Unemployment and Employment
In the realm of employment the most cited statistic is the rate of unemployment. Here we will use both that and a measure of growth in the workforce actually employed. Rates of unemployment or employment only partly describe the health of working America, however, since they omit wages and salaries, so we add some notes on income and wages. Unemployment has been lower on average under Democrats, 5.1 percent v. 6.2 percent. More striking than the actual rate is the progression of the measure over time.
Under Democrats unemployment has shown an unmistakable, persistent tendency to fall from year to year. After 1949 and the turbulence of transition from war to peace, only twice under Democrats has unemployment failed to fall. It rose once, modestly, under Kennedy in 1963, and then more substantially under Carter in 1980 in the context of the Iran oil embargo and the Volcker Monetarist experiment. We have used 2.0 as the baseline, although the minimum practical rate of unemployment is likely closer to 3.0 percent.
It is tempting to allow the charts to speak for themselves. Elaboration on the data may seem to be mere advocacy. The strength of the economy as measured by the employment of its members is described in the chart on employment growth. The stability of the blue bars as opposed to the volatility of those in red illustrates the success of millions of working people. Getting a job has often been characterized as a personal choice available to all the willing. If so, Democratic presidents have inspired many millions to be willing. Growth in employment has been strong and stable under Democrats. Not so under Republicans.
Weakness in employment numbers has historically, and not surprisingly, been reflected in wages and salaries. High unemployment means it is a buyer's market for labor. The experience of the American workforce in the years since 1980 compared with the period prior to that has been the difference between stagnation and opportunity.
In looking at the following statistics and relating them to our own bservations, we should keep in mind that an individual worker may do better over his or her lifetime as he or she advances in experience, skill, or seniority, but each group will not. For example, wages have declined for the 20- to 30-year-old unskilled labor force, yet of course, an individual will grow out of this category. The numbers show only that, as a whole, our economy is not progressing from the point of the majority of its citizens and that it is no longer true that children will do better than their parents did. That happy circumstance is a relic of the past.
Between 1947 and 1978, real hourly wages rose 72 percent. Weekly earnings, which factor in the number of hours worked per week, rose 53 percent. Between 1978 (the start of the Volcker Monetarist experiment) and 2006, real hourly wages fell 5 percent and weekly earnings fell 10 percent.
Median income of all Americans rose 107% between 1947 and 1978, a number greater than the earnings figure partly reflecting the increase in the proportion of Americans employed and partly reflecting investment and interest income. Between 1979 and 2005, median income rose only 9 percent.
Manufacturing employment peaked in 1979, with 19.4 million (one in five workers) engaged in the manufacture of durable or nondurable goods. In 2006, only 14.2 million were so employed (one in ten).
