Politicians never stop talking about “creating jobs.” This verbal tendency exists in both parties, and it seems that no matter what policy they are talking about, “creating jobs” is part of the conversation.
That made a lot of sense in the aftermath of the Great Recession when the U.S. economy genuinely did need more jobs. However, the United States now has more job openings than unemployed workers to fill them. It had more in 2018 and 2019 before the Covid pandemic, and it has again since 2021.
Politicians remain stuck in the past on their rhetoric about jobs, a topic Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute covered in his newsletter for the Dispatch. I had him on Econception, my podcast with the American Institute for Economic Research, to talk about how politicians can update their message for today’s economy, rather than the economy of ten years ago.
In the second half, I go on something of a rant about labor unions, spurred by the RNC’s decision to invite Teamsters president Sean O’Brien to speak. Unions have a long history of corruption and political activism that has given workers plenty of good reasons to not want to be part of them. And the real way to raise pay is to raise productivity, which is amply demonstrated by the economic evidence in U.S.
The Paper of the Episode is “Racial and Ethnic Inequality and the China Shock” by Lisa B. Kahn, Lindsay Oldenski, and Geunyong Park.
Listen and subscribe to Econception on whichever podcast platform you prefer by clicking here.