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S. HRG. 108–76

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: MARCH 2004

HEARING

BEFORE THE

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 2, 2004

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]

SENATE

Robert F. Bennett, Utah, Chairman

Sam Brownback, Kansas

Jeff Sessions, Alabama

John Sununu, New Hampshire

Lamar Alexander, Tennessee

Susan Collins, Maine

Jack Reed, Rhode Island

Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts

Paul S. Sarbanes, Maryland

Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Jim Saxton, New Jersey, Vice Chairman

Paul Ryan, Wisconsin

Jennifer Dunn, Washington

Phil English, Pennsylvania

Adam H. Putnam, Florida

Ron Paul, Texas

Pete Stark, California

Carolyn B. Maloney, New York

Melvin L. Watt, North Carolina

Baron P. Hill, Indiana

DONALD B. MARRON, Executive Director and Chief Economist

WENDELL PRIMUS, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

OPENING STATEMENT OF MEMBERS

Representative Jim Saxton, Vice Chairman .......................................................... 1

Representative Pete Stark, Ranking Minority Member ....................................... 3

Senator Jeff Sessions ............................................................................................... 10

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney ....................................................................... 12

Representative Melvin L. Watt .............................................................................. 16

Representative Baron P. Hill .................................................................................. 14

WITNESSES

Statement of Hon. Kathleen P. Utgoff, Commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor ........................................................................... 5

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Prepared statement of Representative Jim Saxton, Vice Chairman ................... 23

Prepared statement of Representative Pete Stark, Ranking Minority Member 23

Prepared statement of Hon. Kathleen P. Utgoff, Commissioner, Bureau of

Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, together with Press Release

No. 04-596 ............................................................................................................. 24

(1)

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: MARCH 2004

FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2004

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

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:35 a.m., in room 1334,

Longworth House Office Building, The Honorable Jim Saxton, Vice

Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

Representatives present: Representatives Saxton, Stark,

Maloney, Watt, and Hill.

Senator present: Senator Sessions.

Staff Present: Chris Frenze, Bob Keleher, Colleen Healy, Brian

Higginbotham, Mike Ashton, Donald B. Marron, Rebecca Wilder,

Wendell Primus, Chad Stone, Matthew Salomon, Nan Gibson.

OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JIM SAXTON,

VICE CHAIRMAN

Representative Saxton. Good morning. I am pleased to welcome Commissioner Utgoff once again before the Joint Economic

Committee.

The figures released this morning are good news for American

workers. According to the payroll survey, employment increased by

308,000 jobs in March. Moreover, payroll employment growth was

revised upward to 159,000 in January and 46,000 in February

The data reported today show that 759,000 jobs have been added

to the payrolls since August 2003. The BLS describes the unemployment rate as about unchanged.

The diffusion index, an important indicator of the breadth of employment changes, jumped from 51.4 percent to 61.0 percent in

March. This is the highest level of the diffusion index since July

2000. This indicates that the job gains in March were not confined

to one sector of the economy, but rather were much more broadly

diffused. In addition, the consecutive declines in manufacturing

employment that began in August 2000 have come to an end.

According to a wide range of other economic data, the U.S. economy is growing at a healthy pace. A review of the recent history

demonstrates that the American economy has displayed amazing

resilience despite the 2000 economic slowdown that soon became a

recession, terrorist attacks, wars, corporate scandals, and other

shocks.

However, according to critics of the administration, there is a notion that the U.S. economy was in splendid shape until President

Bush took office and put his policies in place. According to this

view, virtually immediately upon President Bush’s inauguration,

2

the economy went from an ideal picture of health to the ‘‘worst

economy since the Great Depression.’’ However, the evidence demonstrates that this view of the economic record is fundamentally

wrong.

A review of the facts shows that long before the current economic

administration took office, the U.S. economy was dangerously exposed to a frenzy that had overtaken the stock market and had

perverse effects throughout the economy.

As the chart to my right shows, the stock market and high-tech

bubbles can be seen in the spiking of the NASDAQ in the late

1990s. If we look at the bottom of the chart, we see that in 1999

we had this tremendous spike, in this case in the NASDAQ.

When the stock market bubble burst in the first quarter of 2000,

three quarters before the President was sworn in, it exposed widespread over-investment and bad investment, and triggered a painful structural adjustment that has taken years to complete. The

bursting of the stock market bubble in the first quarter of 2000 was

reflected in a 45 percent drop in the NASDAQ for the period

through January 2001.

The bursting of the stock market bubble was the largest in several generations and set in motion forces that shook the U.S. economy for several years. The stock market bubble helped boost investment by lowering the cost of capital, but when it burst, bad investments were exposed and there was a falloff in overall investment that led the economy into a slowdown and recession. This

weakness in investment lasted over 2 years.

We have another chart here that shows that fixed private nonresidential investment began to fall in the third quarter of 2000,

and obviously, according to the trends that existed at the time, led

the economy during the last half of 2000 into negative nonresidential investment.

With the sharp economic slowdown that started in 2000 and

GDP actually declining in the third quarter of 2000, the economy

continued to fall.

The next chart shows a similar pattern based on GDP.

The GDP chart, shows the same trend beginning in the second

quarter of 2000 and then, of course, continuing into the first two

quarters of 2001.

Since much investment is comprised of machinery and equipment

produced in the manufacturing sector, the falloff in investment

pushed this sector into recession by the second half of 2000. The

respected ISM survey of manufacturing activity shows the plunge

in manufacturing activity under way in 2000 as well. The chart

shows that in 2000 the ISM began to drop significantly; and by the

middle of 2000, the ISM survey of manufacturing activity had

plunged to an all-time low, or at least into a low in terms of modern history.

The ISM survey of manufacturing employment shows accelerating declines in the second half of 2000. All of the net job declines in recent years are accounted for by the manufacturing sector, but the downward trend in manufacturing employment began

long before President Bush took office or his policies were in place.

For example, relative to the cyclical peak in March 1998, manufacturing payroll jobs had declined by over half a million by January

3

2001. There has also been a long downward trend in manufacturing employment. As noted, the falloff in investment that began

in the second quarter of 2000 had a negative impact on manufacturing, because much of this sector is engaged in the production of

capital goods like machinery and equipment.

Manufacturing employment began to fall every month, beginning

in August 2000. The economic slowdown became a recession in

2001. As Joseph Stiglitz, President Clinton’s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said, ‘‘the economy was slipping into recession even before President Bush took office, and the corporate

scandals that are rocking America began much earlier.’’ The recession ended in November 2001.

The bottom line is that the largest stock market bubble in several generations burst in the first quarter of 2000, and this had

widespread and long-lasting spillover effects that remain today.

The U.S. economy has also been negatively affected by terrorist

attacks, wars, corporate scandals, and a weak international economy. However, the U.S. economy has proven very resilient, and

economic growth started to accelerate in 2003 as the stimulative effects of tax relief and monetary policy became evident. The economic expansion has accelerated over the last year, particularly in

the last two quarters. GDP growth, the total output for goods and

services, jumped over 6 percent in the second half of 2003.

According to the Blue Chip Consensus of Economic Forecasters,

GDP growth is expected to grow by about 4 percent for the foreseeable future.

Continued strong economic growth will ultimately translate into

continued growth in employment, as it always has in the past. The

bottom line is, if the economy is strong, although high productivity

delayed sustained economic growth, the labor market has tended

upward in recent months. Again, we are delighted with today’s

number of 308,000 new jobs created in the month of March.

[The prepared statement of Vice Chairman Saxton appears in the

Submission for the Record on page 23.]

Commissioner, we look forward to your testimony, but before we

go to you, we certainly want to give Mr. Stark an opportunity to

say whatever is on his mind.

OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE PETE STARK,

RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Representative Stark. Thank you. A couple of things. First of

all, I want to welcome Commissioner Utgoff to the House side of

the Hill, and thank you for being here on this rainy day with some

sun-shiny news. I also want to notice, if I can, the presence of Tom

Nardone from BLS, who got a nice, well-deserved accolade today in

today’s Washington Post for his long and dedicated service as a

civil servant and helping us in this area.

I welcome Tom. Congratulations.

I also wanted to say, Mr. Chairman, that I haven’t heard such

eloquent economic dissertation since I heard my professor, George

Papandreou, tell me at the University of California that the only

good economists in the world were Greek, and he may or may not

have been right, but congratulations.

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I have to say 308,000 jobs ain’t bad, and if we could keep it up

for, I think, what is it, a year and a half, then we will be out of

the woods.

Representative Saxton. I would just say to the gentleman all

I was trying to say was my glass is half full.

Representative Stark. Okay.

But I am serious, 308,000 jobs is what we have been hoping for.

We will ask the Commissioner later whether she thinks this will

continue or whether it is a bubble; but as I say, there is nothing

that I would rather see than to see us be out of the hole in a year

and a half.

I would like to, however, ask you and your colleagues, Mr. Chairman, that as long as rosy scenario is singing in our economic opera

here, how about a little compassion?

I remember compassionate conservatism somewhere back, some

time ago, and we have 8 million Americans officially unemployed

and another 5 million who still want work out there. If we include

those 5 million, I guess we could be up around 10 percent unemployment.

Treasury Secretary Snow has said that the President would sign

an extension of benefits—of unemployment benefits if a bill

reached his desk, but our Congressional Republican leadership

seems to have blocked our extending unemployment benefits. So, I

would just say to add to this good news and to bring it home to

those people whose unemployment benefits are expiring and who

are looking forward to perhaps their children’s summer vacation

without any funds, perhaps no funds to buy them decent food even,

maybe even pay the rent, that for these families we could add to

this good news that you are bringing to us today and extend those

unemployment benefits.

It is our position in the House and in the Senate that is blocking

it, and so I am sure that you, as I do, have many patriotic Americans who have worked long and hard at their chosen occupation,

obeyed the law, paid their taxes, served in the military, if called

on; and they are out of work not because they are unemployable,

because they had to have a job for at least 6 months in order to

qualify. It is those folks—they don’t need training, but we have to

find jobs for them. In the interim, in a matter of compassion and

good will, we should pressure—and I hope you will join with me to

see if we can put pressure on our colleagues to report out an extension of the unemployment benefits.

With that, I look forward to hearing the Commissioner’s report.

Representative Saxton. Thank you, but I would just like to respond to your request.

I certainly am willing to consider another extension of unemployment benefits, and I suspect that that may be a subject of upcoming interest as we move into this year, but I would point out, again,

that 308,000 of the people who were previously unemployed are reemployed today, and 759,000 have been added to the payroll since

August 2003. So we are making good progress here on the domestic

side.

On the international side, the unemployment rates around the

world are quite astonishing actually. In the euro zone, meaning the

countries that now are trading with the euro, the unemployment

5

rate before today—and it probably hasn’t changed much—was 8.8

percent, and in Canada the unemployment rate is 7.4 percent, and

here today in the United States the unemployment rate is 5.7 percent.

So we are not doing too bad on the international scene, and it

looks like things are getting better with 759,000 jobs having been

added here in recent months.

So thank you for your suggestion on unemployment insurance

benefits, and I certainly would look forward to working with you.

Representative Stark. Thank you for your offer to help. Let’s

do it. Let’s show them who runs this House.

Representative Saxton. Thank you.

If Congressman Stark and I could just have our way, we could

solve all the problems, couldn’t we?

Commissioner, thank you for being here with us this morning.

We look forward to your testimony.

[The prepared statement of Representative Stark appears in the

Submission for the Record on page 23.]

STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN P. UTGOFF, COMMISSIONER,

BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Commissioner Utgoff. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and Members

of the Committee, I appreciate this opportunity to comment on the

labor market data released this morning.

Non-farm payroll employment——

Representative Saxton. Commissioner, could you pull that

microphone a bit closer.

Commissioner Utgoff. Sorry. It wasn’t on.

Non-farm payroll employment rose by 308,000 in March. This follows a revised gain of 159,000 in January and 46,000 in February.

Since August 2003, payroll employment has risen by 759,000. The

unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in March; little changed over

the month.

Job growth was fairly widespread in March, as you noted, with

gains in both the goods-producing and service-producing sectors of

the economy. Among the goods-producing industries, construction

employment increased by 71,000 over the month. This unusually

large gain followed a decline of 21,000 in February. Employment in

construction has been trending upward over the past year; 201,000

jobs have been added over the period.

Manufacturing employment was unchanged in March at 14.3

million. Factory employment has been declining for some time, although the rate of job loss began to moderate last summer. This

abatement in job losses has been concentrated among durable

goods manufacturers. The manufacturing work week was down in

March to 40.9 hours. Since July 2003, however, the factory work

week is up by eight-tenths of an hour.

Several of the major service-producing industries added jobs in

March. Retail trade employment increased by 47,000. Part of this

gain reflects the return to payrolls of some workers who had been

on strike in food stores. Elsewhere in retail trade, employment rose

over the month among motor vehicle and parts dealers and continued to trend up in building materials and garden stores.

6

In health care and social assistance, employment increased by

36,000, almost entirely in health care industries. There were noteworthy gains in hospitals, offices of physicians, and nursing and

residential care facilities.

Employment in professional and business services expanded over

the month. Job gains occurred in a number of component industries, including computer systems design, and management consulting. Elsewhere in this sector, employment in the temporary

help industry was basically unchanged after an increase in February. From a longer-term perspective, the number of temporary

help jobs has increased by 212,000 since April 2003.

The food services industry added 27,000 jobs over the month.

Over the past year, employment in food services has expanded by

186,000. The number of jobs in transportation and warehousing

edged up in March. In financial activities, employment increased

by 11,000 in credit intermediation, reflecting the recent rise in

mortgage refinancing activity.

The job total in the information industry was essentially unchanged in March. Employment in the industry appears to have

leveled off following roughly 21⁄2 years of decline.

Moving on to the data for our household survey, the unemployment rate was little changed at 5.7 percent in March. The jobless

rate has held fairly steady for several months and remains below

its recent peak of 6.3 percent in June 2003.

The labor force participation rate was unchanged in March at

65.9 percent. Total employment measured in another survey, the

household survey, was essentially flat over the month, and the employment-population ratio was little changed at 62.1 percent. The

number of discouraged workers, that is, persons outside the labor

force who have stopped looking for work because they believe their

job efforts would be fruitless, was 514,000, not much different from

a year earlier.

In summary, non-farm payroll employment increased by 308,000

in March, and it is up by 759,000 since August. The unemployment

rate was little changed over the month at 5.7 percent.

Thank you. My colleagues and I would be glad to answer any

questions.

[The prepared statement of Commissioner Utgoff appears in the

Submission for the Record on page 24.]

Representative Saxton. Commissioner, thank you very much,

and we appreciate, again, your being here this morning.

Let me just ask a few questions, and then we will go to Mr.

Stark for his questions.

Commissioner, given the health of the economy reflected in the

economic statistics, it is not surprising that employment has begun

to pick up. Strong productivity growth had delayed the resumption

of healthy employment growth, in my opinion, but now it appears

that the lag in employment growth is over.

In your testimony, you describe the March payroll gains as fairly

widespread. Isn’t this supported by the surge in the March diffusion index?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Saxton. Can you explain the significance of the

diffusion index and the growth that we see in it?

7

Commissioner Utgoff. That is an indication of how many industries are expanding and how many are contracting, and when

the number is above 50 percent, that means more industries are

expanding than contracting.

Representative Saxton. We saw the diffusion index rise from

last month’s level of 51 percent to 51.4 percent, I believe?

Commissioner Utgoff. We can check that.

That is correct.

Representative Saxton. From 51.4 to today’s level of 62—61?

Commissioner Utgoff. Sixty one.

Representative Saxton. Sixty one, thank you.

Is the 308,000 gain in payroll employment overstated in any kind

of seasonal adjustment other than—or other statistical issue?

Commissioner Utgoff. No. We believe that there are no special

factors that account for this increase in employment.

There was a weather pattern change in construction. In February, the weather was exceptionally cold, and it was better in

March, so there may have been some increase in construction, but

that is a real increase; it is not an artifact of any computation.

There were about 15,000 workers added because of the ending of

the strike activity in the grocery store industry.

Representative Saxton. Thank you.

Where are the greatest areas of strength in the latest March payroll data?

Commissioner Utgoff. The construction industry added 71,000

jobs.

Representative Saxton. How significant is the upward revision

in payroll employment from January?

Commissioner Utgoff. I believe it was 47,000, revised upward.

Representative Saxton. What accounts for those jobs that we

somehow didn’t account for at the end of the January survey?

Commissioner Utgoff. Each month we report, so we have a

very current report. We report only a few weeks after the end of

the survey week, so that we don’t have all reports in. About twothirds of the employment is accounted for in the first report, and

then by the time we get to the third report, it is over 90 percent,

so that the estimates are revised. They can be revised upward or

downward, and they are usually quite small in the context of 131

million people on the payroll.

Representative Saxton. In March, the monthly consecutive declines in manufacturing ended. Didn’t these consecutive declines in

manufacturing employment begin in August 2000?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Saxton. Aren’t the payroll numbers reported

today consistent with other data showing expansion of economic activity?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Saxton. So we have seen growth in GDP. We

have seen declines in first-time unemployment claims.

Are there other economic sets of data that show economic growth

this month, other than employment? If so, what are they?

Commissioner Utgoff. Well, we have had recent productivity

growth, which is, in the long term, good for the economy and a

positive indicator of employment over the long run.

8

Representative Saxton. Thank you.

Has the level of the unemployment rate changed in a statistically

significant way in March?

Commissioner Utgoff. No.

Representative Saxton. Let me turn at this point to my friend,

Mr. Stark, the gentleman who has a beautiful home on the water

on the Chesapeake.

Representative Stark. A long drive in, Mr. Chairman, but for

you, I would make it any time.

As I understand it, we have got a good number of people still unemployed, and there is a figure known as the unemployment—or

the employment-population ratio.

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Stark. Which I am sure you know much more

about than I do. But is it not now lower than it was 3 years ago?

The figures that I am looking at show that it is a couple of points

lower, and to me that means that the portion of the population of

Americans that have a job is lower over the past couple of years.

Is that a fair——

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes. Since the peak, the employment—

population ratio has declined.

Representative Stark. The proportion of the total population

that is in the labor force working or actively looking is a little bit

smaller as well.

Commissioner Utgoff. That is true.

Representative Stark. Okay.

Then we have got a lot of people, 8.4 million, unemployed—another 4.7 million who want a job, but you don’t officially count

them, and another 4.7 million working part-time for economic reasons, and whatever that adds up to, 9.4 million. We have got a lot

of people whose employment situation is not good.

Is that a fair assessment? Are those numbers about right?

Commissioner Utgoff. Those numbers are about right.

Representative Stark. Further, coming back to this crusade

that Chairman Saxton and I are about to undertake, we have longterm unemployed as a share—and I gather that is 27 weeks or

longer that they are out of work, so that the long-term unemployed

as a share of all the unemployed has moved, according to my figures, gone from about 14 to almost 24 percent from November 2001

to March of this year. Is that correct?

Commissioner Utgoff. That is correct.

Representative Stark. Now, it is those folks that I want to

come back to a little bit and just remind whoever takes this all

very seriously that they are the people that, for whatever reason—

either geographic location, their particular trade has moved offshore, their jobs have been outsourced, whatever—that we would

be helping. About 2 million, 1.998 million is the number I have, of

what I am going to call the hard-core, long-term unemployed that

would be helped if we extended the benefits.

Is that a fair assumption?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Stark. Well, as I say, I wish I could congratulate you for the good performance, but I have a hunch you are just

the bearer of good news and for so long you have been the bearer

9

of bad news, I am happy to have—one more question, Mr. Chairman, and then I will stop. I don’t want to ask the Commissioner

for an opinion, because that is not right.

But I am going to ask her if there are any indices that people

in your profession have reviewed and whether that has to do—I

suspect major wars would be one, but other than that, that you can

track with any reliability; and I am thinking over, say, 30 years,

employment, either total employment or growth. Does it follow the

stock market? I guess it does, since the stock market——

Commissioner Utgoff. It lags—employment lags the stock market.

Representative Stark. It really does?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Stark. There is some correlation?

Commissioner Utgoff. I believe that is true, yes.

Representative Stark. Anything that you could dig out that

doesn’t have too many multi-syllable words in it that you could reference, I would appreciate.

The other question of the market, obviously I am curious about

increase or decrease of taxes, income taxes, so corporate tax or individual tax. Are there any parallels there that you can track over

a long period of time?

Commissioner Utgoff. No, I cannot do that.

Representative Stark. I don’t mean you. But I mean in your

craft, as it were, a profession, have there been some scholarly or

professional pursuits that show any correlation there?

Commissioner Utgoff. None that I am aware of, but I am

not——

Representative Stark. Are there any other variables that stand

out to you that you could say, ‘‘Gee, the growth in this or decline

in that has always paralleled a growth or decline in employment

in our country?’’

Commissioner Utgoff. Well, I mean, I am sure you know that

the September 11th attacks clearly had an impact on employment.

Representative Stark. Fortunately, those don’t come along

very often. I presume World War I and World War II would show

some economic and employment changes because of going into a

wartime economy, but absent that.

Commissioner Utgoff. Well, you asked me before about taxes,

but if lower taxes increased spending and spending is part of GDP,

then one would expect employment to follow tax——

Representative Stark. I am just asking historically, is there

some correlation between employment and home building. Obviously, in the construction business and in the years where we had

increased home building, as we have had phenomenal growth in

home construction, I would suspect that in that industry you would

see something.

But I am just curious to get a variety—I really am not picking

on taxes or wars or anything else—to just see if there is some kind

of a series of databases or statistical data that in your work you

often look at to draw some parallel, because there is some relationship that you see historically.

Commissioner Utgoff. Well, there are a number of economic

models not used by BLS, but used by Wall Street and other predicVerDate 03-FEB-2003 16:35 Oct 06, 2005 Jkt 023347 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\JEC\23347.TXT SSC2 PsN: SSC2
10

tors that have things in them like initial claims, GDP growth, Institute of Supply Management figures, and they are used. But we

have not done an independent study of what predicts employment.

Representative Stark. A list of those, again, if you can find

them in popular form and not in technical form, would be of interest to me, if I could trouble you to send me some of that.

Commissioner Utgoff. I would be happy to provide it.

Representative Stark. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Representative Saxton. Thank you, Mr. Stark.

Senator Sessions, welcome back to the House side. I am glad you

are here.

Senator Sessions. Thank you. It is good to be with you and it

is good to have some good news. It certainly is a move that we appreciate and celebrate.

With regard to Mr. Stark’s questions, Commissioner, I have been

thinking about our revenues of the government also, and where we

are in all of this. Now, this is a payroll survey. So this means these

are people paying FICA and withholding taxes?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Senator Sessions. These are officially on a payroll somewhere?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Senator Sessions. Now, the household survey, which never has

looked as bad as the payroll survey, people may not be on a payroll,

may not have withholding or don’t have withholding, I suppose; is

that correct? Sometimes they don’t pay taxes, maybe even when

they should.

Commissioner Utgoff. It is very hard to measure illegal activity.

Senator Sessions. But on the household survey, it picks up jobs

that are not on a withholding basis. Is that right, not on official

payroll?

Commissioner Utgoff. Right. It does pick up jobs that are not

on the official payroll.

Senator Sessions. Now, I think what we all thought and hope,

Mr. Chairman, is if we could take strong action in Congress to enhance growth in the economy, which are the tax cuts—what President Bush promoted and I supported—and we have had growth.

We have had 8 percent growth third quarter last year, the highest

in 20 years, and another good fourth quarter.

It looks like we will have another good quarter this year. I believe Mr. Greenspan said it could be as high as 5 percent for the

year.

Now, normally jobs follow that growth. Is that right, Commissioner? But they lag behind the growth?

Commissioner Utgoff. They lag behind the growth, but they do

follow it.

Senator Sessions. It seemed that jobs were lagging longer behind the growth this year more than we may have seen in the past.

Is that true?

Commissioner Utgoff. That is correct.

Senator Sessions. But would you conclude that it is following

now?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

11

Senator Sessions. So the jobs we are seeing now are a product

of the strong growth we have had for several quarters?

Commissioner Utgoff. We don’t have any econometric models

that predict how they all relate, but I think it is fair to say growth

is correlated with jobs.

Senator Sessions. Another thing that has complicated this is

productivity. Productivity, the economists say, is good, but it may

not be good if your job was the one that got lost in the production

achievements through technology and things like that.

So we have had increased productivity. Is that a factor in the

lagging of the job growth until maybe this quarter, this month?

Commissioner Utgoff. In the early stages, productivity can reduce jobs.

Senator Sessions. So it seems to me that what we are seeing

is that we got the growth we wanted at the same time we were

achieving tremendous productivity increases, which makes us very

competitive in the world marketplace, but didn’t get the surge in

jobs that we hoped to get; and now we are beginning to feel those

jobs. I think that is just good news, and I hope it can continue.

With regard to the payroll survey, what about illegal immigrants

in the country? Are some of those picked up on the payroll survey

and some not, or do we have a number?

Commissioner Utgoff. We don’t have a number, but some employers are given fake documents, and they are included on a payroll. Employers are very concerned about—some are—about having

illegal workers. In other cases where it may be day labor or something like that, they may not have full papers, and they may not

be recorded on a payroll. We don’t have any breakdown of that.

As I said, it is very hard to measure illegal activity.

Senator Sessions. So you really can’t—you are not aware of any

studies that have been done that could identify how many jobs are

being held by persons here illegally and who are not being subjected to payroll taxes?

Commissioner Utgoff. There was one study done at Northeastern which tried to get into that, but what they did was make

a guess about what the number was; and I wouldn’t exactly call

that a study.

Senator Sessions. Do you recall that number?

Commissioner Utgoff. We would be happy to provide that.

[The information referred to appears in the Submission for the

Record on page 56.]

Senator Sessions. Thank you. My time, I believe, has expired,

Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Representative Saxton. Senator Sessions, great point on productivity. I think you hit the nail right on the head.

You know, back in the 1960s and 1970s, when we had recessions,

following the recessions, while there was a lag in the growth of employment, the lags were relatively short.

When we got into the growth periods of the 1980s and 1990s, following the recessions of the early 1980s and the short recession we

had in the early 1990s, the productivity that you speak of was an

ongoing—the growth in productivity was an ongoing process.

It is exactly what you said: During those two—following those

two recessions, the lag between the end of the recession and where

12

we saw good growth in jobs, the lag was longer. We believe it was

exactly what you said because of the bringing on of technology that

improved productivity and jobs changed, and so it took longer for

the growth in jobs to catch up with the growth in the economy.

Senator Sessions. Mr. Chairman, I think this chart shows—although this productivity makes our economy volatile in some ways

and people change jobs more often—it shows why, I think, we are

more productive and we have lower unemployment. We have a

stronger economy than the other economies in the world, and I

think we should celebrate that also. Even though we are not satisfied where we are today, we would like to do better with employment, but the numbers stack up well against the other economies

in the world, and I think are less free market oriented.

Representative Saxton. Thank you. Good point.

Mrs. Maloney.

Representative Maloney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, but just on that point, I think it is really—Senator Sessions,

our economy and our labor market are very different from Europe

and from Canada; and a fair comparison would be with current history in our own country with the labor market. When President

Bush took office, unemployment was at 4.2 percent.

But that being said, this is the first substantial job gain during

the Bush administration. It is very good news for the American

workers and for our economy, but still there is a 1.8 million unemployment hole or job-loss hole since the President took office; and

since job growth has turned around in September, we have only

averaged, roughly, 108,000 jobs that have been created per month,

even with today’s very positive announcement.

As the President’s Chief Economist, Dr. Gregory Mankiw, who

testified before the Joint Economic Committee—he testified we

need 125,000 jobs per month just to keep up with the growing

workforce with the young men and other men and women entering

the workforce.

But I would like to ask about—the unemployment number is

roughly 5.7 percent, and I would like to ask—that is roughly 8.4

million people, would you say, Commissioner?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Maloney. How many people currently want a

job, are looking for a job, but are not counted among the unemployed because they have thrown in the towel and given up because

they are getting tired of having people say, ‘‘no, we don’t have a

job for you?’’ How many is that, would you say?

Commissioner Utgoff. Four million eight-hundred thousand

persons were outside the labor force but said they want a job.

Representative Maloney. Four million eight-hundred thousand. How many people are underemployed or people that are

working part-time for economic reasons? They used to be an analyst on Wall Street and now they are a bartender 4 nights a week

just to put bread on the table? How many of these people are working part-time now?

Commissioner Utgoff. Four million seven-hundred thousand.

Representative Maloney. So I would venture to say that these

two groups of people are in unemployment or certainly underemployment.

13

What would your measure of unemployment be if you included

people that are not in the labor force who want to work and people

who are working or are underemployed in part-time jobs for economic reasons?

Commissioner Utgoff. 9.9 percent.

Representative Maloney. So it would be 9.9 percent?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Maloney. Really it is 9.9 percent are unemployed or underemployed?

Commissioner Utgoff. That is one measure of unemployment.

Representative Maloney. I would like to go to New York. I

represent New York, 300 of my constituents died on 9/11, and I

would like to know New York’s numbers.

I don’t want to take up your time here. Maybe afterwards you

can give it, because that is not the interest of everybody.

But the President recently said that 1 million jobs were lost as

a result of the terrorist attacks in September 2001. Yet, I literally

got the New York Federal Reserve to do a report on the number

of jobs lost due to the 9/11 terrible attack on our country, and that

study found between 70,000 and 80,000 jobs lost.

So my question to you is, what is the accurate number? Is it the

President’s number that it was 1 million, the New York Federal

Reserve, which was 70,000 to 80,000? Do you have any indication

of how many jobs were lost because of that terrorist attack?

Commissioner Utgoff. We do not know, and I think it will be

very hard to ascertain how many jobs were lost from the September 11th attacks. The 70,000–80,000 figure by the Federal Reserve was only in New York City. In——

Representative Maloney. I am talking about New York City.

They are saying 70,000–80,000 jobs in New York City. The President said a million in New York City as a direct result of 2001. So

I am wondering what is the accurate number. Have you looked at

that for New York City?

Commissioner Utgoff. I have not looked at it for New York

City, but I believe the President’s number was nationwide.

Representative Maloney. His number was nationwide, and you

have not looked at that. Could you look at it? I would be interested

in knowing what the economic impact of the 9/11 attack was for

New York City.

Commissioner Utgoff. Well, we have done a study where we

asked people who were on what are called ‘‘mass layoffs.’’ These are

layoffs where there are 50 or more people in a 5-week period, so

it is a very limited subset of people who were displaced. Over the

period, about 145,000 workers were displaced, using that definition, where the employer identified in a secondary question the fact

that a non-natural disaster was a cause of that layoff.

But there were enormous impacts of September 11th throughout

the country in, particularly, the leisure and travel industries, and

it is hard to know whether these employers knew that their layoffs

were related to 9/11, and it is also true that many of the layoffs

were in small businesses particularly restaurants, that would not

qualify as mass layoffs.

14

Representative Maloney. My time is up, but just a clarification.

Was the President correct when he said 1 million nationwide

were lost because of 9/11, would you say?

Commissioner Utgoff. Undoubtedly, some of that loss in employment was due to an overall weak labor market at the time.

Representative Maloney. My time is up.

Representative Saxton. Thank you. Just to give everybody a

heads up, we are supposed to have three votes beginning at about

10:30, which shouldn’t affect us because it should be time for everybody to get their questions in.

Baron, you are up.

Representative Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Commissioner, thank you for being here this morning. Let me

follow up with what Congresswoman Maloney just asked you. The

President—let me begin by saying, I think it is fairly obvious that

the Republicans want to paint a rosy picture and the Democrats

want to paint a not-so-rosy picture; and this is all politics, so I

would like to cut through all this, if I can, and ask you, as a followup to Congresswoman Maloney’s question, how many jobs were lost

directly as a result of 9/11?

Commissioner Utgoff. We cannot answer that question.

Representative Hill. Okay. Thank you. Can anybody answer

that question? Are there economists that can answer that question?

Commissioner Utgoff. I am not aware of that.

Representative Hill. All right. So when the President says that

1 million jobs were lost, he is basing that on what then?

Commissioner Utgoff. Decrease in total payroll employment for

September, October, November and December—well, not September, but October, November and December.

Representative Hill. But no one can say for certain that the 1

million jobs were lost as a direct result of 9/11?

Commissioner Utgoff. No.

Representative Hill. Now, I am looking at several numbers

that are conflicting here at my desk. You say that there were

308,000 jobs that were created—new jobs that were created in

March. Correct?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Hill. But yet the unemployment rate stayed at

5.7 percent.

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Hill. Can you tell me, if you have got 308,000

new jobs that were created, why is the unemployment rate remaining the same?

Commissioner Utgoff. We have two surveys, one that measures

the unemployment rate and gives us what I would call ratios; and

then the second is a payroll survey that goes to employers, and

they count the number of people that are on the payroll.

So the surveys are quite different. Over the long term they move

together, but in any particular month, they don’t; and in this

month, the total employed in the household survey went down by

a very small amount.

Representative Hill. Why is that?

15

Commissioner Utgoff. Because of the differences in the surveys

and how they are measured.

Representative Hill. Well, let me cut to the chase here.

You say there are 308,000 new jobs that were—or the employment rose by 308,000 people, but the unemployment rate remains

at 5.7 percent. I don’t understand the answer to my question here.

Why would it remain the same if there are 308,000 new jobs that

have been created?

Commissioner Utgoff. Because the jobs number comes from a

different survey. Employers count how many people are on their

payroll. In the household survey, you ask someone in the household

to report their employment status for themselves and for other people in the household. So on a month-to-month basis, the surveys

can differ.

The household survey is more volatile and tends to go up and

down more in any particular month. If you want to look at the

number of jobs created in a particular month, it is probably better

to look at the payroll survey, since it is less volatile.

Representative Hill. How many people do you call in the

household survey?

Commissioner Utgoff. We collect data on 60,000 households.

Representative Hill. Let me ask you this then. Of that 308,000

increase in employment, how many government jobs are there?

Commissioner Utgoff. Thirty-one thousand of the increase was

government jobs.

Representative Hill. Now, you mention in your remarks that

159,000 jobs were created in January, 46,000 in February, and

these are revised gains.

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Hill. For example, the data that I have here,

21,000 jobs were created last month. Now you are saying 46?

Commissioner Utgoff. That is right.

Representative Hill. The 21,000 that were created, as I understand it, from last month, 20,000 of them were government jobs.

Commissioner Utgoff. That is right.

Representative Hill. How many of these 46,000 jobs are government jobs?

Commissioner Utgoff. Fifteen. So the number of government

jobs was revised downward.

Representative Hill. Okay.

Commissioner Utgoff. Originally we had estimated that there

was a 21,000 job gain, and all 21,000 of that was from government

employment.

Now, with our revised estimates, it is 15 out of 46.

Representative Hill. Well, I have got thousands more questions

to ask, but the red light is on. Let me just cut to the chase, if I

can, here.

In your opinion, have we had a dramatic increase in new jobs

created for the month of March?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Hill. What can we attribute that to?

Commissioner Utgoff. The gains were very widespread. It

wasn’t any particular small set of industries, so it can be attributed

to a better job market, employers hiring more people.

16

Representative Hill. But the manufacturing base is not really

increasing very much, is it?

Commissioner Utgoff. For 40-something months it has been

declining every month, and now it is stable, so that is an improvement.

Representative Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Representative Saxton. Thank you, Mr. Hill.

Mr. Watt.

Representative Watt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Commissioner for being here. I apologize for being

late, but when your heating and air-conditioning service people are

coming, life grinds to a screeching halt, and you can only wait. One

industry that must be doing well, I can presume.

Let me just clarify a couple of things for my own edification. We

created 308,000 jobs in March, or at least that was the increase in

payrolls—number of people on payrolls. Is it correct that 72,000 of

those jobs resulted from the resolution of a labor dispute at grocery

stores in southern California?

Commissioner Utgoff. No. We estimate that approximately

15,000 jobs were created by the ending of the strike.

Representative Watt. So the USA Today report that says that

72,000 workers returned to work is incorrect?

Commissioner Utgoff. No. That is correct. What happened was

there were replacement workers who were hired during the strike,

so the net increase in employment is——

Representative Watt. Oh, I see. Okay, I got you.

So you had some people being displaced and some people were

returning to work. The net effect of that was a 15,000 job increase?

Commissioner Utgoff. Approximately.

Representative Watt. Okay. Now, if I understand correctly, the

unemployment rate, 5.7 percent, results in 8.4 million people being

unemployed nationwide.

Commissioner Utgoff. That is right.

Representative Watt. I believe you said in response to questions from Mrs. Maloney that there are an additional 4.8 million

potential employees who have simply given up and gone off the

rolls, and so they are not included in the 8.4 million figure. Is that

correct?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Watt. Then, in addition to that, there are 4.7

million people who are underemployed, I think you testified in response to Mrs. Maloney’s question. Is that correct?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Watt. So when you add all of that together, the

rate is 9.9 percent either unemployed or underemployed?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes. That is the most inclusive measure.

It includes the most people in it that we produce.

Representative Watt. All right. That is the overall rate for people of all ages, colors, races, what have you.

What is the number of that 8.4 million that are minorities? Or

do you keep it that way? Do you keep it—African American, I think

you keep a statistic on; Latino, you keep a statistic on. If you combine those two—well, let’s look at the African American unemployVerDate 03-FEB-2003 16:35 Oct 06, 2005 Jkt 023347 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\JEC\23347.TXT SSC2 PsN: SSC2
17

ment. What number of people in the 8.4 million would be African

Americans?

Commissioner Utgoff. 1.7 million.

Representative Watt. What percentage rate would that be?

Commissioner Utgoff. 10.2.

Representative Watt. And the Hispanic number and percentage rate is what?

Commissioner Utgoff. 1.4 million.

Representative Watt. And the percentage is?

Commissioner Utgoff. 7.4.

Representative Watt. Of the 4.8 million people who have given

up, what would be the African American number as a percentage?

Commissioner Utgoff. We don’t have that.

Representative Watt. You don’t have the Hispanic percentage

that falls in that category?

Commissioner Utgoff. No.

Representative Watt. You don’t keep that statistic, or you just

don’t have it with you.

Commissioner Utgoff. We don’t have it with us. We would be

happy to provide that to you.

[The information referred to appears in the Submission for the

Record on page 57.]

Representative Watt. If you could send that to my office, that

would be helpful. I would like the same number and percentage in

the underemployed category if you have the ability to do that.

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes, sir.

Mrs. Maloney. Would the gentleman yield for one second? Could

you ask that she include women in this report? I would be very interested in seeing the statistics on women.

Representative Watt. I wasn’t discriminating. If you have a

separate—I guess I was discriminating on some criteria.

But it appears that this job loss, this giving up, and I suspect

you will find that the people who have given up are even more disproportionately African American than the unemployment rate, or

would they be?

Commissioner Utgoff. I can’t answer that question. We will

have to provide the data.

[The information referred to appears in the Submission for the

Record on page 58.]

Representative Watt. Well, the numbers don’t lie. So we will

get the actual numbers.

It seems to me that while all unemployment is bad, people of

color, minorities, are bearing an even more disproportionate share

of the brunt of this. We need to do something about it. I guess that

is the bottom line.

I think my time is up, Mr. Chairman. I will yield back.

Representative Saxton. Thank you, Mr. Watt.

Commissioner, thank you for being with us this morning.

Let me add my congratulations to Tom Nardone who has been

a great help to our Committee from time to time. We certainly wish

Tom well.

Commissioner, thank you for being with us this morning.

Representative Maloney. Can we ask another round?

18

This is good news. We should have another round of questions

until the bell sounds.

Representative Saxton. If the gentle lady would like to ask additional questions, certainly.

Representative Maloney. I would like to underscore my request with the gentleman from North Carolina to get us the numbers on women, particularly the women who maintain families who

are particularly vulnerable, in a job slump, and we are in the most

persistent job slump since the 1930s.

I would like to go back to the household numbers. Mr. Greenspan, incidentally, testified before the Financial Services Committee that he felt that the payroll numbers were more accurate

and dependable than household. Would you agree with that statement or not?

Commissioner Utgoff. We have testified previously that because of the larger sample of the payroll survey and the fact that

it is benchmarked to a total sample, that the sample of 400,000,

establishments is benchmarked to the total count of establishments

once a year, that provides a better current picture of what is going

on in the labor market.

Representative Maloney. Thank you.

But I would like to go back to the payroll numbers, which I understand are tied to the unemployment percentage, correct.

Commissioner Utgoff. No.

Representative Maloney. It is the household numbers, rather,

which are tied to that?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Maloney. What is the proportion of the population that has a job, the so called employment population ratio?

Commissioner Utgoff. 62.1.

Representative Maloney. How has that changed over the past

year?

Commissioner Utgoff. It has declined.

Representative Maloney. It has declined to what? From what?

It has declined.

What was the employment population ratio in January 2001,

which was when President Bush took office?

Commissioner Utgoff. It was 2.3 percentage points higher.

Representative Maloney. So 64. So does that mean that the

proportion of the population with a job is 2.3 percent lower than

it was when President Bush took office?

Commissioner Utgoff. That is correct.

Representative Maloney. That is correct. I also would like to

get a clarification on the proportion of the population that is in the

labor force working or actively looking for work that remains low.

What was the labor force participation rate in March?

Commissioner Utgoff. In March, 65.9.

Representative Maloney. Okay. How has it changed in the

past year?

Commissioner Utgoff. Over the last 3 years, I can tell you it

has declined by 1.2 percentage points.

Representative Maloney. So it has declined. So what was it in

January 2002?

Commissioner Utgoff. 1.2 points higher than that.

19

Representative Maloney. So it was 67 percent. Right?

Commissioner Utgoff. Right.

Representative Maloney. So does that mean that the labor

force has shrunk by 1.3 percentage points as a share of the population since President Bush took office?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes.

Representative Maloney. Okay. Thank you.

When Mr. Sessions and I talk, we always get into household and

payroll and what is more accurate. I just think that it is good to

have both, but to be clear that one is a very small sample.

I have to thank you, Mr. Saxton, I believe my time is up. I have

enjoyed your company this morning.

Representative Saxton. Thank you.

I would just like to comment here. The payroll survey and the

household survey have been issues of discussion throughout the

last number of months, I guess a year or so. For some reason that

maybe the Commissioner can explain, the divergence between the

payroll survey and the household survey seems to be increasing. In

other words, where they—over time as the commissioner said—

track together. Over the last—well, since the beginning of about

2002, the gap or the difference between the two surveys has been—

has been widening.

Commissioner, is there some explanation for that? This has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat or how the economy is

going. I am just curious about why this may be occurring.

Commissioner Utgoff. Some small part of it is self-employment. As you know, the payroll survey does not include self-employment.

The rest of it, we have not been able to explain.

Representative Saxton. If you were to try to rely on one survey or the other, which one would you say would be more accurate?

Commissioner Utgoff. For current near-term trends, the payroll survey is more accurate. It is based on a larger sample. As I

said, it is benchmarked to the full population once a year.

The household survey is much smaller. It is only benchmarked

every 10 years to the Census.

Representative Saxton. Tell us, if you can, the nature of this

survey on the household survey? Can you describe in some detail

how it is done, what kinds of questions are asked, what kind of responses you get, what kind of problems you run into with it?

Commissioner Utgoff. The household survey is either a visit to

the home or a telephone survey where a cohort of people are asked:

Were you employed last month? Is anybody in your household employed? If they say they are not employed, then they ask reasons,

such as, do you want a job? Why, if you want a job, haven’t you

taken one?

Representative Saxton. Who conducts the household survey?

Commissioner Utgoff. The Census Bureau.

Representative Saxton. Okay. When you ask—I am just curious about this. I have never asked these questions before, but I

have always been curious. When the Census Bureau asks these

questions and they say to someone, ‘‘Are you employed?’’ is there

a difference in the way someone may answer the question based on

the definition of employment? I don’t ask this to be funny.

20

Commissioner Utgoff. No.

Representative Saxton. We sometimes talk about being employed in the home as opposed to being employed out in the workplace. Does this create any kind of a problem?

Commissioner Utgoff. Well, the questions are: Last week, did

you do any work for pay, which means, the week of the 12th, did

you earn any money in any kind of a job?

Representative Saxton. I see. So it could be a part-time job,

a full-time job, just if you got paid?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes. Even an hour or so of employment.

Representative Saxton. If you mowed somebody’s lawn and

you got paid for it, then that would be considered employed?

Commissioner Utgoff. That is right.

Representative Saxton. So the household survey probably

would not be as accurate? I guess that is what you said before.

Commissioner Utgoff. Well, it is a question of how many people worked for pay at any time during the week, and includes agricultural workers, self-employed. If you wanted to know that question, the household survey would be better.

But if you want to know how many people have a formal job, of

people on a payroll, an actual count rather than someone’s memory

of it, you would want to go to the payroll survey.

Representative Maloney. Will the gentleman yield for a question?

Representative Saxton. I think Mr. Watt wanted to be recognized.

Representative Maloney. Just on a clarification on this.

Also, the sample as I understand it, is much larger for the payroll. It is only 60,000 people called by the Census for the household

as opposed to 700,000 on the payroll?

Commissioner Utgoff. Four-hundred thousand.

Representative Maloney. Four-hundred thousand on the payroll. Is that a sample, the 400,000 that you rely on?

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes. It is called the probability sample,

where by firm size and industry, you are represented as—you

would be represented in the whole population. If your firm accounts for 5 percent of the employment in that size industry, than

5 percent of those firms would be sampled.

Representative Maloney. Well, I thank the gentleman for his

line of questioning to clarify this.

In New York, we used to have two sets of books, and the city

went bankrupt. It was actually—this was in the 1970s. It was actually my bill that did a very simple thing, required one set of books.

The controller and the mayor now compile the numbers so that

people aren’t confused, and we have one set of books.

What is the benefit of having two surveys out there? A lot of

times it is confusing to the public when we get into public debates,

they are saying, ‘‘Well, I am talking about the household’’, and

somebody says, ‘‘Well I am talking about payroll’’.

It is not a clear message. I just throw that out. I think it is—

could you explain to us why we have both surveys, and do you

think that is helpful in going forward with our analysis of what is

happening to the economy in a non-partisan way?

21

Commissioner Utgoff. Yes. As you say, the payroll data is

more comprehensive. We get very good geographic data. We get industry data. It is much larger. So we can go into more detail about

specifics of employment.

The household survey is smaller, but we cannot count unemployment using the payroll survey, because we don’t know what the

labor force is. We don’t know how many people are unemployed.

So each of these asks different questions, and they both shine a

good deal of light on the labor market. We need them both.

Representative Maloney. Okay. Thank you.

Representative Saxton. Thank you.

Mr. Watt.

Representative Watt. Can you just give me a two-sentence description of how you determine whether someone is underemployed? Perhaps you can give me more detail when you submit

the other information I have asked for. But I am just trying to figure out how that determination is made.

Commissioner Utgoff. It is through a series of questions. Did

you work part-time? Then, why did you work part-time? The various reasons that can be given. I will send you that section of the

questionnaire so that you can see exactly how these questions are

asked.

[The information referred to appears in the Submissions for the

Record on page 61.]

Representative Watt. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Representative Saxton. Thank you.

Any further questions, Mr. Hill?

Representative Hill. Just briefly. The memo I am looking at

here from the Democratic side shows that market forecasters expect the March data to show that payroll employment rose by

123,000 jobs.

You are saying that it actually rose by 308,000 jobs. Is that correct?

Commissioner Utgoff. That is correct.

Representative Hill. Okay. Thank you.

Representative Saxton. Thank you. It has been a great hearing.

Thank you for the good news, Commissioner. We look forward to

seeing you under the tutelage, I suppose, of Senator Bennett next

month. Presumably, he will be back in the chair.

Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 10:50 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

(23)

Submissions for the Record

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JIM SAXTON, VICE CHAIRMAN

WASHINGTON, DC.—I am pleased to welcome Commissioner Utgoff once again before the Joine Economic Committee.

The figures released this morning are good news for American workers. According

to the payroll survey, employment increased by 308,000 in March. Moreover, payroll

employment growth was revised upward to 159,000 in January and 46,000 in February. The data reported today show that 759,000 jobs have been added to payrolls

since August 2003. The BLS describes the unemployment rate as about unchanged.

The diffusion index—an important indicator of the breadth of employment

changes—jumped from 51.4 percent to 61.0 percent in March. This is the highest

level of the diffusion index since July 2000. This indicates that the job gains in

March were not confined to one sector of the economy. In addition, the consecutive

declines in manufacturing employment that began in August 2000 have come to an

end.

According to a wide range of other economic data, the U.S. economy is growing

at a healthy pace. A review of the recent history demonstrates that the American

economy has displayed amazing resilience despite the 2000 economic slowdown that

soon became a recession, terrorist attacks, wars, corporate scandals, and other

shocks.

However, according to critics of the Administration, there is a notion that the U.S.

economy was in splendid shape until President Bush took office and his policies

were in place. According to this view, virtually immediately upon President Bush’s

inauguration, the economy went from an ideal picture of health to ‘‘the worst economy since the Great Depression.’’ However, the evidence demonstrates that this

view of the economic record is fundamentally wrong.

All of the net job declines in recent years are accounted for by the manufacturing

sector, but the downward trend in manufacturing employment began long before

President Bush took office or his policieis were in place. For example, relative to

its cyclical peak of March 1998, manufacturing payroll jobs had declined by over

half a million by January 2001. The fall-off in investment that began in the second

half of 2000 had a negative impact on manufacturing because much of this sector

is engaged in the production of capital goods, i.e., machinery and equipment. Manufacturing rmployment began to fall every month beginning in August 2000, until

March 2004.

However, the U.S. economy has proven very resilient, and economic growth started to accelerate in 2003 as the stimulative effects of the tax relief bill and monetary

policy became evident. GDP growth—the total output of all goods and services—

jumped over 6 percent in the second half of 2003. According to the Blue Chip consensus of economic forecasters, GDP growth is expected to be about 4 percent for

the foreseeable future.

Continued strong economic growth will ultimately translate into continued growth

in employment, as it always has in the past. The bottom line is that the economy

is strong. Although high productivity had delayed sustained employment growth,

the labor market has trended upward in recent months.

Commissioner, we look forward to your testimony.

PRPEARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE PETE STARK,

RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Thank you, Vice Chairman Bennett. I want to welcome Commissioner Utgoff and

thank her for testifying here today.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) March employment situation shows that

the unemployment rate edged up slightly to 5.7 percent. More than 8 million AmeriVerDate 03-FEB-2003 16:35 Oct 06, 2005 Jkt 023347 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 D:\JEC\23347.TXT SSC2 PsN: SSC2
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cans remain unemployed—with 2 million out of work for 6 months or more. While

308,000 payrolls jobs were created, this was the first significant job gain of the entire Bush presidency. We are still in a deep hole and we can’t really talk about a

jobs recovery until we see robust job creation for several months.

March marks the third anniversary of the Bush jobs slump—the most persistent

jobs recession since the 1930’s. Overall, the economy has lost 1.8 million payroll jobs

since President Bush took office in January 2001. When you take out growth in government jobs, and focus on just the private sector, the loss is even more staggering:

we are 2.6 million jobs in the hole since President Bush took office. The manufacturing sector alone has lost 2.8 million jobs.

We’ve been gaining jobs slowly since August, but at the pace we’ve seen so far,

it would take nearly 11⁄2 years to erase the current jobs deficit. Job creation would

have to average over 184,000 jobs per month from April 2004 to January 2005 just

to erase the current 1.8 million Bush jobs deficit completely.

Besides the more than 8 million Americans officially unemployed, another 5 million people want to work, but are out of the labor force and not counted among the

unemployed. The unemployment rate would be nearly 10 percent if you included

them and those who are forced to work part-time because of the weak economy.

Even though jobs grew in March, we still have a huge jobs deficit and long-term

unemployment rose again last month. House Republicans have thwarted efforts by

Democrats to help nearly three million unemployed workers and their families avoid

financial ruin by extending temporary Federal jobless benefits for the next 6 months

and retroactively for the last 3 months. Treasury Secretary Snow has said that

President Bush would sign an extension of benefits if a bill reached his desk. But

the Republican leadership has made this the ‘do-nothing for unemployed workers’

Congress. The long-term jobless deserve additional unemployment benefits now—the

President and the Republican-controlled Congress should just do it.

I look forward to Commissioner Utgoff’s testimony today.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN P. UTGOFF, COMMISSIONER,

BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I appreciate this opportunity to

comment on the labor market data we released this morning.

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 308,000 in March. This follows revised gains

of 159,000 in January and 46,000 in February. Since August 2003, payroll employment has risen by 759,000. The unemploymeny rate was 5.7 percent in March, little

changed over the month.

Job growth was fairly widespread in March, with gains in both the goods-producing and service-producing sectors of the economy. Among the goods-producing industries, construction employment increased by 71,000 over the month. This unusually large gain followed a decline of 21,000 in February. Employment in construction

has been trending upward over the past year; 201,000 jobs have been added over

the period.

Manufacturing employment was unchanged in March at 14.3 million. Factory employment had been declining for some time, although the rate of job loss began to

moderate late last summer. This abatement in job losses has been concentrated

among durable goods manufacturers. The manufacturing workweek was down in

March to 40.9 hours. Since July 2003, however, the factory workweek is up by eighttenths of an hour.

Several of the major service-providing industries added jobs in March. Retail

trade employment increased by 47,000. Part of this gain reflects the return to payrolls of some workers who had been on strike in food stores. Elsewhere in retail

trade, employment rose over the month among motor vehicle and parts dealers and

continued to trend upward in building material and garden supply stores.

In health care and social assistance, employmeny increased by 36,000 in March,

almost entirely in health care industries. There were noteworthy job gains in hospitals, offices of physicians, and nursing and residential care facilitiies.

Employment in professional and business services expanded over the month. Job

gains occurred in a number of component industries, including architectural and engineering services, computer systems design, and management consulting. Elsewhere in this sector, employment in the temporary help industry was basically unchanged over the month, after an increased in February. From a longer-term perspective, the number of temporary help jobs has increased by 212,000 since April

2003.

The food services industry added 27,000 jobs over the month. Over the past year,

employment in food services has expanded by 186,000. The number of jobs in transVerDate 03-FEB-2003 16:35 Oct 06, 2005 Jkt 023347 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 D:\JEC\23347.TXT SSC2 PsN: SSC2
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portation and warehousing edged up in March. In financial activities, employment

increased by 11,000 in credit intermediation, reflecting the recent rise in mortgage

refinancing activity. The job total in the information industry was essentially unchanged in March; employment in the industry appears to have leveled off recently

following roughly 21⁄2 years of decline.

Moving on to the data from our household survey, the unemployment rate was

little changed at 5.7 percent in March. The jobless rate has held fairly steady for

several months and remains below its recent peak of 6.3 percent in June 2003.

The labor force participation rate was unchanged in March at 6.5 percent. Total

employment (as measured in the household survey) was essentially flat over the

month, and the employment-population ratio was little changed at 62.1 percent. The

number of discouraged workers—persons outside the labor force who have stopped

looking for work because they believe their job search efforts would be fruitless—

was 124,000 in March, not much different from a year earlier.

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment increased by 308,000 in March and is

up by 759,000 since last August. The unemployment rate was little changed over

the month, at 5.7 percent.

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

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