What or Who Is Holding the Economy Back?

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the importance of safeguarding freedom from government overreach. One of the ways that the federal government holds economic freedom down is by regulations. The Obama administration inherited a bad economy, and they made the situation worse by adding more and more regulations.

Donald Trump was elected as president and started slashing regulations. He promised to “cut two regulations for every new regulation imposed.” He cut more regulations than promised. “Between FY2017 and FY2019, the Trump Administration has cut nearly eight regulations for every new, significant regulation.”  The economy responded by growing stronger, and companies began moving jobs back to the United States. Then the pandemic hit, and everything shut down. There was fear that the economy could not come back, but the fears were misplaced.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics published its report for August recently with good news. Even though the United States shut down to fight COVID-19, the U.S. economy is roaring back, according to Timothy Doescher at The Daily Signal.

The unemployment rate fell by 1.8 percentage points to 8.4% as the economy added 1.4 million jobs in August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

It was the fourth straight month that the economy added jobs and the unemployment rate fell despite the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, again upsetting experts’ predictions as the economy continued to show positive signs of strong recovery.

The August unemployment rate of 8.4% reflects a drop of 6.3 percentage points from a high of 14.7% in April and a whopping 10.6 million new and regained jobs over the four months.

The number of Americans who were temporarily laid off fell by 3.1 million, marking a 33% decline from July. Moreover, August saw a drop of 7.1 million, or 23%, in the number of those whose work status was affected because their employer had closed or lost business due to the pandemic.

The labor force participation rate saw a healthy increase, from 61.4% in July to 61.7%, as almost 1 million workers joined the labor force in August. This shows that not only are more of the unemployed going back to work, but some who stopped looking for jobs are beginning to see and find new work opportunities.

            Doescher was quick to say that there are still problems with the economy. An unemployment rate of 8.4% is too high, even if it is lower than it was last month. However, the changes in the statistics show that the economic recovery is well under way in the states that are open for business. The states with liberal Democrat governors are not recovering as quickly as those that are open.

As Doescher points out in his article, the national unemployment rate was 10.2% in July. Still, “the unemployment rate in seven states exceeded 13%, and the rate in nine states was below 7%.” He added that the rates are influenced by “several factors.” However, “the overall trend shows that states with lower unemployment have been those that were quicker to reopen during the pandemic.”

            Doescher does not believe Congress should pump more money into the economy, but he did say that state and local governments have some work to do. They “should focus on allowing individuals, businesses, and schools to safely resume activities while not restricting income opportunities for workers.” 

            In other words, governments need to get out of the way and let Americans get on with their lives. The fact that it is Democrat governors that are keeping their states closed should tell us that they want the nation to have a poor economy until after the election. Maybe they should be voted out of office and replaced by Republicans!