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56–377 2010

S. HRG. 111–544 

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: FEBRUARY 2010 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 5, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee 

( 

(II) 

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 

[Created pursuant to Sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Congress] 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chair 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

BARON P. HILL, Indiana 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas 

KEVIN BRADY, Texas 

RON PAUL, Texas 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, M.D., Texas 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

SENATE 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York, Vice 

Chairman 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

MARK R. WARNER, Virginia 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Ranking Minority 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

ANDREA CAMP, Executive Director 

JEFF SCHLAGENHAUF, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

MEMBERS

Hon. Robert P. Casey, Jr., a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania ............................ 1 

Hon. Kevin Brady, a U.S. Representative from Texas ......................................... 3 

Hon. Michael C. Burgess, M.D., a U.S. Representative from Texas ................... 5 

WITNESSES

Statement of Dr. Keith Hall, Commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. 

Department of Labor, Washington, DC; Accompanied by: Mr. Philip Rones, 

Deputy Commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics; and Dr. Michael 

Horrigan, Associate Commissioner for Prices and Living Conditions, Bureau 

of Labor Statistics ................................................................................................ 7 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Prepared statement of Representative Kevin Brady ............................................ 28 

Prepared statement of Representative Michael C. Burgess, M.D. ...................... 29 

Prepared statement of Dr. Keith Hall, Commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics, together with Press Release No. USDL–10–0256 ...................................... 29 

(1) 

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: 

FEBRUARY 2010 

FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2010 

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 106 

of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, The Honorable Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr., presiding. 

Representatives present: Cummings, Brady, and Burgess. 

Senators present: Casey. 

Staff present: Brenda Arredondo, Andrea Camp, Gail Cohen, 

Colleen Healy, Kinsey Kiriakos, Andrew Wilson, Lydia Mashburn, 

Jeff Schlagenhauf, Ted Boll, and Robert O’Quinn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROBERT P. 

CASEY, JR., A U.S. SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA 

Senator Casey. The hearing will come to order. 

We want to thank our witnesses for being here this morning. 

Commissioner Hall, thank you for your presence again. I know we 

have a number of Members who will be here and as they come in 

we will be able to prepare for the questioning. But I did want to 

thank you, Commissioner, and your team for once again being here. 

We are in a period of tremendous trauma for a lot of Americans. 

I know in Pennsylvania, by way of example, we don’t have one of 

the highest unemployment rates but the numbers are staggering. 

We have about 560,000 people out of work in Pennsylvania as of 

December. It is about the same number in January. 

We do not know what the number will be for February, but I 

know a lot of people in Pennsylvania, across the board—and it is 

not limited to one region—have had great difficulty. 

We have to continue here in Washington not only to be aware of 

the difficulty, but to act to tackle the problem. We have taken some 

steps in the last year. The Recovery bill I believe has begun to 

work in many places, and in some places has worked in a very substantial way. 

That is not enough, even if it is working very well. We have 

taken steps that I will highlight a little later in the last couple of 

days. I know the House just worked yesterday to pass legislation 

that the Senate worked on, and we will have that returned to the 

Senate and will get that piece of legislation worked through—the 

so-called ‘‘Hire Act’’—to create more jobs and to have a four-part 

strategy to do that. But in addition to that, we have other legislation as well. 

2 

But I am grateful, as I think many Americans are, that the unemployment rate has remained unchanged at 9.7 percent; but as I 

said before, there is much work to do. 

In February of 2009 across America we lost 728,000 jobs. That 

was after January of 2009 where we lost about 740,000 jobs. And 

we lost over six hundred thousand in March of 2009. In the previous December of 2008 we were losing between 600,000 and 

700,000 jobs. 

We have come from a period a year ago where every single 

month for at least four months, maybe longer, we were losing over 

600,000 jobs. We are in a period now where the job loss is still too 

high. We cannot rest in terms of moving forward. But instead of 

losing 740,000 jobs, or 726,000 jobs in the months of January, February, and March of last year, around that number, we are losing 

in the tens of thousands. We are losing 26,000—lost 26,000 in January 2010; and then this month of February of 2010, 36,000 jobs. 

We know that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which for 

a lot of Americans did not hear much about that office prior to last 

year, but because of health care and some other debates we have 

had here, it has been recognized, the so-called CBO has been recognized as an arbiter, or the one office in Washington that has had 

a significant impact on certifying or stating what the numbers are, 

whether it is scoring the health care bill and telling the American 

people what it cost, but also in terms of what is happening with 

employment. 

The Congressional Budget Office reported last week that the Recovery Act added between 1 million and 2.1 million jobs in the 

fourth quarter of 2009, and it raised economic growth by 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent over that period. 

CBO Director Elmendorf said during a period hearing of this 

Committee that the policies that were enacted in the bill are, 

quote, ‘‘increasing GDP unemployment relative to what it otherwise would be,’’ unquote. 

Not my words, his words. However, we are not anywhere near 

out of the woods yet. We have got a ways to go. I mentioned that 

the Senate and the House had worked on the so-called ‘‘Hire Act.’’ 

The Hiring Incentives To Restore Employment Act. 

The Act has, as I mentioned before, four basic strategies, four 

basic elements. 

Number one, a payroll tax holiday for those employers who hire 

new employees. 

Number two, a Build America Bonds Act so our local government 

entities can borrow money in a way that is more affordable. 

Third, an extension of the Highway Trust Fund, essential to preserve jobs. Hundreds of thousands of jobs can be preserved by just 

a one-year extension of the Highway Trust Fund to keep road 

building and other infrastructure, related infrastructure moving 

forward. 

And fourth, the Hire Act focuses, as well as I think the other provisions do but in a very focused way, on small business: the ability 

to write off certain expenditures. If a small business wants to invest in new equipment, through this Act we give them an opportunity to do that in a more substantial way. 

3 

Currently the Senate, as many people know, is working on an additional piece of job creation legislation: The American Worker, 

State, and Business Relief Act. Upon passage of this legislation, we 

will provide a couple of things. I will just do a quick summary. 

Number one, energy efficiency tax credits. 

Number two, tax credits for businesses to free up cash flow and 

enable them to expand and hire. 

Number three, the extension of important safety net programs. 

It is critically important that we do that for COBRA, health insurance for those who have lost their job; Unemployment Insurance 

for those who lost their job through no fault of their own; and we 

have got big numbers of Americans in that category. Millions of 

people that have lost their jobs. We have got to help them get from 

here to there, from unemployment to employment. And you cannot 

ask them to do that and have their families do that alone, as some 

in Washington seem to want to do. 

So we need to continue to focus not only on new and more focused job creation strategies, we also have to have a safety net in 

place. 

And by the way, the safety net programs also have an economic 

benefit. You spend a buck on Unemployment Insurance or Food 

Stamps, and you get a return on that investment of a lot more than 

a buck, $1.65 or $1.70, or $1.75. We need to continue to make sure 

that Americans know it is not only the right thing to have a safety 

net, it also has a jump starting effect on our economy and creates 

jobs. 

We are going to continue to work on this legislation that I mentioned in the Senate. We are going to continue to focus on job creation strategies as we move forward. 

I will wrap up now so we can move forward with our opening 

statements from our Members, and then we will get to Commissioner Hall. 

Congressman Brady. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KEVIN BRADY, A 

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS 

Representative Brady. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am 

pleased to join with you in welcoming Dr. Hall before the Committee this morning. 

Today’s employment report is more bad news for American workers and their families. Payroll employment fell by 36,000. After excluding the hiring of temporary Census workers, payroll employment fell by closer to 51,000. The employment rate remains unchanged. It is not moving down, as was promised with the passage 

of the first Stimulus, and the number of discouraged workers 

reached a series high of 1.2 million. 

I know that earlier this week the Administration attempted to 

spin these numbers as a result of storms in the Northeast, but in 

truth it is a blizzard of bad policy proposals. 

Higher taxes, health care mandates, and dangerous levels of debt 

is the real reason businesses are delaying key investment and hiring decisions. Coupled with consumers concerned about their finances, as well as the government’s unsustainable finances, you 

have got the real answer why this economic recovery is so sluggish. 

4 

The uncertainty in America among job creators in the public is 

palpable. Jamming the massive health care takeover and another 

wasteful Stimulus bill through Congress will not restore confidence. 

With two-thirds of the original Stimulus bill left to be spent, it 

is ludicrous for Congress to attempt a second Stimulus bill, one 

which as I laid out to our small- and medium-sized businesses last 

week and asked for their opinions, they said it would do nothing 

to encourage them to hire new workers. A $1,000 tax credit, or payroll holiday, to hire a $40,000 worker is not good math. 

Until the customers and their clients show that they are ready 

to buy again and expand again, we will not see those hiring decisions. 

I know the President and Congress is well intentioned in all 

these efforts, but I am puzzled by the President’s economic approach. I don’t know what you call it. Maybe blamenomics. If you 

can blame it, you can tax it. If you can blame it, you can punish 

it. We are seeing that in proposals to punish U.S. energy companies who produce jobs and invest here in the United States. 

U.S. banking and financial services industries, the U.S. insurance industries, investors with higher taxes on dividends and capital gains, higher income taxes on professionals and, quote, ‘‘the 

wealthy’’; higher taxes on real estate; tripling the taxes on real estate partnerships, hedge funds, pharmaceutical companies here in 

the United States; companies that compete around the world, are 

all facing dangerous, punishing attacks proposed in the President’s 

budget. 

And so I think when the White House sees these poor numbers, 

they wonder why isn’t anyone hiring? Gee, Beaver, it could be that 

these proposals are having a huge dampening effect on our ability 

to recover. 

I am convinced that if government does move out of the way, the 

American consumers and American business leaders are inherently 

optimistic and will bounce back more readily from severe recessions 

than any country in this world, but what they see out of Washington again is that blizzard of bad policy proposals that is having 

a huge impact. 

And I will close with this. We talk about restoring consumer confidence. What I noticed is that the week that the Congress was 

snowed out of business, the spirits of the American public lifted. 

You know, perhaps the best stimulus package today—I say this 

only half jokingly—would be for Congress to adjourn for the rest 

of the year to allow people to really live their lives and for businesses to move forward with their investment decisions without the 

heavy hand and the really dampening effect of these proposals on 

them. I think we can do better than this. I am anxious to work 

with other Senate Members and House Members on issues that 

really can get government out of the way and allow us to prosper 

again. I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Representative Kevin Brady appears 

in the Submissions for the Record on page 28.] 

Senator Casey. Congressman Burgess. 

5 

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL C. 

BURGESS, M.D., A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS 

Representative Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In January in this Committee, a frequent attendee at this Committee, Christina Roemer, head of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, responded to the losses of jobs in December defensively by stating that sometimes real recovery occurs in ‘‘fits and 

starts,’’ but we need to focus on the overall trajectory. 

So, okay, let’s do that. We have 14 months of the trajectory of 

the Obama Administration. Now, in the State of the Union, the 

speech that blame was cast on previous Administrations in bringing us to the current situation but realistically, a year ago last 

month, with the passage of the Stimulus bill, this Administration 

began ownership of what was going to be their recovery. They advocated for a $787 billion bill, which the Congressional Budget Office now says cost the American taxpayers $862 billion, 

and we had to pass it. We had to pass it in a hurry. We had to 

pass it without reading it. We had to pass it without thinking 

about it, because we had to act quickly to keep the unemployment 

rate from going above 7 percent. And, if we spent the $862 billion, too, as President Obama said, 

we will save or create more than 3 million new jobs over the next 

five years, close quote, then perhaps Members of Congress wouldn’t 

be upset. But it didn’t happen. It didn’t work out. 

And since we borrowed that money, unemployment has been on 

an extraordinary rise to 10 percent, with a small reprieve today, 

and the Congressional Budget Office said that the economic effect 

of the Stimulus bill would go negative starting at the end of this 

fiscal year. Furthermore, only 40 percent of the so-called stimulus bill’s $862 

billion cost has been handed out, while the country has lost 3 million jobs since the bill passed. 

So the big question is: Why? 

Why did the Administration and this Congress pass this bill only 

to sit on the money, all the while paying interest on the loan, while 

jobs are leaving in droves? 

Yesterday, in one of the little newspapers that’s published here 

up on the Hill, Congressional Quarterly, they reported that the En- ergy Department got $33 billion from the Stimulus and has spent 

$2.4 billion. 

Now, I never thought the day would come when I would agree 

with Senator Schumer, but Senator Schumer is right to want to 

freeze the Stimulus spending on renewable energy grants because 

the oversight is nonexistent, and there is no looking into how these 

funds are being spent, or if they are being spent at American companies. 

Or consider the Education Department. Secretary Duncan re- ceived $100 billion in Stimulus funds, doubling the budget from the 

previous year and, despite his outward commitment to charter 

schools, the Secretary, the Administration, could not even be bothered to give the District of Columbia the $8 million it needed to 

fund the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which has helped 

over 3300 students in Washington, D.C., improve their quality of 

life. $8 million. I cannot even calculate the percentage, it’s so inVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:03 Jul 20, 2010 Jkt 056433 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\56377.TXT SHAUN PsN: DPROCT
6 

finitesimally small of what that percentage is of the $100 billion 

that they got for the Education Department. 

So I sincerely hope, as we continue to look at the unemployment 

numbers, delve into the numbers, dissect the numbers, we consider 

this Administration’s solution to unemployment and hold them accountable as to how the money is spent, if it is spent at all and, 

bottom line, how many jobs have been created. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman, I’ll yield back the balance of my time. 

[The prepared statement of Representative Michael C. Burgess, 

M.D. appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 29.] 

Senator Casey. Congressman Elijah Cummings. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you calling this hearing, and the two 

hearings that were held last week on job creation, as well as all 

the fine work this Committee has already done on this very, very 

critical issue. 

Frankly, no matter how many hearings we hold it will not be 

enough, because there are 14.9 million unemployed Americans, and 

the damage done to them, their families, and their communities is 

unending. 

As we know, the unemployment crisis we face right now was preceded by the collapse of a nationwide housing bubble. Falling home 

values left borrowers under water and, in many cases, unable to 

make the payments on a ballooning high interest loan. 

All of this furthers a nasty pro-cyclical twist where unemployment leads to more foreclosures, which drives down demand and 

feeds more unemployment. 

Last Thursday in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee we heard again about the havoc wrought by foreclosures. 

This time it was officials from the northeast Ohio area discussing 

the destruction that foreclosures have done to the city and the outlying suburbs. 

We saw pictures of vacant homes in Cleveland side by side with 

pictures of post-Katrina New Orleans. You could not tell the difference between the two. Unfortunately, I do not need to attend a 

hearing to learn this. I just have to go home to my Baltimore 

neighborhood, or across the city and I can see the same things. 

Thus, I have made foreclosure prevention my highest priority 

and will continue to do so. As the witnesses told us at the Oversight Committee hearing last Thursday, we can only fix the economy if we can keep people in their homes. 

So as long as the perfect storm created by unemployment and 

foreclosures remains over us, it is incumbent on us to do more and 

do more soon. 

I know the Senate passed a $15 billion Jobs bill, and yesterday 

we moved that bill toward President Obama’s desk, but I did not 

cast my vote for it for mere satisfaction. There are too many people 

sitting at home, six or even twelve months unemployed, with a 

house worth 20 percent less than the note on it, and they need 

more than a watered down Jobs bill. 

So before I close I will pass along a quote that I found striking 

from an article in last month’s Atlantic Monthly. Reading a quote 

7 

will not solve anything, but I still keep it in my head as a reminder. And that is this: 

‘‘There is unemployment, a brief and relatively routine transitional state that results from the rise and fall of companies in any 

economy; and, there is unemployment, chronic, all-consuming. The 

former is a necessary lubricant in any engine of economic growth. 

The latter is a pestilence that slowly eats away at people, families 

and, if it spreads widely enough, the very fabric of a society. Indeed, history suggests that it is perhaps society’s most noxious ill.’’ 

End of quote. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for your leadership in addressing 

the Nation’s employment and housing crisis. I also thank Dr. Hall 

and his colleagues for their consistently strong work at the Bureau 

of Labor Statistics, and I look forward to their testimony. 

With that, I yield back. 

Senator Casey. Thank you very much. 

I want to introduce Commissioner Hall. Commissioner Hall is the 

Commissioner of Labor Statistics for the United States Department 

of Labor. The BLS is an independent national statistical agency 

that collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates essential statistical data to the American public, the United States Congress, 

other federal agencies, state and local governments, business, and 

labor. 

Dr. Hall also served as Chief Economist for the White House 

Council of Economic Advisers for two years under President George 

W. Bush. Prior to that he was Chief Economist for the United 

States Department of Commerce. Dr. Hall has also spent 10 years 

at the United States International Trade Commission. 

He received his B.A. Degree from the University of Virginia, his 

M.S. and Ph.D. Degrees in Economics from Purdue University. 

Dr. Hall, you have the floor. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF DR. KEITH HALL, COMMISSIONER, BUREAU OF 

LABOR STATISTICS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, WASHINGTON, DC; ACCOMPANIED BY: MR. PHILIP RONES, DEPUTY 

COMMISSIONER, BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS; AND DR. 

MICHAEL HORRIGAN, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER FOR 

PRICES AND LIVING CONDITIONS, BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS 

Commissioner Hall. Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committee: 

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the employment and 

unemployment data we released this morning. 

Nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in February, 

and the unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent. Employment fell 

in construction and information, while temporary help services 

added jobs. 

Severe winter weather in parts of the country may have affected 

payroll employment and hours in February. However, as I will explain in a moment, there are too many unknowns to say precisely 

how much the weather might have affected these measures. 

Construction employment fell by 64,000 in February, about in 

line with the average monthly job loss over the prior 6 months. 

8 

Job losses continued throughout the industry, although nonresidential specialty trades again accounted for much of the over-themonth decline. In the information industry, employment fell by 

18,000. 

Temporary help services employment increased by 48,000 over 

the month. Since last September, this industry has added 284,000 

jobs. Health care employment continued to trend up in February. 

Employment in most other industries showed little or no change. 

Average weekly hours for all employees in the private sector decreased by one-tenth of an hour in February. Average weekly hours 

declined more significantly in construction and manufacturing: 0.5 

and 0.4 hour, respectively. These declines likely reflect the time 

lost due to the severe winter weather. 

Turning now to data from the survey of households, most key 

labor force measures were essentially unchanged in February. The 

unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent, with jobless rates for 

the major worker groups showing little or no change. 

Of the 14.9 million unemployed in February, the proportion who 

had been jobless for 27 weeks or more was 40.9 percent, little different from the all-time high of 41.2 percent reached in January. 

The number of individuals working part time who preferred fulltime work rose from 8.3 to 8.8 million in February, partially offsetting a large decrease in January. Involuntary part-time employment levels had held at or near 9.2 million in the final months of 

2009. 

Before closing, I would like to return to the issue of how the severe winter weather in February may have affected the payroll employment estimates released today. 

Major snow storms struck parts of the country during the reference period for our establishment survey. Many schools, government agencies, and businesses closed temporarily, and many people 

were off work for a time because of the storms. 

In the establishment survey, workers who do not receive any pay 

for the entire pay period are not counted as employed. 

Therefore, it is possible that the storms had some negative impact on payroll employment. However, not every closure or temporary absence causes a drop in employment. Workers are counted 

as employed in the establishment survey if they are paid for a single hour during the reference pay period, whether they worked or 

not. 

Also, half of all workers have bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly pay periods. I would assume that most of them worked during 

the part of the pay period that preceded or followed the snow 

events. 

In addition, we do not know how many workers may have been 

added to payrolls for snow removal, cleanup, and repairs due to the 

storms. Nor do we know how new hiring or separations were affected by the weather. 

For these reasons, we cannot say how much February’s payroll 

employment was affected by the severe weather. 

In our household survey, persons with a job who miss work for 

weather-related events are counted as employed whether or not 

they were paid for their time off. 

9 

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in 

February, and the unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent. 

My colleagues and I would now be glad to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Commissioner Hall, together with 

Press Release No. USDL–10–0256, appears in the Submissions for 

the Record on page 29.] 

Senator Casey. Thank you very much, Commissioner. 

The sentence or two that you have just concluded with, using the 

phrase used earlier, ‘‘little changed,’’ is encouraging. In this sense, 

just from my vantage point it is hard to use phrases like ‘‘good 

news,’’ or to be overly positive, but it is encouraging that we are 

at least, I will use my word, stabilizing. And that is critically important. 

I did want to ask you about a couple of sectors, or subsets. I 

wanted to ask you about health care. 

I know that consistently—and I know this goes back a ways—but 

the health care employment as an industry has been fairly strong 

over time. I just want to get your sense of that over the last couple 

of months of what you see for the rest of the year, to the extent 

that you can predict or identify a trend in health care. 

Commissioner Hall. Sure. Health care actually has continued 

to fairly consistently add jobs even during the worst times during 

this Recession. 

This past month, health care added about 12,000 jobs. Over the 

past 4 months we added an average of about 15,000 jobs. That is 

still in the same neighborhood. So health care has been remarkably 

consistent in having some growth. 

Senator Casey. How about other sectors that have had growth 

or have been stronger than—I know we have had for a long, long 

time a manufacturing challenge—but any other areas you can point 

to say within the last year, or the last couple of months? 

Commissioner Hall. Well manufacturing, as you mentioned, we 

actually had—manufacturing job growth was flat this month. We 

gained, our point estimate was about 1,000 jobs, and we gained 

some jobs in the prior month, and that is the first time manufacturing has shown job gains in three years. 

Senator Casey. I would call that good news. 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Senator Casey. My words. 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. A lot of the industries have stopped 

losing jobs. They have been fairly flat now for a few months. The 

actual job loss has been centered in things like construction. We 

lost 64,000 jobs in construction. And actually we lost a notable 

amount of jobs in local government. We lost about 31,000 jobs in 

local government this month. 

Senator Casey. In my opening remarks I talked about comparing January 2009 and February 2009 with the 2010 months. Do 

you have those in front of you, the job loss in January of 2009 and 

February 2009 versus 2010? I don’t know if you have those, but I 

just want to establish that on the record. 

Commissioner Hall. Sure. Absolutely. 

Well in January of 2009 we lost 779,000 jobs. 

Senator Casey. 779,000? 

10 

Commissioner Hall. 779,000. And in February 2009 we lost 

726,000 jobs. 

Senator Casey. Of 2009? 

Commissioner Hall. Of 2009. And that is compared to 26,000 

and 36,000 for this year. 

Senator Casey. Okay. That is why I did this, because you have 

the accurate number. We have used the number of 741,000 loss in 

January 2009, but I guess that gets adjusted? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. Our benchmark adjusted the numbers 

slightly. 

Senator Casey. In the two-month period, comparing one year to 

the next: 779,000 in January; plus what’s the February number 

again? 

Commissioner Hall. 726,000. 

Senator Casey. 726,000 in February of 2009. And that is versus 

now 26,000 plus 36,000 for 2010? 

Commissioner Hall. 26,000 and 36,000. 

Senator Casey. Okay. Finally, and I know my time is running 

out and I’ll come back, but two subcategories I asked you about, 

I don’t know if it was last month or the month before, but Veterans 

and Americans who have disabilities. 

I was handed a note here that I wanted, in terms of Veterans 

in particular, if you could answer this, because I know we’re low 

on time, Veterans from the post-2001 period Gulf War, I am told 

that that rate is higher than the national Veterans rate? Could you 

just walk through some of those, to the extent that you have them? 

Commissioner Hall. Sure. We have been characterizing that as 

‘‘Gulf War Era II Veterans.’’ The unemployment rate for February 

was 12.5 percent, which is, as you say, well above the national average. 

Senator Casey. And how about the overall? Is there a number 

for overall Veterans? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. For overall Veterans the unemployment rate is 9.5 percent. So it is actually a little bit less than the 

national average. 

Senator Casey. So the folks serving most recently are having a 

tougher time, I guess? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Senator Casey. Persons with disabilities? Do you have that 

number? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, I do. The unemployment rate for persons with disabilities is 13.8 percent, although I will say that the 

more notable fact on people with disabilities is a very low labor 

force participation rate. Labor force participation rate is only about 

21.9 percent for people with disabilities. That is as opposed to 

somewhere over 60 percent for a national average. 

Senator Casey. Okay. Thank you. 

Congressman Brady. 

Representative Brady. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Earlier this week the White House attempted to sort of spin the 

bad numbers in advance, knowing that their policies have failed 

our economy miserably. 

Larry Summers said that the snow storms, localized snow 

storms, would distort the unemployment and jobs numbers of 

11 

today. But—which is the equivalent of the dog ate my economy, as 

an excuse. 

But in your testimony you really tend to dismiss that because 

you point out there are two ways we collect jobs numbers—you collect jobs numbers—for our country. One, of course, is the household 

survey where you call people and ask them. 

Obviously, if they’re on vacation or home sick, or prevented from 

working by bad weather, they are not counted as unemployed; they 

are just not working that day. 

And then the other way that you collect information through the 

employment survey, what you said in your testimony as well, was 

basically the only way they would be counted as unemployed is if 

they received not a dime during the month of their pay period, the 

bi-weekly pay period, or weekly pay period, they would literally 

have to be out of work for their whole pay period to be counted as 

unemployed during that period. 

Is that correct? 

Commissioner Hall. That’s correct. 

Representative Brady. So would you say that the snow storms 

distorted the jobs numbers you are presenting today? 

Commissioner Hall. I would say it is really hard to tell. I 

would say we won’t know—we will have a much better idea, I 

would say, by looking at next month’s numbers to sort of see. Because whatever happened with the snow storms this month will be 

gone by next month, so we will see a bounce-back, if there was an 

effect. 

But there is really no way for us to precisely know. Obviously, 

we saw a decline in hours worked, like you would expect. 

Representative Brady. Sure. 

Commissioner Hall. But as you say with the payroll jobs it is 

difficult for us, because we are actually looking at establishment 

payrolls, and different establishments have different payroll periods. As I say, some are one week, some are two weeks, some are 

four weeks. So we cannot even really give you a good idea of how 

likely it is that the payroll—— 

Representative Brady. I just think it is important that we not 

be trying to spin these numbers in advance when we just know 

they are headed in the wrong direction. 

One thing the White House did not talk about was the distortion 

caused by the hiring of temporary Census workers. This year, my 

understanding is that the government will be hiring between 

700,000 and 800,000 temporary workers, which will actually boost 

the jobs numbers really out of the mainstream. 

In January and February, how many of those Census workers 

were hired and are counted in these numbers today? 

Commissioner Hall [continuing]. Well for the job growth today, 

15,000 jobs were added for Census workers. So from the negative 

36,000, 15,000 growth. So it would have been negative 51,000. 

Representative Brady. 51,000 jobs lost. 

Can I ask you, I am convinced our economic recovery is sluggish 

and subpar in comparison to how we have responded to past severe 

recessions, how we’ve responded to the Reagan recovery, against 

our competitors around the world. 

12 

I am looking at the unemployment rate from when the Stimulus 

took effect till today. Our unemployment rate has increased by 1.5 

percentage points. Australia has increased by a fraction during 

that period. Canada is one-tenth of our increase. Japan has increased by less than a third of what the U.S. has increased in unemployment. We are worse than the European Union. We are falling behind countries like South Korea. 

Can you compare—so it appears we are falling behind our major 

competitors in the effort to come back to a sustained, vibrant economic recovery. Can you compare our unemployment numbers and 

increases over the past year to our major competitors? 

Commissioner Hall. I don’t have that in front of me. I would 

have to—to be honest with you, I’d have to take a look at it. I 

haven’t looked at those numbers. We do make those comparisons 

in one of our programs when we do international labor comparisons. 

Representative Brady. Great. 

Commissioner Hall. I know in general our unemployment rate 

is comparable to a number of the European Union countries at the 

moment. Some are better, some are worse. I think the average in 

the European Union unemployment rate is somewhere in the high 

9s. 

Representative Brady. I think they have increased about 1 

percentage point, 1.2 over our 1.5, and obviously we are not doing 

as well against others. 

Well, thank you, Commissioner, very much. 

Senator Casey. Congressman Cummings. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Hall, again thank you for your work and the work of your 

staff. You know, I was just going back to Chairman Casey’s statements. It is so easy for us—and then listening to my good friend, 

Mr. Brady—it is so easy for us to say that there has not been 

progress. 

There has been. And Chairman Casey pointed out that back in 

January of 2009 we were losing 729,000 jobs, and in January of 

this year we are talking about 26,000. 

Is that significant? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, that is a significant moderation. 

Representative Cummings. Yes. That’s what I thought. 

So no matter how you look at it, it is not about twisting numbers. It is not about trying to make them look better than what 

they are. We want every single American who wants to be employed, employed; but the fact still remains that we are seeing 

some progress. 

Let me ask you this: Going back to the temporary help services, 

that has been up? Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. That’s correct. 

Representative Cummings. How much up was that? 

Commissioner Hall. It was up 48,000 this month, and then 

284,000 over the past five months. 

Representative Cummings. Is that significant? 

Commissioner Hall. That is significant. And that is a fairly reliable indicator of a strengthening labor market. 

13 

Representative Cummings. So in other words, it sounds like— 

and so as I understand it, when you have that temporary help, the 

logic tells you that there is a probability that at some point those 

jobs will increase into permanent jobs? I mean, in other words, is 

that it? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. Historically when temporary help 

services has started to add jobs, the overall payroll numbers start 

to increase. 

Representative Cummings. Now let me go to the African 

American unemployment situation. I note that with regard to African Americans back in January, last month, it was 16.5; and this 

month, it is 15.8 And I understand that is not a statistically significant figure? Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. That’s correct. 

Representative Cummings. But it is a reduction. 

Let me ask you this. I looked at, for African American women in 

January of 2010 the rate was 13.3 percent, and now it is 12.1 percent, approximately a percentage point less. Is that significant? 

Commissioner Hall. You know, I’m not sure, offhand. I am 

guessing that is probably still not statistically significant, even 

though it is a fairly large change. 

Representative Cummings. Okay. But it is a reduction of a 

point? Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Representative Cummings. Okay. And let’s go back to this 

whole snow storm situation. I guess that could fall either way, 

couldn’t it? I mean, in other words it could have been a situation 

where it could have affected the numbers negatively or positively? 

Is that right? Either way? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, that’s correct. But to be honest, I 

would expect if it’s had an effect overall it would be a negative effect on the numbers. 

Representative Cummings. In other words, the snow storms 

would have brought the numbers down? In other words, the unemployment rate would have been higher, or lower? I just want to 

make sure I understand what you’re saying. 

Commissioner Hall. Sure. With the unemployment rate, because of the way we calculate that, I’m not sure that the unemployment rate was likely to have been affected much. 

Representative Cummings. Okay. 

Commissioner Hall. But the payroll jobs numbers could have 

been affected. 

Representative Cummings. And in what respect, Mr. Hall? 

Commissioner Hall. Let me give you some perspective. There 

were literally 1 million people who did not work during the reference week. In other words, we collect data during one week. Or 

1 million people who did not work at all during that week. 

While we would count them as employed for the unemployment 

rate, there is some question as to whether or not these people 

showed up on payrolls when we collected the establishment data. 

And the thing we do not know is, some of them may have showed 

up, they may have gotten paid, they may have worked at least 

part-time, part of the time period, but some of them may not have 

worked at all. In which case, if they did not get paid, then they 

14 

would not show up in the payroll jobs numbers and it would have 

affected those numbers. 

Representative Cummings. So in other words, you are saying 

the numbers of people employed could have been higher? Is that 

what you are saying? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. That’s correct. 

Representative Cummings. All right. And you know this 

whole issue of 31,000 jobs lost in local government, I guess that is 

pretty significant, isn’t it? 

Commissioner Hall. No. 

Representative Cummings. And so local governments I guess 

are seeing their tax bases harmed, and they just do not have the 

funds, I take it? 

Commissioner Hall. Well certainly the numbers have been consistent with that. We have lost about 17,000 jobs a month over the 

last four months in local government, and about 13,000 for the past 

12 months. So it is unusual for a local government to lose jobs like 

that over such a long time period, even during recessions. 

Representative Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I see my time has 

expired. 

Senator Casey. Thank you. 

Congressman Burgess. 

Representative Burgess. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, Dr. 

Hall, for being here again. 

Probably not quite a year ago we had a discussion about the 

weather and its effect on your numbers, and so I am grateful to 

hear your explanations today because they are similar to the ones 

that you gave me I think it was April or May of last year when 

we had some other weather event that occurred. 

And because of the way you calculate things, it is unlikely that 

the snow storms themselves would have had a significant effect. 

But have you looked back at the way the numbers were calculated 

say back in the blizzard of 1996, and then the recalculation of numbers that occurred after things shook out from that? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, actually. As I mentioned, we had a 

million people who did not report to work during the reference 

week this time. In 1996 we had about 1.8 million people who did 

not report to work. So it was a more severe storm. And during that 

period, there was a drop in payroll employment that sort of recovered the next month. 

So there may have been an effect on payroll employment in 1996, 

but again that was a larger event than this and we still don’t know 

for sure. 

Representative Burgess. Sure. But we may see an adjustment 

in the figures next month and likely that would be an adjustment 

in the direction that the numbers were not quite as bad as they 

appeared? Or we just don’t know? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, we just don’t know. 

Representative Burgess. On the household data—let me just 

apologize if you’ve already given this number, and I just missed 

it—we have kind of talked about the chronically unemployed, the 

people who have just given up looking for work. Where is our number with this month’s report? 

15 

Commissioner Hall. Well the long-term unemployed—these are 

people who are still looking but they’ve been unemployed for six 

months—that is 6.1 million people right now. That is a very high 

number. And of course we have people who are marginally attached. We have another 2.5 million who are marginally attached 

to the labor force. 

Representative Burgess. What about the—we talk about an 

unemployment figure in the past that’s been 16 or 17 percent of 

people are no longer looking for work, they’ve just taken themselves out of—— 

Commissioner Hall. Oh, I see. Sure. Sure. Our broadest number of labor under-utilization is a bit broader than the unemployment rate, is our so-called U–6—— 

Representative Burgess [continuing]. Right. 

Commissioner Hall [continuing]. And it includes the unemployed. It includes people who are marginally attached who aren’t 

really considered part of the labor force. And it includes people who 

are working part-time for economic reasons who want to work fulltime. 

That rate is 16.8 percent this month. 

Representative Burgess. And that is higher than the previous 

couple of months, is it not? 

Commissioner Hall. It is actually down a little bit from last 

month, but—I’m sorry, it’s up a little bit from last month, excuse 

me, but it’s down from the month before that. 

Representative Burgess. On the six-month unemployment figures and, you know, we’re all trying to figure out whether we are 

seeing green shoots or weeds growing in the parking lot as far as 

the economy is concerned—just looking at the numbers for February of 2009, and maybe even going back a month in January of 

2009 where you had 2.689 million people who had been unemployed for six months, but the unemployed number now is well over 

6 million? Is that right? Am I reading that correctly? 

Commissioner Hall. You mean the long-term unemployed? 

Representative Burgess. Yes, the six month—— 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Representative Burgess [continuing]. The six-month unemployed. So that rolling window of six months of unemployment has 

in fact doubled over the past year. 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Representative Burgess. Now comparing this to other recessions, to other economic downturns, is this—how is this looking for 

us? I mean, to me that looks disturbing, that the people who have 

been looking for work for six months has doubled now in the past 

year’s time. 

And again I don’t want to belabor the point, but we did pass a 

$787 billion Stimulus bill a year ago. 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. The level of long-term unemployed is 

at record levels. It may not be exactly a record this month, but it 

has been at levels we have never seen before. The number of longterm unemployed are extremely high still. 

Representative Burgess. And is that doubling of the long-term 

unemployed over the last year’s time in spite of the things that 

16 

we’ve tried to do to boost the economy? Is that typically what you 

see in a recession? Or is that unusual for this Recession? 

Commissioner Hall. Well you do typically see the long-term unemployed go up significantly during a recession. 

Representative Burgess. Double? 

Commissioner Hall. Do you have the number? 

Mr. Rones. It is certainly not unusual for that level to double. 

Sometimes it might go up even much more than that. I go back to 

the recession in the 1970s where it started out in the 300,000s and 

ended up at 1.6 million. So in percentage terms, doubling is not unusual. 

As Commissioner Hall said, the big difference now is that the 

levels are all higher. We started at a higher rate, and we are at 

a much higher level than we have ever been before. 

Representative Burgess. Well Mr. Cummings was talking 

about the appearance of—the increase in temporary help and that 

being one of the leading indicators. Where does this number, this 

27 weeks unemployment number, where does that fit in with previous recessions? Does that look like something that is getting better? Something that is getting worse? What can we say about the 

state of the recession? 

We have already said the temporary workers are increasing. 

That’s a good thing. Those are green shoots. What is this number 

telling us? Green shoots, or weeds in the parking lot? 

Commissioner Hall. I am not sure it tells us a lot about the 

current conditions. In fact, the long-term unemployed kind of lag. 

So my point is, once the economy starts to recover and we actually 

start to grow jobs, this number in the past has continued to go up. 

Representative Burgess. But, Dr. Hall, we put $787 billion 

into the economy a year ago, or we thought we were. It turns out 

if you look at the Department of Energy maybe we didn’t, but 

where—and then there’s talk about a second Stimulus bill—you 

know, people are asking what good are we doing with pumping 

these dollars into the economy if we are not seeing any relief for 

people who have been looking for work for six months? 

I mean, the people who have been looking for work for six 

months now are the very ones who were six months into the Stimulus package six months ago, right, because it’s been a year since 

we passed the Stimulus package? 

Commissioner Hall. You mean are they the same? 

Representative Burgess. Well the rolling number of looking 

back six months and what are our unemployment numbers. Well, 

six months ago was August, and we are now six months into pumping all that money into the economy and saving or creating all of 

those jobs, but it didn’t work out for these folks. 

Commissioner Hall. Right. Yes, this number did rise over 2009. 

In the last month or two it hasn’t moved very much, but over a 

longer time period it has continued to grow. 

Representative Burgess. I will yield back. I hope we will have 

time for another round. 

Senator Casey. Sure. I wanted to make a few points about the 

numbers. 

Dr. Hall, the total number of Americans unemployed right now 

is, according to your reports, 14.9 million? 

17 

Commissioner Hall. That’s correct. 

Senator Casey. In that 15 million person range for this month 

and last month. I think the record is clear not only from your testimony but from other data we have been seeing more recently, and 

I think it is validated today, that job loss has come down—you compare January and February of 2009 versus 2010. 

According to the numbers you gave us for January and February 

of 2009, it is about 1.5 million jobs lost. January and February of 

2010, 62,000 jobs lost. I know those numbers will be adjusted, but 

that is a significant difference. 

The other reference point I wanted to put in the record, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that Real Gross Domestic Product grew at an annual rate of 5.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 

2009, which is .2 percentage points higher than initially estimated. 

We went from a negative GDP to a positive Gross Domestic Product of 5.9 in the fourth quarter of 2009. We will see what the first 

quarter of 2010 brings. 

But I did want to ask you a couple of specifics that I raised and 

Congressman Cummings raised on some of these subsectors. I 

asked you about the Veterans and persons with disabilities. Congressman Cummings mentioned African Americans. I am not sure 

that any of us asked about Hispanics. But let me just make sure 

I have the record right. 

With regard to African American unemployment, that rate is 

15.8? 

Commissioner Hall. That’s correct. 

Senator Casey. So substantially higher than the overall number. 

For Hispanics, 12.4 percent? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Senator Casey. I think the percentages are always helpful, but 

sometimes the numbers are more telling. I forgot to ask you about 

the Veterans number, the raw number, the total number as opposed to the Veterans unemployment rate, or actually maybe if you 

could just look at those who have served post-2001, what that number is. Do you have that? 

Commissioner Hall. Sure. Well the number of unemployed are 

212,000. 

Senator Casey. 212,000 Veterans overall? 

Commissioner Hall. Veterans overall, yes. 

Senator Casey. And you don’t know how many of those are 

post-2001? 

Commissioner Hall. Oh, I’m sorry. Excuse me, I’m not being 

clear. Those are post-2001. 

Senator Casey. That’s 2001 post—— 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Senator Casey [continuing]. Or, I’m sorry, 212,000 unemployed 

Veterans who are in that—those who have served since 2001? 

Commissioner Hall. Correct. 

Senator Casey. And in terms of the African American, we 

talked about the African American total and the Hispanic total, as 

opposed to just the percentage unemployed? 

Commissioner Hall. Sure. For African Americans, 2.8 million 

are unemployed. 

18 

Senator Casey. 2.8 million? Wow. 

Commissioner Hall. And actually it’s the same number for Hispanic or Latino, 2.8 million. 

Senator Casey. I think that’s all I have for this round, but Congressman Brady? 

Representative Brady. You know, I think we are looking for 

hopeful signs in these numbers. What we’re not looking for is false 

hope, and especially one that would drive an agenda of more spending, health care mandates, tax increases, again the blamenomics of 

tax and punish certain sectors, many of which hold the key to our 

job creation, it certainly is not the government sector that holds the 

key. 

I think it is important to remember and to keep in perspective 

that when we’re looking at the U.S. economy that we actually lost 

fewer jobs during this recession than during the 2001 recession. 

In the first six months of 2001 we lost more than 12 million jobs, 

and in this one 15 million. One of the reasons the unemployment 

rate continues to be so stubbornly high is not in the job losses, it’s 

in the lack of job creation. 

In the first six months of 2001, 33 million jobs were created. 

Through the second quarter of the present Administration of 2009, 

only 24.4 million. We’ve got an almost 8 million job gap right there. 

And I really do believe, Commissioner, that the uncertainty 

throughout this country by businesses, many of whom spoke to the 

President in his roundtable with him, where they said basically 

we’re holding onto our capital. We’re delaying key business decisions, investment decisions, and hiring decisions because of forcing 

through this health care takeover, with all of its mandates and 

taxes—cap and trade, which will have a devastating impact longterm on our economy. Just a rash of tax increases in the President’s budget, and just a debilitating debt that, while it’s not at the 

Greece level, we are rapidly approaching those levels where we will 

lose confidence among our investors in the United States. 

My question is: How do you, at the BLS how do you measure, 

or are you able to measure the obstacles to an economic recovery— 

those rational expectations, I believe the economists call it, where 

businesses look at, as Congressman Burgess said, this massive 

Stimulus with little effect. They look at this second Stimulus again, 

shrug to it. 

How do you measure, or are you able to measure, the fact that 

in this environment businesses are delaying those key hiring decisions? 

Commissioner Hall. We really aren’t able of course to measure 

the reasons for employment or unemployment, or reasons for the 

decisions that establishments make. But what we can and do measure is the number of people that they do employ and the wages 

that they pay. 

Representative Brady. Looking at productivity, I was looking 

into your—it seems that we always look at the hours that average 

workers have, knowing that businesses tend to make their workers 

more productive and rely upon them until they reach a certain 

point like with temporary workers before they begin bringing new 

people—hiring back or bringing new people on board. We continue 

to be around 33 hours per week, close to our record low. 

19 

The long-run average is over 35 hours before businesses start to 

consider adding on the cost of hiring new employees. What range 

are we in right now? 

Commissioner Hall. For the number of hours? 

Representative Brady. Yes. Are we still around 33? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, I’m sure that’s correct. Let me look 

the exact number up for you. Yes, the average weekly hours are 

33.8 hours. 

Representative Brady. So hiring temporary workers is a good 

sign. It should be an indicator. The fact that we still have room to 

grow in hours per week are not quite near where we want it to be 

before traditionally businesses start to hire? Is that true? 

Commissioner Hall. That’s correct. Although I will say that 

we’ve had some strengthening in aggregate weekly hours worked 

in the last number of months, and like temporary help services 

that is an indicator of a tightening labor market that in the past 

has signaled better job growth. 

Representative Brady. But construction, manufacturing, the 

two areas we were told would see the most job gains in the Stimulus, you said construction is down how much more this time? 

Commissioner Hall. 64,000 this month. 

Representative Brady. Manufacturing? Do we break that out? 

Or is that part of the broader—— 

Commissioner Hall. Manufacturing was essentially unchanged. 

It was a +1,000, but it is essentially flat. 

Representative Brady [continuing]. All right. Thanks, Commissioner. 

Senator Casey. Congressman Cummings. 

Representative Cummings. When we look at this whole 

issue—going back to what Mr. Brady was saying, and we are trying 

to figure out the unemployment rate and jobs lost, whatever, we 

are talking about net? Is that right? 

In other words, it is not that jobs are not being created. It is that 

you are looking at an overall kind of picture? Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. Oh, yes, that is actually true. Some of our 

data suggests that literally a million people are hired a week, even 

now during a Recession, but a million people lose their job, as well. 

So the numbers we give you are our net numbers. 

Representative Cummings. And looking at the long-term unemployed, that is basically people that have been unemployed for 

at least six months? Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. That’s correct. 

Representative Cummings. And 23.6 percent, I think, and correct me if I’m wrong, of those people have been unemployed for 

more than a year? In other words, prior to this—or very early on 

in this Administration? Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. That’s correct. 

Representative Cummings. So a lot of these people lost their 

jobs a long time ago? Is that correct? 

Commissioner Hall. That’s correct. 

Representative Cummings. Now let me ask you this. Since 

last fall you have brought us unemployment figures that slowly 

crept down from 10.2 percent to now 9.7 for 2 consecutive months. 

20 

Would it be fair to say that the labor market has stabilized? Or is 

that a word that you even use? 

Commissioner Hall. It’s a word I would hesitate to lose a bit, 

but—— 

Representative Cummings. To ‘‘use’’? It sounded like you said 

‘‘to lose.’’ 

Commissioner Hall [continuing]. I meant to say ‘‘to use.’’ I’m 

sorry. 

Representative Cummings. All right. 

Commissioner Hall. But it is true that the job loss has moderated considerably to where we are fairly close to neither gains 

nor losses for the last four months. So that is consistent with the 

idea of possibly stabilizing. 

Representative Cummings. And let me, as I close, let me just 

say this. 

Sometimes I listen to my good friends on the Republican side, 

and it’s not that anybody is trying—and I’m sure the Chairman 

would agree with me, Chairman Casey would agree with me—nobody is trying to paint a rosy picture. We are very realistic. But 

we refuse to look and see a difference between 729,000 jobs lost in 

January of 2009 and 26,000 lost in January of 2010 and say that 

is not significant. 

We want, again, every single American working. But when we 

talk about the Stimulus, and a lot of people have beat up on the 

Stimulus, and I tell you I had one of the most interesting experiences about three weeks ago in Baltimore in my District where we 

hired 50 police officers who would not have been hired, who would 

not have been hired, if it were not for the Stimulus. 

And to see these young officers be hired—and these are people 

that we desperately need. And so, you know, I think that a lot of 

people have beat up on Summers, and the Administration saying, 

oh, you predicted this would happen in this amount of time, this 

would happen—trying to predict is not always easy, as we can see 

from just our interaction with regard to these statistics. But the 

fact still remains that we are, I do believe, moving in the right direction. 

And I always say, I believe in cheering for the home team. So 

often what happens is we spend so much time looking at the doom 

and gloom that we don’t see the progress that we are making. 

And so I want to thank you again, Mr. Hall, for your testimony. 

I thank your staff. And hopefully next month when we come back 

we will be able to have an even stronger report for the American 

people with regard to the employment situation here in our country. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator Casey. Congressman Burgess. 

Representative Burgess. Thank you. 

I’ve been listening to my good friend from Maryland, and I am 

reminded of philosopher Yogi Berra who said the future ain’t what 

it used to be. 

The problem with these predictions—and it is not easy to be in 

the prognosticating business, especially in a time of a recession, 

and especially in the time of uncharted waters, but these predictions were put forward as a rationale for selling a policy or a 

21 

group of policies that Congress passed rather hastily last year, and 

I think the only quarrel that I have voiced this morning is that I 

wish we had taken a little bit more time to get things right. 

We passed a ‘‘Cash-for-Clunkers’’ bill, and we may have done 

nothing but accelerate fourth-quarter earnings into the third quarter. I’m not quite sure how that’s going to sort out. And I think 

there’s someone in my neighborhood who took advantage of ‘‘Cashfor-Clunkers.’’ No quarrel there. It was a program that was duly 

passed by Congress. It was available for them to take advantage 

of it. 

But every day when I walk—I’m home and I walk out my front 

door and I see that automobile sitting down the street, I can’t help 

but think that my grandson is going to pay for that car every day 

for the rest of his life. 

There are better ways of going about doing some of the things 

we have done this past year, and we may be locking ourselves into 

some policies that are going to be very, very difficult to unwind. 

Just on, Dr. Hall, on the numbers themselves, when this number, 

whether it is 10.2 or 9.7, but this number hovering around where 

it has been for the last several months, when is the last time in 

our Nation’s economic history that the numbers were here? 

Commissioner Hall. He is going to look up the exact number, 

but I’m pretty sure it was in 1983, in that recession. 

Representative Burgess. We have talked a little bit about the 

number of minorities that are unemployed—African Americans, 

Hispanics—what about young people who are just getting out of 

college? What is their unemployment rate? 

Commissioner Hall. I may have to get back to you with 

that—— 

Representative Burgess. I guess where I am going with this 

line of questioning—— 

Commissioner Hall [continuing]. I can characterize it for you. 

Representative Burgess [continuing]. Okay. 

Commissioner Hall. Really high. It is very high. The youth unemployment rate has gone up quite a bit. 

Representative Burgess. Let me just ask you this. Has anyone 

looked at this situation in previous recessions? What are the numbers of young people unemployed, college graduates recently graduated from college who are unemployed, during times like this 

when there’s an economic downturn versus times that might be regarded as more normal? And what does that do to that young person’s lifetime earning capabilities, or lifetime earning expectations? 

Does having the bad fortune to start off in your productive years 

when the country is in the midst of a serious recession—I mean, 

I think I remember that time you talked about, 1983, I know I remember 1972 because I was a recent college graduate and I remember how hard it was to find a job, and I think I went back to 

school because I could not find one. But it does affect you in a significant way. 

I remember in 1982–1983, the news stories talking about young 

people getting out of college, no hope for employment, this was the 

worst economy that they’ve ever emerged into. And with all of the 

statistics gathering that you all do, I just wondered if anyone had 

looked. Now we’ve got the 25 years of experience with that gradVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:03 Jul 20, 2010 Jkt 056433 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\56377.TXT SHAUN PsN: DPROCT
22 

uating class, and how did they differ from some of their cohorts 

who might have graduated at times when things were perhaps 

measurably better? And what does that—I mean, you know, you 

have to ask yourself, a young person who right now aspires to go 

to college and wants to go to a great college and wants to amass 

a lot of student debt, is that really a good idea for someone to be 

doing that when the expectation of lifetime earnings may have adjusted downward and we are not emerged from this Recession yet? 

No one knows how long it is going to continue. But I think these 

are valid questions. 

And then we as policymakers, because we do deal with things 

like student loans, and secondary education, we do need to take 

that into account. 

Just one last thought I want to put out there before my time expires. We heard from Kevin Hassett from the American Enterprise 

Institute at one of our hearings several weeks ago. He voiced a concern that the extension of Unemployment Benefits was, I won’t say 

the word is not ‘‘encouraging,’’ but we were facilitating people staying unemployed by continuing to provide those benefits. 

Have you all looked into that in any way? Because 99 weeks of 

Unemployment Benefits, I don’t know if that’s unprecedented or 

not. It’s a long time. We’re talking about the six months rolling 

averages of unemployed. We have now gone to two years, almost 

two years of Unemployment Benefits. Is there any correlation there 

that we need to be aware of that might affect future policy decisions? 

Commissioner Hall. Yeah, you know, I don’t know how to characterize it. I have seen some research that sort of showed that the 

re-employment rates go way up near the end of Unemployment Insurance, when that starts to run out. But I don’t know what the 

cause and effect on that is. You know, it’s not clear that these folks 

are holding off from getting a job or not from Unemployment Insurance, especially at a time like this. 

So if you like we can maybe put together a little—some studies 

that have been done on this. 

Representative Burgess. I think that would be helpful, because we are going to be asked to cast those votes again and again 

and again over this coming year. 

Commissioner Hall. Okay. 

Representative Burgess. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I’ll yield 

back. 

Senator Casey. Thank you. 

Commissioner, thank you again for your time. I know we’re almost ready to wrap up. I did want to comment a little bit about 

some of the points that were made by our Republican colleagues. 

I know that a constant refrain—and they have made it here 

today—has been with regard to the Recovery bill, the Recovery and 

Reinvestment Act of 2009. 

I know they voted against it. I voted for it. And a lot of the 

Democrats did. There is a real debate about what has been working 

and what hasn’t been working. 

I have to say, though, when you look at it just in terms of what 

the Congressional Budget Office has said, that the Recovery Act 

added between 1 million and 2.1 million jobs by the fourth quarter 

23 

of 2009, up to that point in time, and raised economic growth by 

1.5 percent to 3.5 percent over that period. 

CBO Director Doug Elmendorf, not a partisan in this debate, 

said, and I quote, that—he said it in this hearing as part of this 

Committee’s hearings, quote: 

‘‘The policies that were enacted in the bill are increasing GDP 

and employment relative to what it otherwise would be.’’ Unquote. 

That is Doug Elmendorf. 

And I also would note that the—and I am glad that Congressman Brady, a couple of minutes ago I think in both of his time 

slots, was talking about history. I think history can be relevant and 

instructive. 

He mentioned the Reagan era, and he also compared job loss in 

two different time periods. The history is instructive in a number 

of ways. 

If you look at it just in terms of job gains, when President Clinton was in office over eight years, the job gain was 22 million jobs 

up, if you look at the job gain in those years. Under President 

Bush, about 2 million. 

So a 22-million job gain versus 2 million. 

Also if you look at it just in terms of deficit, when President Clinton left office the following things had happened: The surplus—not a deficit, a surplus—was $236 billion. When President Bush left office, that $236 billion had changed to about 

a $1.3 trillion deficit. 

We know what the job numbers were in December of 2008 when 

President Obama came in office, January of 2009. 

If we are going to talk history, we ought to put that on the table 

as part of this debate. President Obama and this Congress walked 

into 2009 facing a set of economic circumstances that no Congress 

and no President had faced since the 1930s. 

I would not declare or say that the Recovery bill has worked perfectly. I would also not say that it has worked completely, because 

we still have at least a year of jumpstarting effect from the Recovery bill. 

But I did want to get to a question about manufacturing jobs. 

Now I touched on it a little bit before, but we did have some good 

news there in a sector that we seem to never have good news in. 

Could you, Commissioner, just walk through that for us? 

Commissioner Hall. Well, sure. Manufacturing has had a real 

long-term trend decline in employment. In the previous recession, 

manufacturing lost 1.1 million jobs and didn’t really recover any of 

them. 

It has now lost another couple of million during this Recession, 

but the last couple of months the job loss has moderated, and the 

last couple of months we have had essentially no job loss in manufacturing. 

Senator Casey. No job loss over? 

Commissioner Hall. Over the last couple of months. It has only 

averaged about 6,000 jobs lost over the last four months, so the job 

loss has really moderated in manufacturing. 

Senator Casey. 6,000 manufacturing jobs lost over the last four 

months? 

Commissioner Hall. Per month, yes. 

24 

Senator Casey. In my opinion, that’s good news. Something to 

be positive about. 

Congressman Brady. 

Representative Brady. I’m trying to recall. Congress has the 

power of the purse string. I’m trying to recall who was in charge 

of Congress when President Clinton had that surplus. It was Republicans, if I recall, who handed him that major surplus. And I’m 

trying to recall who had the purse strings in Congress for two 

years who handed President Obama that devastating deficit of $1.2 

trillion. As you said, that was Democrats in control of the purse 

string during those periods. 

I do recall not just a year ago, if memory serves, that we were promised if we passed that $800 trillion—billion dollar Stimulus 

that unemployment would be no higher than 8 percent. It would 

create 3.5 million jobs, restore consumer confidence. 

Well, we are hovering around 10 percent unemployment. We 

have lost another 3 million jobs since the Stimulus took effect. And 

consumer confidence, only 6 percent of Americans in the latest New 

York Times poll said they believed the Stimulus created jobs. 

In fact, half of Americans feel less financially secure today than 

they did when the Stimulus passed. And while I appreciate the 

Congressional Budget Office—in fact I’m a fan of theirs in a major 

way—but since their report, two different economic studies have 

shown that the Stimulus had little impact. 

In fact, one report over the last week in The Wall Street Journal 

showed that it will actually cost our economy $300 billion because 

it has crowded out private investment and consumption. 

The truth is, as our friend from Maryland said, it has created 

jobs in the government sector with our policies, which is wonderful. 

The problem with those jobs is they only continue as long as taxpayers pay. Jobs in the private sector are what drives a sustainable 

economic recovery. And we are all rooting for the home team. 

We want those jobs to be created. But at home, our U.S. energy 

companies see themselves under attack. Cap and trade and higher 

taxes. Our small businesses and professionals are facing higher 

taxes, higher taxes on dividends. Our banking industry, our real 

estate industry, our financial industry, hedge funds, medical devices, on and on and on, no wonder they’re not hiring at this point. 

So I think we can all pull together to try to find those economic 

policies that work best for America, but we are certainly not—while 

we are a cheerleader for this country, we are certainly not cheerleaders for the government, or the policies that aren’t working. 

So we are anxious to work together with the Democrats and Republicans across the aisle to find those policies that actually won’t 

give us false hope, but a true, sustainable economy. 

With that I yield back. 

Senator Casey. Congressman Burgess. 

Representative Burgess. Just one last point to make about the 

Congressional Budget Office. In the Budget and Economic Outlook 

for Fiscal Years 2010 to 2020, on page 30 of the report, going 

through a lot of numbers about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or the stimulus bill, their conclusion: 

Consequently, our contribution to growth will turn negative during the latter part of 2010. 

25 

So, yes, it would be nice to give it more time, but I don’t know 

that giving it more time is necessarily going to allow it to have the 

effect that people are wanting. 

Dr. Hall, as always, we appreciate you coming in and sharing 

your wisdom with us. I would appreciate it if you could dig up 

those figures that we talked about earlier and have a look at those 

and look forward to visiting with you about that, and I’ll yield back 

my time. 

Senator Casey. Thank you. 

Commissioner, thank you. I failed to mention at the beginning of 

the hearing why I am in this chair today as the Chairman of the 

Committee. Congresswoman Maloney couldn’t be here. She has 

been ever faithful in attending these hearings and chairing, but she 

was not able to be here, and I just wanted to note that for the 

record, and we are grateful she gave us this opportunity. 

I want to thank our colleagues for making that long trek from 

the House over to the Senate. We are trying to have this hearing 

in both places. And as you can tell from the discussion here, the 

debate will go on. 

Thanks very much. 

[Whereupon, at 10:47 a.m., Friday, March 5, 2010, the hearing 

was adjourned.] 

(27) 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

28 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE KEVIN BRADY

I am pleased once again to join in welcoming Dr. Hall before the Committee this 

morning. 

Today’s employment report is more bad news for American workers and their families. Payroll employment fell by 36,000. After excluding the hiring of 15,000 temporary Census workers, payroll employment fell by 51,000. The unemployment rate 

remained unchanged at 9.7 percent. And the number of discouraged workers 

reached a series high of 1.2 million. 

Although real GDP grew at an annualized rate of 5.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, 66 percent of this growth was due to a one-off restocking of inventory. 

Real final sales, which are a better measure of the underlying trend in real GDP 

than the headline number, rose by only 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. 

In line with this modest growth trend, the most recent Blue Chip consensus forecast of private economists predicts that real GDP will grow by 3.0 percent in 2010. 

Many economists are forecasting that the average monthly growth in payroll employment will be about 100,000 jobs this year. Unfortunately, such slow growth in 

payroll employment means that the unemployment rate will remain elevated. Indeed, the Blue Chip consensus forecast predicts that the unemployment rate will 

still be 9.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. 

Normally, economists would expect rapid economic growth following a severe recession. After the August 1981 to November 1982 recession, which is similar in 

depth and length to the recent recession, we find: 

• The average annualized rate of real GDP growth was 7.2 percent in the first 

two full quarters of the Reagan recovery compared with 4.1 percent in the last 

two quarters. 

• During the first eight months of the Reagan recovery, payroll employment increased by 1.7 million jobs, while since July 2009 payroll employment fell by 

1.1 million jobs. 

Why is this recovery so much weaker than the recovery after the August 1981 

to November 1982 recession? Seeking an answer, the Republican members of this 

committee invited some of our country’s best economists to speak at a conference 

on February 23, 2010. One of these economists, Nobel laureate Dr. Edward C. Prescott, who is both the W. P. Carey Professor of Economics at Arizona State University and the Senior Monetary Adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 

provided the explanation. 

Investment is depressed. Businesses are making fewer tangible investments in 

structures, equipment, and software that are captured as investment when calculating GDP. Moreover, businesses are also making fewer intangible investments in 

such things as research and development and employee training that are not captured as investment when calculating GDP. 

From entrepreneurs in the small companies in The Woodlands, Texas, to the executives of the nation’s largest corporations, businesspeople expect that the federal 

taxes on the profits from new investments are going up by a lot. With the expiration 

of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts at the end of this year, individual income tax rates 

will be increased. The taxes on capital gains and dividends will rise, and the death 

tax will be reinstated. 

And that’s just the start. The United States is on an unsustainable fiscal course. 

Although the federal government will have serious difficulties meeting its existing 

obligations under Medicare and Medicaid during this decade, President Obama and 

congressional Democrats are determined to use reconciliation to ram through a new 

multi-trillion dollar health care entitlement over the clear opposition of the American people. 

While there is uncertainty about which taxes will increase, any rational entrepreneur or corporate executive expects to pay more taxes to finance Obama’s socalled health care reform. And looming in the background are the prospects of higher implicit taxes through ‘‘cap and trade’’ and the suggestion that Obama’s Democrat-controlled deficit reduction commission will recommend imposing a federal 

value-added tax to balance the federal budget. 

Given these expectations, Dr. Prescott demonstrated, businesses are holding their 

cash instead of making new investments. This is also what happened during a similar period of uncertainty about higher taxes and intrusive regulations under another 

Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s. Presidential scholar 

Dr. Alvin S. Felzenberg identified policy uncertainty under FDR as a major reason 

why the United States was the last industrial democracy to recover from the Great 

Depression. 

29 

It is business investment in both tangible assets and intangibles that drives job 

creation. Unfortunately for American workers and their families, the prospect of 

higher taxes is a job-killer. 

Dr. Hall, I look forward to hearing your testimony. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL C. BURGESS, M.D. 

In January, Christina Romer—head of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers—responded to the loss of jobs in December defensively by stating that sometimes ‘‘real recovery’’ occurs in ‘‘fits-and-starts,’’ but what we need to focus on is the 

overall trajectory. 

So what is the overall trajectory of the Obama Administration? Despite the blame 

cast on previous Administrations in bringing us to the current situation, the blame 

game ended when the Obama Administration advocated the so-called $787 billion 

dollar stimulus bill, which the CBO now says has cost the American taxpayer $862 

billion dollars, because it would prevent unemployment from going above 7%. And if we spent $862 billion dollars to, as President Obama said ‘‘will save or create more than three million new jobs over the next few years’’ then perhaps Members of Congress wouldn’t be so upset. But it didn’t. Since we borrowed this money, 

unemployment has skyrocketed to 10%, and the CBO said the economic effect of this 

stimulus bill would go negative starting at the end of this year. Furthermore, only 40% of the so-called stimulus bill’s $862 billion dollar cost has 

been handed out, while this country has LOST 3 million jobs since the stimulus has 

passed. 

Why? Why did this Administration and this Congress pass this bill only to sit on 

this money, all-the-while paying interest on our loan, while jobs have been lost in 

droves? 

For instance, consider the Energy Department. Yesterday, CQ reported that the Energy Department got $33 billion from the stimulus yet has merely spent $2.4 billion. I never thought the day would come when I would agree with my fellow JEC 

member Senator Charles Schumer, but Senator Schumer is right to want to freeze 

stimulus spending on renewable energy grants because there is so little oversight 

and investigations about how these funds are being spent. Or consider the Education Department. Secretary Duncan received $100 billion 

dollars in stimulus funds, double his budget from the previous year. And despite his 

outward commitment to charter schools, the Secretary could not even be bothered 

to give the District of Columbia the $8 million dollars it needed to fund the ‘‘DC 

Opportunity Scholarship Program,’’ which has helped over 3,300 students in D.C. 

improve their quality of life. $8 million dollars. 

I sincerely hope, as we continue to look at these unemployment numbers, we consider this Administration’s solution to the unemployment numbers as hold them accountable as to how the money is spent, if it is spent at all, as compared to how 

many jobs have been created. 

Thank you. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KEITH HALL, COMMISSIONER, BUREAU OF LABOR

STATISTICS

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the employment and unemployment data 

we released this morning. 

Nonfarm payroll employment was little changed (¥36,000) in February, and the 

unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent. Employment fell in construction and information, while temporary help services added jobs. Severe winter weather in parts 

of the country may have affected payroll employment and hours in February. However, as I will explain in a moment, there are too many unknowns to say precisely 

how much the weather might have affected these measures. 

Construction employment fell by 64,000 in February, about in line with the average monthly job loss over the prior 6 months. Job losses continued throughout the 

industry, although nonresidential specialty trades again accounted for much of the 

over-the-month decline. In the information industry, employment fell by 18,000. 

Temporary help services employment increased by 48,000 over the month. Since 

last September, this industry has added 284,000 jobs. Health care employment continued to trend up in February. Employment in most other industries showed little 

or no change. 

Average weekly hours for all employees in the private sector decreased by onetenth of an hour in February. Average weekly hours declined more significantly in 

30 

construction and manufacturing, 0.5 and 0.4 hour, respectively. These declines likely 

reflect time lost due to the severe winter weather. 

Average hourly earnings of all employees in the private sector rose by 3 cents in 

February to $22.46. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 

by 1.9 percent. From January 2009 to January 2010, the Consumer Price Index for 

All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased by 2.7 percent. 

Turning now to data from the survey of households, most key labor force measures were essentially unchanged in February. The unemployment rate remained at 

9.7 percent, with jobless rates for the major worker groups showing little or no 

change. Of the 14.9 million unemployed in February, the proportion who had been 

jobless for 27 weeks or more was 40.9 percent, little different from the all-time high 

of 41.2 percent reached in January. 

The number of individuals. working part time who preferred full-time work rose 

from 8.3 to 8.8 million in February, partially offsetting a large decrease in January. 

Involuntary part-time employment levels had held at or near 9.2 million in the final 

months of 2009. 

Before closing, I would like to return to the issue of how the severe winter weather in February may have affected the payroll employment estimates released today. 

Major snowstorms struck parts of the country during the reference period for our 

establishment survey. Many schools, government agencies, and businesses closed 

temporarily, and many people were off work for a time because of the storms. 

In the establishment survey, workers who do not receive any pay for the entire 

pay period are not counted as employed. Therefore, it is possible that the storms 

had some negative impact on payroll employment. However, not every closure or 

temporary absence causes a drop in employment. Workers are counted as employed 

in the establishment survey if they are paid for a single hour during the reference 

pay period, whether they worked or not. Also, half of all workers have bi-weekly, 

semi-monthly, or monthly pay periods. I would assume that most of them worked 

during the part of the pay period that preceded or followed the snow events. In addition, we do not know how many workers may have been added to payrolls for snow 

removal, cleanup, and repairs due to the storms. Nor do we know how new hiring 

or separations were affected by the weather. For those reasons, we cannot say how 

much February’s payroll employment was affected by the severe weather. 

In our household survey, persons with a job who miss work for weather-related 

events are counted as employed whether or not they are paid for the time off. 

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in February, and 

the unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent. 

My colleagues and I now would be glad to answer your questions. 

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