stamps, and housing) transfer payments rather than work. Simply stated, people are being de-incentivized not to work. This means the incentive to work must be increased to get people off their couches.
One must understand this to appreciate why President Trump is endeavoring to Make American Great Again. President Trump is fighting for an America that chooses to embrace the value of work – to try and get ahead, rather than stay poor and resentful on government welfare, where nobody gets rich. Everything that President Trump is doing on the Three Ts – Trade, Tariffs, and Taxes – is geared to rebuild our cultural norm of the American work ethic.
President Trump is trying to reverse these two trends as part of his Make America Great Again agenda
Let’s look at the statistics and the two important changes over the last 30 years that have made work less attractive to regular Americans. After reaching an all-time high of 67 percent in the three years before 2001, the workforce participation rate began to decline under President George W .Bush, and then accelerated under President Obama, a drop of about 4 full percentage points or an overall full 6 percent decline. That 6 percent decline represents about 10 million people who have dropped out of the total labor force of 162 million people rather than work in the economy.
According to 2019 figures, there are 7.3 million in open jobs in the United States and 5.9 million unemployed persons. If any of those 10 million people who have opted out of work force decided to get one of those 7.3 million jobs, we would have an official unemployment number below 3.6 percent. Probably not reasonable to achieve statistically, but the point is that seven million more workers means more wealth, more people paying taxes, and seven million fewer people having “given up looking” for jobs and receiving government transfer payments. That would be a huge boost to the culture of work in the United States.
What happened in the last 20 years to cause six to 10 million able-bodied Americans to leave the workforce? The welfare reforms of the 1990s under President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich were overturned. By the time Obama was president, 47 million Americans were on food stamps, and the free health care, free education revolution for all was underway. But two things also occurred on the carrot side in the late 1990s that discouraged people to work: outsourcing, specifically, to China, and unfettered immigration. President Trump is trying to reverse these two trends as part of his Make America Great Again agenda.
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Nothing depresses wages in the United States more than cheap labor from Mexico and Central America
Free trade with India, China, and Mexico decimated manufacturing in the United States. Who was the leader of this? Steve Jobs at Apple. He became the first American tycoon who did not pass the benefits of innovation to average Americans, unlike Andrew Carnegie, for example. Imagine how life in America would be different had Jobs decided to build I-Phones in Detroit to replace the faltering car industry, or in the mill towns of the Northeast, instead of in China. Tech jobs in the United States would mean high-paying jobs for Americans, instead of low wages in China.
Finally, nothing depresses wages in the United States more than cheap labor from Mexico and Central America. Not only that, but many of these jobs are in construction, landscaping and agriculture which are “off the books.” Many immigrants to the United States today stay on benefits and don’t become citizens because they know they will lose the free stuff that they receive. Outsourcing and open borders and free housing and health care have lead many people to believe that it is easier to stay poor than to get off the dole and work, much less start a business.
If you don’t think this is a counterculture of abuse, then go visit the Social Security Administration office in upper Manhattan where people line up in the morning before the office opens to claim bennies for who knows what. None were native-born English speakers. What was the number of English-speaking Americans in that office when I was recently there trying to get a replacement Social Security card? One, me, out of a hundred people, and that’s it.
President Trump is fighting for American workers who want to work at good paying jobs. Free stuff, cheap labor, and outsourcing erode the American dream.
Daniel Wiseman is an independent political commentator, who focuses on national and international affairs. He spent nine years as a professional journalist in Wyoming before working in fund-raising, non-profit management, and is now working in New York City. Wiseman focuses his writing on how to bring the United States back to its Constitutional moorings. He writes exclusively for Canada Free Press.
The media, even the most-friendly to conservatives, can’t resist “sticking it” to President Trump with the month of May “pull-back” in “jobs creation” story the latest example.
The scolds at the Wall Street Journal cherry-picked some “bad news” instead of highlighting the continued lowest U.S. unemployment rate in 50 years and President Trump’s incremental progress in growing the country’s workforce participation. More than the jobs report, workforce participation represents a better indicator of the true health of the country.
