We just passed the one-year mark for President Obama’s administration. My key question to you: is the jobs market better off or worse off as a result of what he has done? I believe the answer is clear: we are worse off! December marked the third straight month of 10%+ national unemployment. The last time that occurred was June of 1983, when we had ten straight months of 10%+ unemployment.
Obama signed a $787 billion stimulus bill into law just weeks after taking office. He says it has saved jobs and staved off an even deeper recession. I do not believe so. History tells us that small businesses actually create jobs. Not the big programs for big companies that this administration has rolled out. In fact, research from the Small Business Administration (SBA) confirms that almost 64% of the net new jobs over the last 15 years were created by small businesses. Unfortunately, very little of the stimulus money was targeted towards small businesses.
Last week I visited two growing, smaller companies that are rolling out several new electronics products. Both want to quickly recruit several new employees. Unfortunately, this administration has done little to assist them. In fact both are worried that some of the costly programs like healthcare may even slow down their jobs creation efforts by saddling them with a lot of extra costs and layers of regulation!
Furthermore, both companies provide products and services for the industrial machinery field. Because these machines are becoming more complex, both need increasingly better educated workers including on their sales and marketing staff. This requires our educational system to improve dramatically especially in the areas of math, science and engineering. This is another area that this administration has paid a lot of lip service to, but has not delivered much in the way of benefits.
Maybe a referendum was delivered yesterday in Massachusetts when Scott Brown became the first Republican Senator elected to that state since 1972. It is a sign to the administration that more needs to be done to help the real engine for jobs growth, small businesses!
