posted May 27, 2010 03:44 PM         

And gee, what a high standard to meet in counting new jobs created. If an employee worked one hour during the month...a new job was created.

After all, O'Bomber counted jobs "created" in districts which don't exist.

The drooling press has been almost silent on O'Bomber's phony jobs numbers he's reporting...but is there anything real in the O'Bomber universe of praise?

Two more Census workers blow the whistle
Last Updated: 1:23 AM, May 25, 2010
Posted: 12:42 AM, May 25, 2010

You know the old saying: "Everyone loves a charade." Well, it seems that the Census Bureau may be playing games.

Last week, one of the millions of workers hired by Census 2010 to parade around the country counting Americans blew the whistle on some statistical tricks.

The worker, Naomi Cohn, told The Post that she was hired and fired a number of times by Census. Each time she was hired back, it seems, Census was able to report the creation of a new job to the Labor Department.

Below, I have a couple more readers who worked for Census 2010 and have tales to tell.

But first, this much we know.

Each month Census gives Labor a figure on the number of workers it has hired. That figure goes into the closely followed monthly employment report Labor provides. For the past two months the hiring by Census has made up a good portion of the new jobs.

Labor doesn't check the Census hiring figure or whether the jobs are actually new or recycled. It considers a new job to have been created if someone is hired to work at least one hour a month.

One hour! A month! So, if a worker is terminated after only one hour and another is hired in her place, then a second new job can apparently be reported to Labor . (I've been unable to get Census to explain this to me.)

Here's a note from a Census worker -- this one from Manhattan:

"John: I am on my fourth rehire with the 2010 Census.

"I have been hired, trained for a week, given a few hours of work, then laid off. So my unemployed self now counts for four new jobs.

"I have been paid more to train all four times than I have been paid to actually produce results. These are my tax dollars and your tax dollars at work.

"A few months ago I was trained for three days and offered five hours of work counting the homeless. Now, I am knocking (on) doors trying to find the people that have not returned their Census forms. I worked the 2000 Census. It was a far more organized venture.

"Have to run and meet my crew leader, even though with this rain I did not work today. So I can put in a pay sheet for the hour or hour and a half this meeting will take. Sincerely, C.M."

And here's another:

"John: I worked for (Census) and I was paid $18.75 (an hour) just like Ms. Naomi Cohn from your article.

"I worked for about six weeks or so and I picked the hours I wanted to work. I was checking the work of others. While I was classifying addresses, another junior supervisor was checking my work.

"In short, we had a "checkers checking checkers" quality control. I was eventually let go and was told all the work was finished when, in fact, other people were being trained for the same assignment(s).

"I was re-hired about eight months later and was informed that I would have to go through one week of additional training.

"On the third day of training, I got sick and visited my doctor. I called my supervisor and asked how I can make up the class. She informed me that I was 'terminated.' She elaborated that she had to terminate three other people for being five minutes late to class.

"I did get two days' pay and I am sure the 'late people' got paid also. I think you would concur that this is an expensive way to attempt to control sickness plus lateness. I am totally convinced that the Census work could be very easily done by the US Postal Service.

"When I was trying to look for an address or had a question about a building, I would ask the postman on the beat. They knew the history of the route and can expand in detail who moved in or out etc. I have found it interesting that if someone works one hour, they are included in the labor statistics as a new job being full.

"I am not surprised that you can't get any answers from Census staff; I found there were very few people who knew the big picture. M.G."

When I received my Census form in the mail, I filled it out. Nobody had to knock on my door.

I answered truthfully about the number of people living in my household. But I could have just as easily doubled the number. Why not? Didn't Census advertisements imply that my community would get more federal money if the popula tion were larger?

I'm glad people are finding work with the Census. For some it's the only work they have had this year and the chump change they are making for a few hours' work is a godsend.

posted August 09, 2010 09:11 AM         

It's no coincidence that Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, announced her retirement the day before Friday's brutal unemployment report. With 131,000 more jobs lost in July, and downward revisions of 97,000 for the previous two months, it's easy to see why she would start looking for the exits.

Romer is best known for drafting the February 2009 report "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," which the White House used as an ammunition belt in the fight to gain passage of its $862 billion economic stimulus bill (the actual cost of which exceeds $1 trillion when interest is included). Romer predicted that following passage of the stimulus bill, unemployment would plateau below 8 percent last fall and by this month register at 7 percent. That's not close enough for government work, as unemployment stands at 9.5 percent today. It would be higher except that hundreds of thousands of frustrated job seekers have given up looking for new jobs and dropped out of the labor force.

Predictably, the stimulus bill has proven to be an extraordinary waste of borrowed money that has failed to create jobs, generate economic growth or do much of anything other than line the pockets of White House political allies. That and give $308 million in subsidies to BP before the Gulf oil spill disaster, and subsidize a study on what happens when monkeys snort coke.

As Romer fades back to her teaching post at Berkeley, Obama is adding to the economic misery by creating an environment of regulatory uncertainty. The Wall Street reform law Obama recently signed potentially requires 533 new regulations, 60 studies and 93 reports, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Obama's Environmental Protection Agency has 29 active rulemakings, and there are 100 new rules on the Labor Department's agenda and 26 at the Transportation Department.

Add Obama's determination to raise everybody's taxes by allowing the Bush cuts from 2001 and 2003 to expire Jan. 1, 2011, and it's easy to why banks, businesses and consumers are hoarding trillions of dollars that could otherwise spur economic growth. And we haven't even addressed the destructive effect on economic growth of Obama's nationalization of major portions of the economy, including the banks, health care and the auto industry.

The economy is stalling, unemployment seems stuck at European levels of idleness, the federal deficit and the national debt are at historic highs, public confidence in Congress is at its lowest-ever level and big majorities of Mainstream Americans say Obama has the country on the wrong path. Obamanomics has failed miserably and it's time for everybody in this town to admit it so we can move on.

posted August 09, 2010 12:20 PM         

The total emphasis of the so called O'Bomber stimulus bill was to prop up failed cities and failed states with their wildly inflated failed union employee pension funds. All of these create no wealth in America. They are net drains on the wealth creators in America.

This so called stimulus plan was sold to America on the basis it would go to shovel ready infrastructure projects. That was a bald faced lie by the Socialist demoscats...and the Marxist Socialist bonehead O'Bomber.

863 Billion dollars straight down the drain spent to prop up failed and failing public sector entities...which are still going to have to be dealt with when other people's money runs out.

posted August 09, 2010 03:26 PM         

sorry but you will never make it true that the lower income brackets don't count just because they have less. there are MORE OF THEM.

posted August 09, 2010 11:25 PM         

It's a question of state, county and city governments cutting out of control union contracts and pension funds for those who work in government.

As it is, government workers make far more than private sector employees doing essentialy the same kinds of jobs.

So, we've got trouble in America and it's the private sector which is bearing the brunt of all those layoffs...not the over-paid government workers who don't want to give a cent to help the situation.

So, who are the greedy bast@rds. Really!

There's another component to this as well. These government geeks running failed states, counties and cities are mostly demoscats and they're the ones who are unwilling to cut their staffs, disband useless commissions and boards which are sucking the dollars...and most of those commissioners and board members are their political buds who were given a make believe position which accomplishes nothing.

It's these government geeks who are making the decisions to lay off teachers, police and fire fighters...but not their politically connected buddies.

There is no authorization for the federal government to spend a dime bailing out states, counties and cities who have mismanaged their affairs and that includes California which is one of the worst offenders in the US.

posted August 10, 2010 12:48 AM         

and the unions become rigid and self-referring little political organizations themselves, i know that too. but so does ANY organization that gets beyond a certain size. this does not make for "good business" or a "free market"

by the way did you hear arnold proposes to put all state employees on minimum wage to help make the budget?

and have you considered how many of those "lost" jobs will never again be filled because people decided to work from home or start their OWN business? the trend is away from 9-5 jobs, corporate hierarchies, and the same old same old. i doubt very much if they are coming back in anything like the fashion we had become accustomed to...

posted August 10, 2010 11:56 PM         

governments are full of bureaucrats. even the american government, and the washington obama is at the hub of has been getting more and more corrupt and bureaucratic for eons.

and corporations and ALL large organizations suffer from the same red tape and checkers checking the checkers, etc that is being complained about here. it would be nice if we could be flies on the wall and see obama and/or his colleagues cutting through all the garbage and throwing it all out AT ONCE! but in my experience messes take time to sort out.

and the fact that there are quite a lot of "unemployed" people doing fairly well for themselves, and technology is as much responsible for job losses as anything else, is central to the situation we are in.

posted August 15, 2010 10:44 AM         

Tad DeHaven is a budget analyst at the Cato Institute and co-editor of Downsizing the Federal Government.
Added to cato.org on August 2, 2010

This article appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on August 1, 2010.

At the beginning of 2009, the president's economists told the public that passing an $862 billion "stimulus" package was the medicine the sick economy needed. We were told that its pas sage would keep unemployment from going above 8 percent. Instead, unemployment has remained close to 10 percent ever since.

The overall unemployment rate in Virginia has also increased but remains below the national average. However, counties that don't border the D.C. spending epicenter have unemployment rates that often match or exceed the national average. Virginia has been awarded some $4.5 billion in stimulus funds, yet private sector employment remains flat.

Never mind all that, says the administration. The stimulus package prevented a second great depression, it says. Last month, the White House's Council of Economic Advisors released an analysis claiming that the stimulus created or saved between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs.

Policymakers today have no choice but to drastically reduce spending if we are to head off the looming fiscal train wreck.
Sounds good, but how did the CEA arrive at this conclusion?

Fuzzy math.

The first analysis used economic modeling to estimate the number of jobs created or saved. The model the CEA used assumed that government spending will have a positive multiplier effect on the economy. Voilà — the stimulus created jobs!

In the second analysis, the CEA estimated the stimulus bill's effects by comparing real changes in gross domestic product and employment against a baseline forecast. However, even the CEA admits that this approach is subject to "considerable margins of error," and that "the comparison will reflect not just the impact of fiscal policy, but all other unusual influences on the economy following passage of the Act."

Translation: "We don't know."

That the stimulus did create jobs isn't in question. The real question is whether it created any net jobs after all the negative effects of the spending and debt are taken into account. How many private-sector jobs were lost or not created in the first place because of the resources diverted to the government for its job creation?

Don't expect the administration's economists to attempt an answer to that question any time soon.

Here's another question that the administration would prefer to ignore: How many jobs are being lost or not created because of increased uncertainty in the business community over future tax increases and other detrimental government policies?

The economist Robert Higgs coined the phrase "regime uncertainty" to describe Franklin Roosevelt's anti-business climate, which prolonged the Great Depression. Unfortunately, this president is repeating the same mistake.

Health care mandates, cap-and-trade legislation, new financial regulations, union protections, and the probability of higher taxes to pay for the administration's debt spree have caused innumerable businesses to remain on the sidelines.

As one small business owner recently told me, "I want to hire but I'm afraid the administration's policies are going to force me to turn around and let them go."

The president is countering these objections by traversing the country handing out government checks to pet industries. Apparently in the president's economic Field of Dreams, "if we subsidize it, they will come." Too bad past administrations have already poured billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain on similar failed top-down planning schemes.

So what should the administration do?

Put simply, the opposite of what it has been doing. It has become gospel in some quarters that massive deficit spending is necessary to get the economy back on its feet.

History offers no support for this contention.

Most recently, the Japanese tried to spend their way out of their economic doldrums in the 1990s. The result was Japan's "lost decade."

Our own history offers evidence that reducing the government's footprint on the private sector is the better way to get the economy going. Take for example, the "Not-So-Great Depression" of 1920-21. Cato Institute scholar Jim Powell notes that President Warren G. Harding inherited from his predecessor Woodrow Wilson "a post-World War I depression that was almost as severe, from peak to trough, as the Great Contraction from 1929 to 1933 that FDR would later inherit."

Instead of resorting to deficit spending to "stimulate" the economy, taxes and government spending were cut. Hello Roaring Twenties.

Similarly, fears at the end of World War II that demobilization would result in double-digit unemployment when the troops returned home were unrealized. Instead, spending was dramatically reduced, economic controls were lifted, and the returning troops were successfully reintegrated into the economy.

Policymakers today have no choice but to drastically reduce spending if we are to head off the looming fiscal train wreck. Stimulus proponents generally recognize that our fiscal path is unsustainable, but they argue that the current debt binge is nonetheless critical to an economic recovery. Nonsense.

Not only has Washington's profligacy left us worse off, our children now face the prospect of reduced living standards and crushing debt.