April 6, 2016
For the last six years, we have seen the reported unemployment rate decline significantly. The unemployment rate, which peaked in October 2009 at just over 10 percent, was reported to be approximately 5 percent as of October 2015. According to the data released by the government, the U.S. economy is very near “full employment.”
But are we? The unemployment statistics quoted each month are quite misleading because they register only those unemployed who are actively looking for work. Those who are not counted—or not counted accurately—are those who have given up looking, or who have otherwise dropped to the sidelines of the labor force. This number is much larger. Last year, Forbes columnist Dan DiMicco analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, concluding that when one takes into account reported unemployed workers, part-time workers who would like to have a full-time job, and those who have stopped looking, the real rate is more like 15.8 percent. This is hardly a sign of a robust economy.
“The government will report, the media will spin, and the candidates will posture, but business owners who provide the jobs, benefits, and stability to our workforce are the best arbiters of the state of the economy.”
One reason we find ourselves in this precarious position is that our manufacturing sector—long the source of well-paying jobs for skilled and semiskilled workers—has been systematically hollowed out in the past four decades. As a result, many workers have simply given up trying to find a job. In our area—South Central Pennsylvania—we have a very hard time filling our entry-level plant positions because, in my view, people have simply “dropped out.” DiMicco, the columnist I referred to earlier, offers a harsher explanation: “[The loss of jobs] is in large part due to the massive demise in manufacturing here since the ’70s; which is, in turn, due mostly to failed trade policies and the movement of our middle-class jobs overseas. [We have] a government that increasingly attacks and burdens our private sector so that we have lost our global competitiveness.”
For the past 12-plus years, AICC has joined with the Fibre Box Association to co-sponsor the Annual Corrugated and Paperboard Industries Washington Fly-In. This event, held in June every year in conjunction with the National Association of Manufacturers’ (NAM) Manufacturing Summit, provides members with the opportunity to meet with their elected representatives to make the case that a strong manufacturing sector means a strong economy and even stronger employment.
I hope you’ll join us this year, June 6–7, in Washington, D.C. We need business owners to attend, participate, and speak up. Especially in this election year, it’s important that rational, reasoned, and “real” people make their voices heard. The government will report, the media will spin, and the candidates will posture, but business owners who provide the jobs, benefits, and stability to our workforce are the best arbiters of the state of the economy.
Let’s tell ’em like it is! I look forward to seeing you in Washington.
John Forrey is president of Specialty Industries and NuPak Printing in Red Lion, Pennsylvania, and is Chair of AICC’s Government Affairs Committee. He can be reached at 717-246-4301 or jforrey@specialtyindustries.com.
