Cutting Public Sector Jobs Fails to Help Economy

Reprinted from The Progress Report, Sept. 2, 2011

IMAGINE FOR a moment if Boston, Denver, or Seattle — cities of roughly 600,000 residents — simply disappeared. Well, since the recession officially ended, about 600,000 public sector jobs previously held by 600,000 real people have disappeared from the economy — consistently offsetting some of the gains made in the private sector. Indeed, the stunner headline that zero jobs were created in August was the result of 17,000 new private sector jobs being offset by 17,000 more government jobs being axed.

MATT YGLESIAS has more on the dismal economy brought to us by failed conservative economic theory:

“THE PUBLIC sector has been steadily shrinking. According to the conservative theory of the economy, when the public sector shrinks that should super-charge the private sector. What’s happened in the real world has been that public sector shrinkage has simply been paired with anemic private sector growth. This is what I’ve called ‘The Conservative Recovery.’ Steady cuts to the government sector, offset somewhat by private sector growth. We ought to be forcefully trying to avoid public sector layoffs knowing that workers are also customers for the private sector. But we’re not.

“WE’RE ALREADY teetering on the edge of another recession, and continuing down a conservative economic path is likely to take us right off the cliff,” Yglesias concluded.