…job losses in the public sector.
Nice blog from the WSJ on where the unemployment rate would be absent all those layoffs in the public sector (h/t: HS).
Source: WSJ
A few additional points, if I may:
–these are real jobs by real people of the type you see everyday when you drop your kid off at school, get a speeding ticket (whoops…bad e.g., but you know what I mean), or pass a firehouse. You see their work when you go to a soccer game at a public field that’s in decent shape or stroll in a public park.
–there’s a significant mulitplier to state and local spending, both in terms of contracting out work to private entities and spending by public workers in their communities (Zandi puts it at 1.4–for a dollar of state fiscal relief, GDP grows $1.4).
How much additional aid would have been required from the Federal government to the States in order to have kept those layoffs from occurring?
How much GDP has been lost as a result of the decrease in employment?
In other words, what were the benefits and costs of “austerity”?
Paul Krugman said the same thing last week at EPI, which I reported here: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/05/03/All-Signs-Point-To-Lost-Decade-Krugman-and-Summers.aspx#page1. . . Of course, when the Journal notices that a million public sector workers have lost their jobs, it must be true.