New employment numbers come out today. If they look anything like the past three months, they won?t inspire optimism.
In the first three months of the year, the country lost an average of 77,000 jobs per month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Even in Maryland, a bastion of federal money and good times, the unemployment rate increased to 3.6 percent in March from 3.4 percent in February, and the number of unemployed increased 5,900 to 108,400.
Amid the national gloom, few bright spots exist, except for those seeking education and health services jobs ? and government positions. Nationally, all levels of government hired 18,000 new people in March.
Up-to-date figures for Maryland do not yet exist, but the most recent figures show the number of state jobs increasing by 774 and the number of local government jobs increasing by 1,982 from the third quarter of 2006 to the same time last year. The number of federal jobs decreased by 126 during that time period.
What?s clear is that shedding private-sector jobs while adding public-sector jobs is unsustainable ? without tax increases. Government jobs do not produce money, they merely redistribute revenue produced by those in the private sector. So as the proportion of those working for the government increases, a smaller group of wealth producers must support a bigger group of redistributors. That means less money for everyone.
It means expanding government may help reduce unemployment numbers initially, but it will not help the economy.
Neither will the slate ofnew taxes passed last year and signed by Gov. Martin O?Malley. Higher corporate income taxes and personal income taxes among others passed make it more difficult to hire workers and invest in operations. They also deter those considering expanding or opening businesses in Maryland from doing so.
In this kind of environment, government should be cutting jobs, not hiring more people or giving raises.
That is why Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon should scrap her pledge of no layoffs and $30 million in raises next year. Her largess toward a few means unemployment and less take-home pay for the rest of us. Given that the average local government worker earns more than the average worker in the private sector, this burden is not only unjust in faltering economic times, it ultimately must be catastrophic.
