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54–511 2010

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THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JULY 2009 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

AUGUST 7, 2009 

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 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Ranking Minority 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

NAN GIBSON, Executive Director 

JEFF SCHLAGENHAUF, Minority Staff Director 

CHRISTOPHER FRENZE, House Republican Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

MEMBERS

Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney, Chair, a U.S. Representative from New York .......... 1 

Hon. Elijah E. Cummings, a U.S. Representative from Maryland ...................... 2 

Hon. Amy Klobuchar, a U.S. Senator from Minnesota ......................................... 4 

WITNESSES

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

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

Commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Dr. Michael W. Horrigan, 

Associate Commissioner for Prices and Living Conditions ............................... 5 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Prepared statement of Representative Carolyn B. Maloney ................................ 30 

Prepared statement of Senator Sam Brownback .................................................. 30 

Prepared statement of Representative Kevin Brady ............................................ 32 

Prepared statement of Dr. Keith Hall, Commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics, together with Press Release USDL–09–0908 ............................................ 32 

(1) 

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JULY 2009 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2009 

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

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:32 a.m. in Room 562 

of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, The Honorable Carolyn B. 

Maloney (Chair) presiding. 

Representatives present: Maloney and Cummings. 

Senators present: Klobuchar. 

Staff present: Nan Gibson, Colleen Healy, Aaron Rottenstein, 

Annabelle Tamerjan, Justin Ungson, and Jeff Schlagenhauf. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CAROLYN B. 

MALONEY, CHAIR, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW YORK 

Chair Maloney. The hearing will come to order. I know other 

members are expected, but hearings should start on time. 

Welcome, Commissioner Hall. 

Evidence that the Stimulus Bill is taking hold, is starting to 

emerge. The economy dramatically improved in the second quarter 

of this year, and the pace of job loss has moderated significantly 

in recent months. 

Clearly, the trend is towards recovery. I am optimistic that more 

Americans will be heading back to work as more stimulus projects 

get underway. While we welcome these signs of improvement, this 

morning’s BLS report reminds us of the high toll that the recession 

has had on millions of working Americans. 

This recession, which began in December of 2007, is now the 

longest and deepest in the post-World War II period. Although the 

economy is predicted to expand later this year, the duration of this 

recession has led to long spells of unemployment for some workers. 

With six unemployed workers for each job opening, those out of 

work are finding it increasingly difficult to find a job. More than 

one-third of the unemployed, a staggering five million Americans, 

have been without a job for at least six months. This is the highest 

on record, in both percent and the sheer numbers. Over 2.3 million 

workers have been unemployed for a year or longer. 

The National Employment Law Project estimates that by the end 

of September, more than 500,000 workers who lost their jobs 

through no fault of their own, will exhaust their federally-funded 

unemployment benefits before finding a job. 

By the end of this year, the number could grow to 1.5 million. 

For many, those weekly benefit checks are the ever-so-thin cushion 

2 

that allows them to keep up with their utility bills, stay current on 

their credit card bills, and meet basic needs. 

Congress and the President worked swiftly to expand and extend 

the Unemployment Insurance Program for the thousands of workers losing their jobs each month. We funded up to 20 additional 

weeks of benefits at the state level, through the Extended Benefits 

Program. 

The Emergency Unemployment Compensation Program also provided up to an additional 20 weeks of federally-funded benefits for 

workers in all states, and an additional 15 weeks for laid-off workers in states with exceptionally high rates of unemployment. 

Many jobless Americans are receiving an additional hundred dollars a month, due to provisions in the Recovery Act, but for many 

of these unemployed workers, it is not just the income that they 

have lost; for millions of jobless Americans and their families, 

health insurance benefits have evaporated or may stop. 

The Joint Economic Committee released a report yesterday, estimating that 1.4 million women and 2.7 million men, have lost their 

employment-based health insurance, because of job losses during 

this recession. 

Today’s job report makes it clear, we are making progress, but 

it will be a long road to recovery. By extending unemployment benefits, we will give out-of-work Americans across the country, some 

peace of mind, as they continue to search for work. 

By passing healthcare reform, millions of uninsured Americans 

will have access to affordable healthcare insurance, regardless of 

their employment status. 

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and 

the Senate, to act swiftly on behalf of the millions of unemployed 

Americans across this country. 

[The prepared statement of Representative Maloney appears in 

the Submissions for the Record on page 30.] 

[The prepared statement of Senator Sam Brownback appears in 

the Submissions for the Record on page 30.] 

[The prepared statement of Representative Kevin Brady appears 

in the Submissions for the Record on page 32.] 

Chair Maloney. I now call on my colleague, Mr. Cummings, for 

five minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ELIJAH E. 

CUMMINGS, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM MARYLAND 

Representative Cummings. Thank you very much, Madam 

Chair. As we continue to emerge from the worst recession since the 

Great Depression, it is sobering when the loss of 247,000 jobs, 

qualifies as good news. 

However, Treasury Secretary Geithner and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, did suggest on Sunday, that the 

United States economy may have turned a corner. Both men point 

to forecasts that portend possible economic growth in the second 

half of 2009. 

Further, the New York Times yesterday reported comments by 

economist Christina Romer and Allen Sinai, that the stimulus has 

driven the recovery, adding some two percentage points to the economic activity. 

3 

However, as we know, unemployment is a lagging indicator, and, 

as White House advisor, Dr. Larry Summers, noted, it will be some 

time before economic growth produces consistent job growth, so I 

will resist any impulse to put on rose-colored glasses. 

One of the reasons why I wanted to be here this morning, is because I have consistently heard that before this Administration did 

the things that it did, people were constantly saying that it would 

do no good, and I expected to hear, as I heard from former Senator 

Fred Thompson of Tennessee, this morning, there are some folks 

giving no credit to this Administration for their efforts, and I wanted to make sure that the record is clear, that while we may not 

see the very end to this long tunnel, the fact is, is that the things 

that we are doing, are making a difference. 

After the loss of 6.7 million jobs since the recession began, the 

effect on families and communities, is now being felt more severely 

than ever. More and more Americans remain unemployed for 

longer and longer stretches. 

Today’s data tell us that the number of long-term unemployed, 

continues to climb. Five million Americans have been unemployed 

for over six months, 2.3 million for over 12 months, so these individuals and families struggle to put food on the table and pay rent 

each month. 

The states’ coffers, on which the unemployed depend, continue to 

be empty. Long-term unemployed residents affect state and local 

government in the form of reduced tax revenue. 

When this occurs, crucial government services are put at risk. 

Now, not only are hardworking Americans unable to find employment, but the unemployment safety net has stretched dangerously 

thin in some states and torn altogether in others. 

This Congress has previously taken dramatic action in this recession, to reduce the burden of unemployment on families. The Stimulus Bill included funds to extend and increase state unemployment benefits. This relief was and continues to be so essential for 

those who are struggling. 

Now we find that the weight of the cumulative job losses, forced 

18 states to borrow $12.1 billion from the Federal Unemployment 

Trust Fund, just to keep benefits available to unemployed residents. 

Facing the potential exhaustion of this critical fund in August, 

I was proud to join so many of my colleagues last week in supporting emergency funding for the Federal Unemployment Trust 

Fund. 

This 11th hour action will ensure that 4.6 million workers will 

have vital unemployment benefits in August and September, however, I also hope that upon our return from recess, that we are able 

to move another extension of unemployment benefits through the 

House. 

While the recession has provided its share of bad actors, the unemployed, our constituents, remain our responsibility. I’m proud of 

what we have accomplished as a Congress, but I know we can and 

will do more and that we will do better. 

I look forward to the testimony of the Commissioner, Mr. Hall, 

and, with that, Madam Chair, I yield back. 

Chair Maloney. Senator Klobuchar, for five minutes. 

4 

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE AMY KLOBUCHAR, 

A U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA 

Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and 

thank you for being here today. It does seem like we have just a 

little stability going here, and I’m looking forward to asking questions of all of you to see what this means, as I heard Representative Cummings so well say that, in fact, we know we’re not out of 

this, that this isn’t going to turn around overnight, that we still 

have incredible challenges for the people of this country. 

But the fact is that I will say, being in Minnesota for the last— 

off and on for the last few weeks, there are some signs I’ve seen. 

We have a 20-percent increase in home sales in our state, from 

June of last year to June of this year. 

I met with the realtors in Minnesota, and they attribute a lot of 

that to the $8,000 first-time homebuyers tax credit. Nearly half of 

these home sales were first-time homebuyers. 

And then there’s the anecdotes. When I was going to get coffee 

and this guy was standing next to me in line and told me that he’s 

overwhelmed by work. I said, what do you do? He said, I move people, I move their things out of apartment buildings, because they’re 

buying their first-time home. 

So I think that we have seen, at least in our state, some of the 

effects of this. The Cash for Clunkers program, our state, the State 

of Minnesota, was fourth in the country for the number of people 

that used that program over that weekend, up there with California and Michigan. 

So I think you see people starting to believe that there is hope 

in this economy, with the numbers for consumer confidence and 

other things that we’ve seen. 

But that isn’t quite enough, because I can tell you that we’re still 

not where we should be. I have talked to so many people in our 

state, letters that I’ve received of people that say that they put 

their kids to bed and then they go sit at the kitchen table with 

their heads in their hands, wondering how they’re going to make 

ends meet, while they’re telling their kids everything is okay. 

We just heard from someone the other day, a woman who’s unemployed and uses her savings to pay $250 a month for healthcare 

that requires a $10,000 deductible. 

The iron ore miners up in the northern part of my state, which 

was really actually a part of our state that until the recession hit, 

was really going better than it had been in decades, and then suddenly the rug was pulled out from under them when the worldwide 

demand for steel and other minerals declined, and, suddenly, they 

were unemployed. 

And this wasn’t the traditional set of unemployed. In the past, 

it tended to be older workers who were laid off. These were younger workers who had hoped and moved up there and bought houses. 

As Representative Cummings has pointed out, the unemployment extension is very meaningful to those people, but there are 

parts of the iron range in Minnesota that are seeing a 20-percent 

unemployment rate, and that is obviously unacceptable. 

I’m very much looking forward to seeing Commissioner Hall and 

other witnesses, just your view of these somewhat hopeful figures 

5 

that we’ve seen, stability for one month, and what that means as 

we go forward. Thank you very much. 

Chair Maloney. Thank you, Senator. Now I’d like to introduce 

Commissioner Hall. Dr. Keith 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, and analyzes essential data and disseminates it to 

the American public, the U.S. Congress and other federal agencies. 

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

Council of Economic Advisors for two years under President George 

W. Bush. Prior to that, he was Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Commerce. 

Dr. Hall also spent ten years at the U.S. International Trade 

Commission. Dr. Hall received his B.A. degree from the University 

of Virginia, his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from Purdue 

University. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF DR. KEITH HALL, COMMISSIONER, BUREAU OF 

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

DR. MICHAEL W. HORRIGAN, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER 

FOR PRICES AND LIVING CONDITIONS 

Commissioner Hall. Thank you, Madam Chair and Members of 

the Committee. 

Nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 247,000 in July and 

the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.4 percent. Payroll 

job losses over the past three months have now averaged 331,000, 

compared with an average of 645,000 over the prior six months. 

Employment has fallen by 6.7 million since the start of the recession in December of 2007. In July, employment declines continued 

in many of the major industry sectors. 

Construction employment fell by 76,000 over the month, with 

losses throughout component industries. 

Over the past three months, job losses have averaged 73,000, 

compared with 117,000 over the prior six months. 

Employment in construction has fallen by 1.4 million since December of 2007. 

Manufacturing employment also continued to decline, with the 

loss of 52,000 in July. Factory employment has fallen by two million since the start of the recession. 

The seasonally-adjusted employment estimate for motor vehicles 

and parts rose over the month by 28,000. Because layoffs in auto 

manufacturing already had been so large, fewer workers than 

usual were laid off for seasonal shutdowns in July; thus, the seasonally-adjusted gain does not necessarily indicate improvement in 

the industry. 

Employment in motor vehicles and parts manufacturing has been 

on a long-term decline. The number of jobs in the industry, 

661,000, is now half of what it was in early 2000. 

In July, job losses continued in wholesale trade, transportation 

and warehousing, and financial activities; however, these industries have lost fewer jobs, on average, since May, than during the 

6 

prior six months. Similarly, job losses have lessened substantially 

in temporary help services. 

Employment in leisure and hospitality has been little changed 

over the past three months, and healthcare employment grew 

about in line with the trend thus far in 2009. 

Average hourly earnings for production and non-supervisory 

workers in the private sector were up by 3 cents in July, to $18.56. 

Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by 

0.7 percent. 

From June 2008 to June 2009, the Consumer Price Index for 

Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, declined by 1.7 percent. 

Turning now to measures from our household survey, the unemployment rate in July was 9.4 percent, little change for the second 

consecutive month. The rate had been 4.9 percent when the recession began. There were 14.5 million unemployed persons in July. 

The number of long-term unemployed continued to rise. In July, 

five million people had been unemployed for more than six months, 

accounting for one in three unemployed persons. 

The employment-to-population ratio was 59.4 percent in July. 

The ratio has fallen by 3.3 percentage points since the recession 

began. 

Among the employed, there were 8.8 million persons working 

part-time in July, who would have preferred full-time work. After 

rising sharply last fall and winter, the number of such workers has 

been little changed for four consecutive months. 

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment fell by 247,000 in July 

and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.4 percent. My 

colleagues and I would now be happy to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Commissioner Hall appears in the 

Submissions for the Record on page 32.] 

Chair Maloney. Thank you very much, Commissioner Hall. I 

usually ask you, are there any bright spots in the labor report? Are 

there any green shoots or glimmers of hope? But, today, I can ask 

you, what are the bright spots and the glimmers of hope? 

Commissioner Hall. In this report, there’s still substantial job 

loss, but the last three months, there’s been clear moderation in 

the job loss, and the moderation has been pretty broad, which I 

think is a good sign. 

While I would say that we’re not in recovery yet, this is the path 

that we have to go to get to recovery. We expect to see moderation 

first, before we start actually getting improvement in the labor 

market. 

There are a couple things I’ll mention, which are indicators of 

maybe future conditions in the job market: Temporary help services, the job loss there has slowed substantially, and that oftentimes is a leading indicator of a recovery. 

We had a tick up in hours worked. While one month, I wouldn’t 

read too much into this, but sometimes a pickup in the hours 

worked, is an indication of a labor market that’s strengthening, 

and it may sometimes lead to job gains somewhere down the line. 

Chair Maloney. Do you believe we’ve seen the worst, or is there 

more pain ahead? 

7 

Commissioner Hall. You know, it’s—we’re still getting substantial job loss, but it is quite a bit—has moderated quite a bit, going 

forward. 

It’s hard to say, like I say, going forward, to estimate or project 

what’s going to happen, but I think, on the whole, this is a good 

sign. 

Chair Maloney. Great. Are there any sectors experiencing more 

job creations than job losses, currently, or, are there any signs that 

any sector will start expanding in the near future? 

Commissioner Hall. Across the board, the job losses have moderated, which is positive. A few sectors, like healthcare, has continued—they’ve continued to increase employment all along. 

A few sectors, like the financial activities, the job loss there has 

moderated quite a bit, and it’s getting fairly—if that trend were to 

continue, it’s getting fairly close to actually getting some job gains 

in some of the service areas. 

And in a few of these industries, I would say that the job loss 

was not significant; in other words, it’s around zero. 

Chair Maloney. Are there any indicators that overall job losses 

will continue to slow in coming months? 

Commissioner Hall. I don’t want to speculate too much. You 

know, 247,000 jobs, that’s a lot of jobs and that’s a big loss, but, 

given the context of the sort of job loss that we’d been having, 

again, this is a good trend at the moment. 

Chair Maloney. And what is the typical amount of time after 

a contraction ends, before labor markets start showing signs of recovery? 

Commissioner Hall. Well, in one sense, the signs come right 

away. When recoveries come, job loss moderates. 

In the past two recessions, there’s been a significant period between consistent job loss and consistent job gain; there’s been a bit 

of a lag. For example, in the last recession, consistent job loss 

ended and we were in this sort of middle ground where there 

wasn’t consistent job creation for almost two years. 

This is one of the reasons why people talk about the labor market being a lagging indicator. In the 1990 recession, the lag was 

about a year, but, prior to that, the lag was not so much; it was 

only a month or two before job increases started, so I’d say it’s hard 

to say. 

Recent recessions have been slow to see—we’ve been slow to see 

job growth. 

Chair Maloney. Thank you. Any other comments? 

[No response.] 

Chair Maloney. Mr. Cummings for five minutes. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you very much, Madam 

Chair. I was just looking at page 2 of this report, and I was looking 

at the African American figures, Mr. Hall, and, from what I can see 

here, in July, the unemployment rate for African Americans is 14.5 

percent; is that correct? July, 2009? I’m on page 4. 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, 14.5, thank you. 

Representative Cummings. And that compares to when we go 

back to May when it was 14.9, and then in June, it was 14.7, and 

then coming down to 14.5. 

8 

That, as usual, is substantially higher than the average rate for 

the country; is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. That’s correct. 

Representative Cummings. And while there is an improvement there, does that improvement, does that surprise you, or is 

that pretty much the way you expected it to be? 

Commissioner Hall. It’s actually kind of the way I expected it 

to be. The unemployment rate for minorities such as African Americans, runs higher than the average unemployment rate, and it 

goes up more during a recession, but the actual changes, the pattern of changes, do sort of match the overall unemployment rate. 

So we’ve had a pretty flat unemployment rate the last couple of 

months and it’s been fairly flat for African Americans. 

Representative Cummings. Now, moving on to another subject, you mentioned that we’re going through, with regard to the 

job situation, moderation. What does ‘‘moderation’’ mean? 

I think you said the moderation has been broad. Would you give 

me the significance of the broadness that you talked about? 

Commissioner Hall. Sure. I think that in this recession, in particular, the job loss has been very broad in a lot of different industries, where that doesn’t always happen that way, and it’s been 

very deep. 

And we’re backing out sort of the same way so far, that the job 

loss has moderated in a very broad sense, so we’re not seeing just 

particular sectors of the economy that are starting to improve a little bit; we’re seeing sort of broad improvement in terms of job loss 

moderation. 

Representative Cummings. So, I take it, is that a good thing? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Representative Cummings. And why is that a good thing? 

Commissioner Hall. Hopefully, because it’s a matter of, at least 

in mind, a matter of consumer confidence coming back and consumer spending coming back, because, more than anything else, 

that’s at the heart of a recession, is that when consumers don’t 

spend, things don’t go well for the economy. 

Representative Cummings. On another subject, yesterday the 

Committee released a report, thanks to the Chair, that discussed 

comprehensive health insurance and its impact on women. The report said there are specific economic and health risks for women 

regarding their ability to obtain and keep health insurance. 

For example, women are more likely to rely on their spouses’ employers to provide them with health insurance. More often, this is 

due to the fact that women are more likely than men to work part 

time, and thus be ineligible for employer health benefits. 

What is the unemployment rate for women? 

Commissioner Hall. The unemployment rate for women is 8.1 

percent. 

Representative Cummings. How much? 

Commissioner Hall. Eight point one. 

Representative Cummings. And what is the under-employment rate for women? 

Commissioner Hall. Let me see. Do we have a broader—we 

don’t break out the broader underutilization numbers by gender. 

9 

Representative Cummings. Okay, well, our report yesterday 

on women and healthcare, reported that young women are facing 

high unemployment, 15.7 percent, and thus are less likely to have 

employer-based health insurance. 

By what industry is the segment of the population typically employed, that is, that younger female worker? You wouldn’t have 

that information, either? 

Commissioner Hall. No, I don’t. We don’t have a lot of demographic information. 

Representative Cummings. So you wouldn’t know the current 

unemployment rate; you wouldn’t have that information, okay. 

The average length of unemployment is increasing as unemployed workers are having problems finding employment during a 

time when the economy is shedding jobs. How is this impacting 

women; do you know? Would you have that information? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. I think—let me see, do we have it 

broken down by gender? 

I don’t think we have the long-term unemployed broken out by 

demographic information. You know, women have fully participated, generally, in the job loss during this recession, so I would 

say they are probably unfortunately well represented in the longterm unemployed. 

Representative Cummings. All right, I see my time is running 

out, but I want to ask you something about this Cash for Clunkers, 

but hopefully we’ll have another round. 

Chair Maloney. Sure, absolutely. Senator Klobuchar. 

Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

Thank you very much, Commissioner Hall. Here we are again. 

I wanted to focus first just on some broad figures, and just go 

back to what you were talking about at the beginning about the 

hardest-hit sectors. 

I know you mentioned construction and manufacturing, and, on 

the other hand, sectors that seem to be getting better more quickly. 

Healthcare, I know you’ve always mentioned healthcare has been 

doing fine. 

Since my state’s a healthcare mecca, maybe that’s part of the 

reason we’re beneath the national unemployment rate, but what is 

the—what do you see as the hardest-hit sectors and what are the 

ones you see improvement in? 

Commissioner Hall. I think, through this recession, some of the 

hardest-hit sectors are the sectors like construction and manufacturing. 

And I think, broadly, services have been hit harder than normal, 

but services typically aren’t hit as hard during recessions. 

Senator Klobuchar. And with construction and manufacturing, 

have there been any—has that slowed, the unemployment rate 

there, or is there any improvement in that? 

Commissioner Hall. There has been improvement in both construction and in manufacturing. 

Senator Klobuchar. But by ‘‘improvement,’’ that means a slowing of the unemployment rate? 

Commissioner Hall. A moderation of job loss. It’s clear moderation of job loss in construction. In manufacturing, the picture is a 

little less clear. 

10 

There may be some moderation, but it’s coming—if it’s there, it’s 

coming a little later than the other sectors. 

Senator Klobuchar. Okay, and how about the areas of improvement? 

Commissioner Hall. The big areas of improvement are things 

like the financial activities. That’s been hit much harder this recession, I think, than almost any past recession. That’s coming back. 

Temporary help services, I think, is one of the more encouraging. 

Senator Klobuchar. Didn’t you once tell me that temporary 

help services—or maybe someone else did—is always a sign that 

there could be some improvement, or not? 

Commissioner Hall. It tends to be a leading indicator. Temporary help services started shedding jobs before the recession 

started, and it typically starts to moderate and maybe even gain 

jobs before the rest of the economy does. 

Senator Klobuchar. And is that because people sort of take one 

step at a time and they think, well, our business is doing a little 

better, so, we’ll get temporary services first? 

Commissioner Hall. I think that’s exactly right. I think, to a 

large degree, that’s the advantage of temporary help, is that they’re 

there for the flexibility. Sometimes they’re the first ones to be let 

go and the first ones to bring back. 

Senator Klobuchar. Okay, all right. Then I was going to ask 

you about geographic areas, if there’s been a change there. What 

are the hardest-hit states and what are the states that have seen— 

that are doing better, and is there any—I remember when we were 

at the worst of this, at one of these hearings, you were saying how, 

really, you couldn’t really even point out a geographic area, because 

it was bad all across the country. 

I wonder if that has changed at all, if there’s some dramatic improvements or dramatic declines? 

Commissioner Hall. I’m not seeing a really big change in the 

pattern among states. The unemployment rate has moderated; it 

hasn’t grown much, and I think that’s been roughly the same pattern, I think, throughout the states. 

I’m not seeing a big change patterns. There might be individual 

states that are still having troubles, but—— 

Senator Klobuchar. What are the states that are hardest hit? 

Commissioner Hall [continuing]. Largest losses—— 

Senator Klobuchar. Or just the largest unemployment rate. 

Commissioner Hall [continuing]. Well, the biggest losses are 

states like Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Florida. In terms of overall 

numbers, California has been the hardest hit, but that’s also a very 

large state, so, in percentage terms, it’s not quite so bad. 

Senator Klobuchar. Okay, and which ones are doing the best? 

You could come back on the second round and tell me. 

Commissioner Hall. Okay. I do have those numbers. I just 

have to dig for them. 

Senator Klobuchar. I thought I’d just ask one or two questions 

that I actually got, verbatim, from some of our citizens recently. 

This one is from someone, a woman in Lakeshore, Minnesota, 

and she says, ‘‘Dear Amy, I’m sitting here watching the President’s 

news conference and realizing that my husband and I do not fit 

into any of the categories’’—this is like a question for you, CommisVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:19 Apr 05, 2010 Jkt 054513 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\54511.TXT SHAUN PsN: DPROCT
11 

sioner Hall—‘‘do not fit into any of the categories of families unemployed that he is speaking about. My husband and I own a small 

construction company. We don’t have the option of filing for unemployment, because we are self-employed. Many of our friends are 

in the same position. My comment is that all of the figures and 

stats that are out there regarding housing and unemployment, 

aren’t even counting those of us who can’t file for unemployment 

and are on the verge of losing our home, because no one else is 

building. I just need to get that off my chest.’’ That’s her talking, 

not me. 

‘‘There are people that are unemployed that at least can get unemployment, yet there are a lot of us that don’t have any income 

at all. Are there statistics—’’ this is from a woman in Lakeshore, 

Minnesota—‘‘on how many are not getting unemployment and are 

unemployed?’’ 

She means people who don’t qualify to get unemployment, but 

have lost their businesses or lost their incomes. 

Commissioner Hall. Well, actually, we do collect information on 

people who are self-employed. In particular, in the household survey, the unemployment rate includes basically everybody, because 

that’s a phone survey to households. 

Senator Klobuchar. And what do you see from these small 

business owners who, you know, have been hit by this? Or self-employed? 

Commissioner Hall. Sure. The self-employed have certainly 

struggled the same way that the others, the non-self-employed 

have with this. 

That’s been one of the remarkable things about this recession, is 

that it has been very, very broad, and I think it’s been broad with 

respect to the type of employment and type of firm, small businesses. 

Senator Klobuchar. All right, so when we look at this, when 

we look at these numbers, when we look at the 9.4 percent unemployment, that does not include—we’ve already talked about these 

discouraged workers in the past, and it doesn’t include people 

whose hours have been reduced, but it also doesn’t include some of 

the small business owners who may be self-employed, that have 

lost their businesses, right? 

Commissioner Hall. Well, actually, it does include these selfemployed. 

Senator Klobuchar. It does include them? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Senator Klobuchar. Right, so it just doesn’t include the people 

who have lost hours and are discouraged workers? 

Commissioner Hall. Exactly, the class of people, for example, 

that are part time, for economic reasons. We collect those, but that 

data is not part of the unemployment rate, and then we have a 

whole category of discouraged workers, the people who have 

stopped looking for work but want to work. 

Senator Klobuchar. So the answer to this woman, is, while she 

can’t collect unemployment, you do look at including her kinds of 

numbers in your statistics? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, we do. 

Senator Klobuchar. All right, thank you very much. 

12 

Chair Maloney. Thank you. Commissioner, we hear a great deal 

from the media and others, that this is the greatest recession since 

the Great Depression. I’m interested in how this recession compares to past slumps, and how does it compare to past downturns, 

in terms of its impact on the labor market? 

Commissioner Hall. All right, well, this recession has been a 

long recession; it’s been the longest recession since we’ve been collecting data on the labor market—19 months. 

We’ve now lost 4.8 percent of our payroll jobs, which is a lot. 

That’s the biggest loss since the 1948 recession, in percentage 

terms, so we’re talking about 60 years in terms of percentage loss. 

Particularly hard hit this time has been the service-providing 

sector. In fact, the service-providing sector has lost more jobs, as 

a percent, than in any other recession. Manufacturing has been the 

hardest hit since 1945. 

We have lost almost 14 percent of the manufacturing jobs, and 

in financial activities and professional and business services those 

have been hit harder than in any other recession. 

Chair Maloney. So this is the longest jobless period the United 

States has ever had? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, since we have been collecting data 

from around 1940. 

Chair Maloney. In the last four recessions, how long did it take 

for employment to recover to the pre-recession plan or peak? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. The last recession it took a really long 

time. It took 39 months for it to return to the peak. The prior recession to that it was 23 months. It has been getting longer and 

longer, actually, each of the last four recessions. The average has 

been about 17, about a year-and-a-half. Like I say, the average has 

been going up. The last two recessions it was a particularly long 

time period for recovery. 

Chair Maloney. Well one of the green shoots that has been reported is that new home sales rose last month. But there are still 

almost nine months’ supply of new houses in the market. Do you 

have any sense of what level of inventory of new homes will lead 

to an increase in construction employment? 

Commissioner Hall. First of all I would have to say that the 

months’ supply of houses is not—it turns out it is not a very good 

predictor of construction employment, in large part because right 

now we have nine months’ supply when sales are very low, so nine 

months’ supply during low sales is not very many houses compared 

to nine months say when sales are much, much higher. 

What is a good predictor is simply the number of sales. When 

sales pick up, the construction employment does pick up fairly 

much at the same time. 

I can tell you a little bit about housing starts. Once housing 

starts bottom out—and right now housing starts have been level 

now for several months—it can take anywhere from a year to a 

year-and-a-half for construction employment to pick up after housing has hit bottom. So it could be a little while. 

Chair Maloney. How much of the economy do you think is real 

estate and housing construction? And are you tracking how many 

of these new housing sales are tied to the program of a subsidy for 

new housing purchases? 

13 

Commissioner Hall. We actually do not collect the housing 

sales data; Census does. Our data on construction employment and 

maybe on real estate employment might give some indication of 

how those industries are doing. There is really no way for us to just 

sort of connect that, at least not the way we measure data, to connect to any sort of policy in particular. 

Chair Maloney. Thank you, very much. 

Representative Cummings. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you very much, Madam 

Chair. 

Mr. Hall, what is the trend for hours worked? And what does 

that mean for families that rely on overtime in addition to say base 

salary? 

Commissioner Hall. Well one of the things that happens when 

labor markets weaken is the hours worked goes down as well as 

the employment rate goes down. And it is sort of yet another burden on families, to be honest with you. 

It is the same thing as people moving full-time to temporary, or 

people just having their hours decline. That is a cost. And lately 

it has been fairly flat. And that is a good sign, like I say. And when 

you start to see some substantial movement upwards, that can 

sometimes signal an actual improvement in the labor market. 

Representative Cummings. Yesterday I had the occasion to 

visit two auto dealers in my district, and both of them had a lot 

of people trying to take advantage of this Cash for Clunkers—and 

I want to thank the Senate for acting on that—but they said that 

it was really making a difference. 

And is there—I mean, do you expect to see the impact of a pro- gram like that when we pump $3 billion into a program, and you’ve 

had some comments with regard to the auto industry, but do you 

expect to see anything say in the future with regard to that? 

Commissioner Hall. Let me say, I do not want to forecast the 

policy stuff, but—— 

Representative Cummings. Yes, I know that, but I am not trying to get you to do that, really. I am just trying to—— 

Commissioner Hall [continuing]. I can say something—— 

Representative Cummings [continuing]. Oh? Wonderful! 

[Laughter.] 

I am always careful about what I ask you. 

Commissioner Hall [continuing]. I appreciate that. Let me put 

it this way: If automobile sales are stimulated, I think probably 

what has happened right now is a lot of the sales have come out 

of inventory. And because they are coming out of inventory, that 

is not going to show up in employment at the factories, et cetera. 

But if that is going to have an effect, it is going to have an effect 

going forward because it means factories are going to come back on 

line with the new models. Hopefully they will come back on line 

quicker, and so we will see some employment impact in automobile 

manufacturing later on down the line, like I say, if it has a big impact. 

Representative Cummings. As you probably know, the Obama 

Administration with regard to the Stimulus is going to be—a lot of 

money, a huge percentage of the Stimulus money will be going into 

the economy in the next six months. Do you expect to see anything 

14 

resulting from that? And a lot of it is going into infrastructure, and 

so I guess what, if any areas—what areas might be affected by 

that? Are you following me? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, I do. That is actually a really difficult 

question in a period with the labor markets declining. When we do 

our surveys, we are asking establishments: How many people do 

you have on board right now? We are not asking them to more or 

less speculate on what the impact has been of any sort of policy. 

But if—I do not know where the Stimulus money is going to be 

spent, what industries, but I would suspect going forward if you 

look at those particular industries and look at how those industries 

are performing going forward, that might give you some insight on 

the effect of the Stimulus. 

Representative Cummings. You know, you talked a little earlier, and you talked briefly about it, about consumer confidence and 

how significant that is. 

From all that you are seeing, from what you can glean from your 

report, are you—do you get—I take it that you get a hint at least 

that people are feeling a little bit better about things? Is that a 

reasonable statement? I do not want to put words in your mouth. 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, I think it is. 

Representative Cummings. Okay. And so if that were to continue, do you think that you would see this broad moderation that 

you talked about continue? Or do you think that you would see it 

say in certain areas like manufacturing, or auto sales, or whatever? 

Do you follow me? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. That is a little bit tough. Because the 

loss has been very broad, I think probably the impact would be 

broad. So I would hope to see that the moderation continues until 

we get actual job growth. 

Representative Cummings. And so when you got this report 

today, how did you feel? I am just curious. You always—it is hard 

to get anything out of you sometimes, but I am just curious. 

Commissioner Hall. Well right now it is a strange feeling because 250,000 jobs is—that is really hard on people. But given the 

context of things, this is good news. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you, very much. 

Chair Maloney. Senator Klobuchar. 

Senator Klobuchar. All right. Thank you. I was just looking 

back here at this chart and thinking about how it was quite a bit 

worse in January of ’09. Is that right, Commissioner Hall? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Senator Klobuchar. I am looking at this and seeing these 

changes till now and thinking about when people get frustrated, as 

I do, with our economic situation and remembering the hole that 

we had to dig ourselves out of, and understanding that it is not 

going to happen overnight. Is that your history with the labor market? That these things cannot turn around quickly? 

Commissioner Hall. That is correct; yes. 

Senator Klobuchar. Okay, at the past hearings I have asked 

you about something to keep apprised of what is going on here with 

our men and women in uniform. Because one of the things that I 

have found most distressing is that those who have gone over to 

serve our country, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have 

15 

really gone over since 9/11, or we call them our Gulf War Era Veterans, that their unemployment rate is usually significantly higher 

because they have left jobs behind. I think in Minnesota of our 

Guard and Reserve. They left jobs behind, and then they come back 

and those jobs are no longer there. 

What is the unemployment rate now for Gulf War Era Veterans, 

those Veterans who have served in the Armed Services since September 2001? 

Commissioner Hall. Right now it is 9.8 percent. 

Senator Klobuchar. 9.8 percent. So that seems closer than it 

was in the past. What was it last month? 

Commissioner Hall. Actually I do not have that one in front 

of—oh, thank you. It was 9.3 percent last month, but in May it was 

11.4 percent. 

Senator Klobuchar. That was when I last talked to you about 

this. So in May it was eleven point? 

Commissioner Hall. 11.4. 

Senator Klobuchar. 11.4. So that is a significant change—— 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Senator Klobuchar [continuing]. To go from 11.4 to 9.8. Do you 

have any reason to know why that happened? 

Commissioner Hall. I do not. I do not. We might be able to look 

at it a little bit and see if we can see a pattern there. 

Senator Klobuchar. Maybe it is because of my questions about 

this every month and all the CSPAN viewers seeing that, and then 

hiring Gulf War Veterans and people who are serving. 

I mean, I have just found it so disturbing that people have done 

that. And then they serve and they come back and they do not 

have a job. So we are going to continue pushing on that issue. But 

we have seen some improvement. 

So it is still above the national unemployment rate of 9.4 percent 

in that it is at 9.8 percent, but that gap has been decreased? Is 

that right? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. Although I just will caution that it is 

a fairly small sample of Veterans. So the variability in that number 

can be fairly high. 

Senator Klobuchar. All right. 

Commissioner Hall. So it can go up and down for no real reason other than statistical. 

Senator Klobuchar. Thank you. We have also discussed the importance of education and its impact on unemployment. What is 

the unemployment rate, Commissioner Hall, for college graduates, 

and the high school graduates, and those that have not completed 

high school? 

Commissioner Hall. For college graduates the unemployment 

rate is 4.7 percent. For people with high school degree but no college, the unemployment rate is 9.4 percent. 

Senator Klobuchar. So they are exactly at the national average, then? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. And they are double. The unemployment rate is double that of people with college degrees. 

Senator Klobuchar. Okay, so what is the unemployment rate 

for people who have not finished high school? 

Commissioner Hall. 15.4 percent. 

16 

Senator Klobuchar. So you can see why the President has 

made it a priority to try to get people to not just finish high school 

but to finish some, at least a year of college. So we go from 4.7 percent for college degrees to 9.4 percent for high school graduates to 

15.4 percent for those who have not finished high school. 

How has that changed the trends? What are the trends in this 

area? 

Commissioner Hall. Well, the recent trend—the recent months’ 

trend has been pretty much like the overall rate. They have been 

fairly flat. All these unemployment rates have been fairly flat over 

the last month or two. 

But the growth since the start of the recession—for example, 

those without a high school degree, their unemployment rate has 

gone from 7.5 to 15.4. So they have had a fairly dramatic increase 

in the unemployment rate. 

Senator Klobuchar. And that is from what time? 

Commissioner Hall. From the start of the recession. 

Senator Klobuchar. So they have seen a bigger hit, 

percentagewise, the people who have not finished high school, than 

say the other groups. Even though the other groups started lower, 

they have not seen as big of a spike in unemployment? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, on a percentage point basis. 

Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Just to conclude here with my round 

here, some of my colleagues were asking about the Stimulus Package. I think Representative Cummings was. And the effects of this 

and where you can see it. 

Now we know about 25 percent of the Stimulus Package money 

is out, the investment piece of it, and so obviously you will see 

more effects of that as we go forward. But I think the other piece 

that people do not always think about is that the Stimulus—the 

Recovery Act was one-third of these investments, but the other onethird was shoring up state budgets and unemployment and things 

we have talked about today—but the other third were these tax 

cuts. That a third of the Stimulus Package was actually tax cuts, 

many of them going to the middle class in tax credits. 

So what I think is interesting is that you can see the effects of 

that more immediately in the home buying rates I talked about in 

Minnesota. And again I am basing this on our Minnesota stats, but 

also what the realtors have told me in terms of what they are seeing, and the tax credits with the Cash for Clunkers program. 

So do you see those things more immediately ripple through the 

unemployment rates than you do with some of the spending, just 

because it takes longer to get that money out there? 

Commissioner Hall. Well, yes, that would be my anticipation. 

My notion is that the payout rate is an important thing on these 

things. So when they occur is important. 

Senator Klobuchar. Okay. All right. Thank you very much, 

Commissioner Hall. 

Chair Maloney. Thank you. 

Commissioner Hall, how have women fared in this economic 

downturn? And in what industries have women lost the most jobs 

during this recession? 

Commissioner Hall. Well women have lost about 25 percent of 

the jobs during this recession. So that means men are losing jobs 

17 

3-to-1 compared with women. But that is not—in a sense that is 

not normal. In the last recession women lost a lot of jobs, but prior 

to the last recession women often would not lose jobs at all during 

recessions. 

So one of the things that has happened is, while men are bearing 

the bigger brunt of the job loss, women are participating more in 

the job loss than in the past. So women have lost—at this point 

women have lost about 1.7 million jobs so far. 

Senator Klobuchar. Well certainly the equality in job loss is 

not something I have been working for, but are women moving towards equality in job loss? Are they gaining in job loss during the 

recession? Could you elaborate a little more? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. My guess is that the women’s participation rates in a number of industries has gone up. For example, 

in construction and manufacturing they are under-represented. So 

when those industries are hit by a recession, women do not participate so much in the job loss. 

But women’s representation in other industries can be fairly 

high, so they participate in the job loss like men. 

Chair Maloney. Could you comment on the trends of unemployment for minorities—specifically, African Americans and Latinos? 

Have they leveled off? Or is it still rising at a fast clip? What is 

happening there? And in what industry are Latinos and African 

Americans losing the most jobs? 

Commissioner Hall. Lately the unemployment rate rise has 

flattened out the last couple of months, pretty much like the national numbers for minorities. 

I think for the most part the changes in the unemployment rate, 

while they have mirrored the overall unemployment rate, they 

have just mirrored it to a bigger degree. So when the overall unemployment rate goes up, it goes up by more for minorities. 

So the trend is pretty much I think the same. 

Chair Maloney. Could you comment on the difference between 

men and women—African American women and African American 

men; and Latino women and Latino men; and differences between 

African Americans and Latinos in terms of unemployment? 

Commissioner Hall. All right, I can talk generally. 

The women’s unemployment rate is 8.1 percent—— 

Chair Maloney. For what? 

Commissioner Hall [continuing]. I’m sorry? 

Chair Maloney. Women? 

Commissioner Hall. Just total women. 

Chair Maloney. Total women? Um-hmm. 

Commissioner Hall. 8.1 percent. For men it is 10.5 percent, to 

put that in perspective. For African Americans the unemployment 

rate is 14.5 percent. For Female Head of Household, African American women, the unemployment rate is 17.8 percent. 

Chair Maloney. So there are more unemployed? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Chair Maloney. What about Latino women? 

Commissioner Hall. Female Head of Households, Hispanic, the 

unemployment rate is 12.8 percent. And that is actually fairly 

much in line with the overall unemployment rate, Latino unemployment rate of 12.3 percent. 

18 

Chair Maloney. So Latino women are 12.8 percent, and men 

are what? 

Commissioner Hall. Well overall it is 12.3 percent. So men are 

probably around 12 percent. 

Chair Maloney. Okay. And do you see this leveling off, or rising? Or what is the trend with minority unemployment? 

Commissioner Hall. Well the recession trend I think lately it 

has been leveling off. And I think typically what happens is when 

things rise, they rise by more for the minorities. And when things 

decrease, they decrease by more for minorities. 

Chair Maloney. And again, what industries are Latinos and African Americans losing the most jobs in? Do you have a sense of 

where that job loss is? 

Commissioner Hall. The one pattern that jumps out I guess is 

Hispanic representation in construction is fairly high. There is 

over-representation there. Construction has been hard hit by this 

recession. So the Hispanic unemployment rate has been—has gone 

up quite a bit. 

There is a less simple pattern for African Americans, especially 

in terms of industry representation. 

Chair Maloney. And why are the numbers telling us that 

women in the African American and Hispanic communities are 

more likely to lose their jobs or be unemployed than men? 

Commissioner Hall. I don’t know. I mean, that is kind of a big 

question and it is a kind of a research sort of question. I would say 

certainly industry representation has an impact. That probably explains some of it, but I do not know what else explains it. 

Chair Maloney. Thank you, very much. 

Mr. Cummings for five minutes. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you very much, Madam 

Chair. 

I want to go back to Ms. Klobuchar when she was asking the 

questions about the military and this whole issue of how much education a person has. 

I had a town hall meeting the other night, Mr. Hall—this is like 

a commercial, by the way—and I was meeting with some Veterans. 

And they did not know about the new G.I. Bill which will allow 

them to get their tuition paid, in some instances their housing, and 

fees at colleges. 

And so I just wanted to let folks know that it appears from what 

you’ve said, from the stats, that the more education one has the 

better their chances of being unemployed, even during these times. 

Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. 

Representative Cummings. So I am just letting the Veterans 

know who might be watching this that they ought to find out about 

this new G.I. Bill because it is something that went into effect on 

August 1st. And I want to thank Ms. Klobuchar for even bringing 

up that issue of education and the military, because I think it is 

one thing to have these opportunities; it is another thing to know 

about them; and it is another thing to take advantage of them. 

Let’s talk about health care for a moment. It seems like health 

care stays pretty steady, doesn’t it? In other words, it does not 

seem to—it seems to always—it does not seem to go down very 

19 

much, so it does not seem to suffer as much as far as unemployment. Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. That is right. 

Representative Cummings. Why do you think that is? Do you 

have any idea why you think that might be? 

Commissioner Hall. I don’t. I mean, there is some evidence 

that early in a recession there are shortages in certain occupations 

within health care, that early in a recession employment goes up 

because the shortages go away because more people are looking for 

work and they are willing to move over into health care. 

Beyond that, I don’t know. 

Representative Cummings. You know, on another note, yesterday during our press conference with regard to women and 

health care—and I think Ms. Maloney may have spoken about it 

a little bit earlier—we learned something that was very interesting. 

That is, that you have got a situation where a lot of women during 

the Baby Boomer age were older than—I mean, the men were older 

than the women they married. 

And what is happening now is that, as they go into Medicare, 

with their wives being younger and if the wife was dependent on 

the husband for their insurance, when he goes into Medicare she 

does not have any insurance. 

And so I was just wondering, do you know the unemployment 

rate for women—for older women? Let’s say—and I didn’t say ‘‘old’’; 

I said ‘‘older’’—— [Laughter.] 

You may even have a definition for ‘‘older.’’ I want to be very 

careful. 

Commissioner Hall. I will pick out our oldest group. 

Representative Cummings. Okay. 

Commissioner Hall. For 55 and older the unemployment rate 

for women is 7.1 percent. 

Representative Cummings. Okay, and is that—had we seen 

any kind of trend with regard to that? I mean, just like we have 

seen different trends that have gone up, down, staying pretty much 

the same over the last few years, or what? I mean, what do you 

see? I meant several months. 

Commissioner Hall. Actually that has grown a bit lately. Last 

month it was at 6.4 percent, and then prior to that it was 5.8 percent. So that one does not seem to have, have not seemed to have 

leveled off the last few months. 

One of the things that is a little tricky, though, when you get 

anybody in the 55-and-over range is whether they are in the labor 

force or not. Because they can—someone can lose a job and just 

stop looking if they are 55-and-over and go ahead and take retirement. So it may under-estimate the issue. 

Representative Cummings. So there is no way that you would 

have that breakdown? In other words, a person who says, you know 

what, I retire. You would not have that kind of information in 

these stats? 

Commissioner Hall. No, we do not collect that. 

Representative Cummings. So there is one other thing that I 

am concerned about, and that is the states, these states that are 

running out of money. 

20 

Do we see any impact with regard to those unemployment rates? 

Because almost every state is going through a lot of problems right 

now, and I am just wondering what do we see there? 

Commissioner Hall. The recent trend in state government employment the last few months has actually—they are starting to 

lose jobs. For a while there state governments were hovering at 

around no-job-growth/no-job-loss. But for example the last three 

months we have averaged, state governments have averaged declining 6000 jobs a month. 

So it seems like the employment at the state government level 

has worsened a bit. 

Representative Cummings. I see my time has run out. Thank 

you. 

Chair Maloney. Senator Klobuchar. 

Senator Klobuchar. Thank you, Chairman Maloney. 

Commissioner Hall, I was just reading the report here. We have 

a—the stocks gained—this is as of two minutes ago. Stocks gained 

early Friday after the government—that is you, Commissioner 

Hall—reported a surprise drop in the unemployment rate, and a 

smaller number of job cuts than expected, raising hopes that the 

economy is stabilizing. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 

now 75 points. The S&P 500 rose now 7.3. And the Nasdaq Composite added 14 points. 

So my question of you is: Is this a little bit too exuberant over 

this news? What do you see in the long haul as we go forward? 

Commissioner Hall. Well first of all, let me say I have been a 

very bad predictor of the Stock Market just generally. 

Senator Klobuchar. Now that may affect these numbers that 

you said that, Commissioner Hall. [Laughter.] 

Commissioner Hall. And I am even a bad predictor of how the 

Stock Market is going to react to our data. It is hard for me to see 

that because so much of it I think winds up being what were people 

expecting. And that is hard to know. 

As to whether, you know, I—I don’t know. I have no way of 

knowing. 

Senator Klobuchar. Can you compare this to other recessions? 

You and I have talked before about this one is so much longer than 

some of these temporary recessions we have seen before, and what 

you think of these signs of recovery compared to other historical recessions? 

Commissioner Hall. Yeah, I mean we are still having significant job loss, but we are not having job loss at sort of historic levels. You know, for a few months there we were having job loss at 

nearly historic levels; you know, over a half a million jobs lost per 

month. 

So, you know, we have sort of settled in to maybe what is a— 

I don’t want to say ‘‘more normal’’—every recession is different— 

but maybe a more normal recession level of job loss. So we have 

still got improvement to go. But like I say, the trend is encouraging. 

Senator Klobuchar. I want to follow up a little on the Chairwoman’s questions about health care, and women, and unemployment. And clearly they have done some ground—and she has done 

some ground-breaking work here on health care with women and 

21 

children and how a lack of health care has an inordinate impact 

on them. But I was getting back to these unemployment rates. 

The First Lady of California was out here a week or so ago talking about at some point here more women are going to be employed 

than men in the workforce. And maybe you do not have those numbers are your fingertips because it is not unemployment numbers, 

it is employment numbers. Is that possible? And maybe it was just 

in certain quintals. 

Commissioner Hall. Actually I do have that data. 

Senator Klobuchar. Okay. 

Commissioner Hall. Right now, men have been losing jobs 3 to 

1 versus women, and there was been a large job loss. So part of 

what that means is the women’s share of payroll jobs has been 

growing pretty steadily. 

It is now up to 49.8 percent of jobs are now held by women. 

Senator Klobuchar. Right. 

Commissioner Hall. Which means that 435,000 more men are 

currently employed than women in payroll jobs. 

Senator Klobuchar. Is that why one of my letters, that I will 

not read to you, referred to this as the ‘‘man-session’’ instead of recession? This letter we do not want to read here. 

But—So you have, you have, while women have taken an inordinate amount—I think I agree with these statistics they found because they tend to be there’s more women with kids and with the 

lack of health care suffer more because of it—we still are seeing 

growing employment rates of women. And you see more men losing 

their jobs out of this? Is that what you are saying? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. Yes. 

Senator Klobuchar. All right, and why is that, do you think? 

Commissioner Hall. You know, it probably has got to start with 

representation in particular industries that are hardest hit. You 

know, because construction and manufacturing are particularly 

hard hit this recession, and men are over-represented there. 

Senator Klobuchar. And so that is where we have a lot of the 

Stimulus money going, of which only a quarter of that money has 

hit yet. So presumably that could help with that particular sector? 

Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. Potentially. 

Senator Klobuchar. I could have it come from a question from 

one of my constituents and it would be easier. 

The last thing I wanted to ask about was the importance of discouraged workers. You talked about that in your opening a little 

bit. These are people who want to work full time but can only find 

part-time work, or people who want to work but have not been 

looking lately, for whatever reason. Are both of those categories in 

the Discouraged Workers group? Or is it just people that have not 

been—have sort of given up looking for employment? 

Commissioner Hall. Well we have something called marginally 

attached, which are people who want to work and have looked 

within the past year but have not looked lately. 

Senator Klobuchar. And how are their numbers going? 

Commissioner Hall. That number has gone up quite a bit. We 

are now something like 2.3 million people who are marginally attached. So these people are not counted in the unemployment rate. 

22 

Senator Klobuchar. Right. And have their numbers gone up 

each month? Like what was their number last month? What was 

their percentage increase from the month before? 

Commissioner Hall. That is tough for us because this number 

is not seasonally adjusted. 

Senator Klobuchar. Oh, I see. 

Commissioner Hall. So there are seasonal things that change 

it. 

Senator Klobuchar. Because I am just wondering if maybe a 

number of these people have become marginally attached. It seems 

like it is sort of a cold description of them, but they have tried to 

work—they have tried to look for employment; they have given up, 

and they are out of your unemployment numbers? Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. That’s right. Although we do catch them. 

We do have a very broad measure of labor utilization that includes—underutilization—that includes them. 

Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Very good. Well I want to thank 

you. I am going to have to head out to do some other things, but 

I again just wanted to remind people of what people are still—despite this some good news here this month—people still continue 

to suffer. 

I just want to end with a letter we just got this week from a guy 

in Minnesota. He says: 

My wife lost her job last August as her company shut her building down and moved all the jobs to Boston. She was the major 

breadwinner in our house and has not been able to find a job since. 

She has applied numerous places but can’t find anyone to hire her. 

We got a statement in the mail today saying that our house value 

has dropped from $194,700 to $174,000, yet we still owe over 

$190,000 on the house. We have a 14-month-old daughter and soon 

unemployment will end and we are really scared about what’s 

going to happen. 

So I continued to be reminded that, while we have seen some stabilization, and there clearly are glimmers of hope in this, and people have been incredibly determined in my State to start businesses and keep going, we still have a lot of people in our country 

that are hurting. 

Thank you very much, Commissioner Hall. 

Chair Maloney. Thank you, Senator. 

Some of my colleagues have talked about the report that the 

Joint Economic Committee released yesterday showing that 1.4 

million women have lost their health insurance during this economic downturn due to losing their job, or their spouse losing his 

job. 

We know that employers are looking at ways to cut costs, and 

many of them are eliminating health insurance coverage. I would 

like to know, Commissioner, do you have any idea on the loss of 

employer-based health coverage due to budget-cutting during this 

recession? 

Commissioner Hall. We don’t collect direct data on that very 

often. There is an Annual Benefits’ Data release once a year that 

does talk about that. Right now the most recent data is I think for 

2007. We are not going to get 2008 until this fall. 

Chair Maloney. When will you have this? 

23 

Commissioner Hall. It is actually a report that Census puts out 

in the fall. I think it is September or October, where they talk 

about health care coverage. 

Chair Maloney. Okay. 

Commissioner Hall. We do have data on benefit availability by 

industry. That does not really tell you how many people have lost 

their health insurance, et cetera. 

Chair Maloney. But can it tell you if certain types of employees 

are more vulnerable than others because they are employed in certain businesses that are losing jobs. Or, for example, are part-time 

workers and lower wage workers at higher risk due to the cost-saving measures that some of their employers may be taking to cut 

health insurance coverage at this time. 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. Our detailed benefits data is going to 

come out fairly shortly for March, but in general I can tell you that 

right now 85 percent of full-time employees have access to health 

care, and only 24 percent of part-time employees have access. 

So one of the things that you obviously see during a recession is 

a shift from full-time to part-time work, so you have health care 

issues there. And full-time employment, so far this recession has 

fallen by nearly 9 million people. So this is pretty significant, when 

people obviously go to either no coverage or part-time work which 

only has 24 percent coverage. 

Chair Maloney. And many employers have told us that the rising cost of health insurance is simply unsustainable. Do you believe 

that the high health insurance costs are contributing to the slack 

labor market? 

Commissioner Hall. I would imagine they are. You know, for 

me the most obvious impact is on wage growth. 

Chair Maloney. Do you have any data on how that might impact on wage growth? 

Commissioner Hall. Sure. There are some studies—rather than 

data, there are some studies that have looked at the likely impact 

on wage growth, and are pretty consistent I think in sort of showing that when health care costs go up wage growth slows. It sort 

of takes away from wage growth. 

We do collect lots of data on benefits, but we don’t do that much 

on what’s causing benefit growth to decline. 

Chair Maloney. Well could you give to the Committee the reports that have come out on that particular area so we could study 

the impact on wage growth and the high cost of employer-based insurance? 

Commissioner Hall. Sure. 

Chair Maloney. I would like to get back to one of the questions 

from my colleague, Mr. Cummings. Is there a positive feedback effect in labor markets? Is there a positive feedback in labor markets 

because of the moderation in decline in unemployment? And does 

that increase consumer confidence, and therefore lead to more 

sales, and spur businesses to hire more workers? 

What is the positive feedback? Do you monitor any of this in the 

labor market? 

Commissioner Hall. It is sort of what you always see. You 

know, when the economy turns bad, consumers start to lose conVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:19 Apr 05, 2010 Jkt 054513 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\54511.TXT SHAUN PsN: DPROCT
24 

fidence and stop spending. Then the lack of spending means people 

lose jobs. And people who lose jobs stop spending. 

So what we are talking about now hopefully is the reverse: if 

spending starts to increase, job loss will decline. Job-loss declines 

will increase confidence and you will have this feedback. 

Chair Maloney. My time has expired. Mr. Cummings. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Mr. Hall, first of all I want to thank you for your testimony. Just 

one question, and then a comment. We know that during a recession more people will turn to higher education to get graduate degrees and what have you. 

Does this show up in any of your data in any way? For example, 

young college graduates who could not find work so they decide to 

stay in school? Would you have that data, any kind of data like 

that? 

Mr. Rones. Right now, the share of high school graduates who 

go on to college in the fall is I think at 69 percent, which is about 

at the highest ever. So that is partly—the trend has been rising, 

that as more and more people have been going to college, partly as 

a reaction to the statistics we’ve talked about, about how much 

more successful people who go to college are in terms of higher 

earnings, lower unemployment—but also it is probably the case 

when the job market is this bad there are people who otherwise 

might have worked who go on to college, or some other type of formal training because they are not really doing anything. But the 

participation in college, both two and four-year colleges, is at record 

highs now. 

Representative Cummings. I see. And that is all the more reason why the GI Bill that I talked about a little bit earlier is so important, because that is another thing that—another thing that 

people do not seem to realize, that we have a lot of colleges—I sit 

on the board of Morgan State University, HBCU in Baltimore, and 

what we have found is there are a lot of students, because of the 

economic situation in the country today that do not have the money 

to go to school. They do not have the money. 

So when you have a GI Bill which is going to pay tuition fees 

and board, then those schools can then appeal to those GIs to come 

back to school; then those are people that come walking in the door 

with the tuition check and board check right in their hand. 

And of course that keeps your—in Maryland what we have found 

is that we had our, just about all of our schools now have had to 

cut back with regard to employment of our professors and workers 

because of the fact that the money is beginning to simply dry up. 

And then of course with Endowment problems because of the recession, that does not help matters. 

Did you have a comment, Mr. Hall? You look like you need to say 

something? 

Commissioner Hall. I am just agreeing with you. 

Representative Cummings. Oh, thank you. Thank you, very 

much. 

You know, just in summary, because I have got to go myself, but 

I think that there is a glimmer of hope here. And I think that what 

we are seeing is a lot of things beginning to, slowly but surely, 

work together. And this is a trend, this downward trend I think 

25 

they said, was—we have not seen that since 2008? Is that right? 

This downward trend, Mr. Hall, with regard to the unemployment? 

Commissioner Hall. Oh, right. Right. 

Representative Cummings. Is that right? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes. Although I would say it is flattening, 

but we have not seen a flat unemployment rate since early 2008. 

Representative Cummings. Early 2008. So it has been awhile. 

And I guess what I’m trying to say, you know it is so easy for us 

to look at the glass half empty as opposed to half full. And I think 

that when it comes to these kinds of issues, we have to be careful 

that we are not overly optimistic. But at the same time, when we 

are talking about consumer confidence, when we are talking about 

giving people hope, and we are praying that they will go out there 

and, you know, spend—if they can, we want them to save—but also 

spend because that keeps the economy going, I think it is very important that we look at these things and say: You know what? We 

are going in the right direction. We are definitely not seeming like 

we’re falling backwards; we are going forward. 

And although we may be going forward very slowly, we may be 

inching along, it reminds me of an insect I saw in my house the 

other day. It’s a little, tiny insect and when I looked one time it 

was on one wall, and the next time it was over there on the other 

wall. In some kind of way those little—in some kind of way it got 

all the way around to the other wall. 

My point is that we may take small steps but, as they say, a 

journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. And I want 

to make sure that, you know, that we don’t just poo-poo what we 

have been able to accomplish thus far. Because I think we in leadership, if we are not careful, can help people not feel the confidence, not feel the optimism that perhaps they might want to at 

least begin thinking about. 

So with that, Mr. Hall, I want to thank you, and I want to thank 

both of you gentlemen, Mr. Rones and Mr. Horrigan, for your—and 

your department. We rarely thank—we thank all the people that 

back you all up, but we thank you also. Have a good month. 

Commissioner Hall. Thank you. 

Chair Maloney. Thank you very much, Mr. Cummings, for your 

participation today and your insightful comments. 

Commissioner Hall, in my home State of New York the unemployment rate was 8.7 percent in June, a jump of 3.4 percent points 

from last June. And in New York City it jumped to 9.5 percent in 

June. And are these changes similar to the changes in the national 

unemployment rate? 

Commissioner Hall. Yes, they are. 

Chair Maloney. On the national level we have seen a deceleration in the pace of job losses in recent months. How does that compare to the payrolls of New York State and the payrolls of New 

York City? 

Commissioner Hall. I think, especially the State, for a number 

of years now it has followed very closely with the national numbers. I think New York State has a very diverse economy like the 

U.S. economy. So the pattern has been very similar. 

Chair Maloney. And what have been the largest declines in 

New York State? 

26 

Commissioner Hall. In terms of what industries? 

Chair Maloney. Job loss. 

Commissioner Hall. I should have that, but I don’t have it in 

front of me; I’m sorry. 

Chair Maloney. Would you get it to me later? 

Commissioner Hall. Yeah, I can. [The information was not 

availabe at the time of publication.] 

Chair Maloney. And how has New York State fared, compared 

to the nation as a whole, during recessions? 

Commissioner Hall. Again, lately, it’s been fairly close to the 

national numbers. The last couple of recessions have sort of jobless 

recoveries, where the delay in the labor market took—created a 

problem, where the labor market took a while to recover. 

I think that’s been pretty much the same for New York, so, you 

know—— 

Chair Maloney. And do recessions typically last longer at the 

state level? You could use the example of New York or any state. 

Are recessions longer at the state level, would you say? 

Commissioner Hall [continuing]. You know, it depends upon 

the state. Some states, especially smaller states, can look rather 

different than the national numbers, over time. In fact, I would say 

that during much of the 2000s, there’s a state or two that probably 

has been in a recession for quite awhile in this country. 

Chair Maloney. What about New York? 

Commissioner Hall. But New York has not; New York has followed pretty closely with the national numbers. 

Chair Maloney. Could you give us some insight on the effect of 

trade on jobs? There’s tremendous concern about the outsourcing of 

jobs to other countries, and other reports that say trade builds jobs 

in our country. 

Are you tracking the connection between trade and the job loss 

or job gain in certain industries? Do you have any reports on that? 

Commissioner Hall. We don’t, and it turns out that that’s a 

rather difficult thing to do, because at the factory level, once something’s produced, quite often that establishment doesn’t really 

know where it goes. 

And in respect to imports, for example, as well, when a product 

hits the U.S. shores at Customs, we actually lose track of where 

it goes, so we don’t actually know how it impacts or how it’s used 

inside the United States. So it’s very difficult to connect job growth 

and loss with trade, specifically. 

There are some studies that will do that. I know the Department 

of Commerce has done a couple of studies on that. 

Chair Maloney. Well, we would like to see those studies, and 

I would like for you and your staff to look into how we can track 

that and how we can see whether jobs grow or are lost. I am told 

that one financial company just built a financial services item in 

another country, and yet they were saying it is creating over 500 

jobs in the U.S., due to the support services and the data collection. 

The fact is the world is flat and we are in a global economy. I 

believe we have to move to the 21st Century and start tracking 

how trade affects job growth or loss, and, specifically, you can track 

if a plant closes; you lose those jobs, that’s very clear. I would think 

27 

that with the changing world economy, you would look into this. Do 

you think you’ll be able to do that? 

Commissioner Hall. I’ll think about it and see what we can do. 

I really do think that this is an issue. The statistical system doesn’t 

do enough to collect data related to trade, to get the issues like 

offshoreing, I mean, and that sort of thing. 

I’ll take a look and see what we’ve got. It’s going to be—it would 

be difficult. 

Chair Maloney. Often temporary help is a leading indicator of 

an employer’s willingness to hire. How many jobs have been lost 

in the temporary help industry since the recession began? Do you 

see any indications that job losses in the temporary help industry 

are slowing and when was the last time that the temporary help 

industry saw this level of job losses? 

Commissioner Hall. So, this recession so far, temporary help 

services has lost 844,000 jobs, so it’s pretty significant. There has 

been substantial improvement in the job loss. This last month, temporary help services lost just 10,000 jobs, compared to 844,000 

since the recession began. 

We’ve never seen job loss like this before, but the temporary help 

industry has changed quite a bit. It is now something on the order 

of nearly 1.7 million people who are in temporary help now. In 

2006 it was at the peak. We’ve dropped from that, but just as recently as 1990, it was a one-million person industry, so it’s really 

grown quite a lot and it’s changed a lot. 

That’s a long way to say it’s never—we’ve never seen a drop like 

this before, but, then again, temporary help has never been as big 

as it is right now. 

Chair Maloney. With the financial indicators indicating we’re 

heading in the right direction, do you think we have seen the worst 

in this whatever you want to call it? Recession? Depression? Or 

compression? 

I think I’d call it the Great Compression, with the job losses and 

the shrinking of leverage. 

Commissioner Hall. Certainly the trend is encouraging. I don’t 

want to sort of predict, because it’s like anything else, things can 

change going forward, but the trend right now is encouraging. 

Chair Maloney. Well, let’s end with some positive news: The 

trend is encouraging. Thank you for your testimony and your hard 

work. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:55 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(29) 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

30 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE CAROLYN B. MALONEY

Evidence that the stimulus bill is taking hold is starting to emerge. 

The economy dramatically improved in the 2nd quarter of this year, and the pace 

of job loss has moderated significantly in recent months. 

After averaging close to 700,000 jobs lost each month for the first quarter of 2009, 

job losses have been half as large over the past three months and the unemployment rate has been stable for the last two months. 

Clearly, the trend is toward recovery. 

I am optimistic that more Americans will be heading back to work as more stimulus projects get underway. 

While we welcome these signs of improvement, this morning’s employment report 

reminds us of the high toll that the recession has had on millions of working Americans. 

This recession, which began in December 2007, is now the longest and deepest 

in the post-world War II period. Although the economy is predicted to expand later 

this year, the duration of this recession has led to long spells of unemployment for 

some workers. 

With six unemployed workers for each job opening, those out of work are finding 

it increasingly difficult to secure a job. 

More than one-third of the unemployed, a staggering 5 million Americans, have 

been without a job for at least 6 months. 

It is the highest on record, in both percent and the sheer number. Over 2.3 million 

workers have been unemployed for a year or longer. 

The National Employment Law Project estimates that, by the end of September, 

more than 500,000 workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, will 

exhaust their federally funded unemployment benefits before finding a job. 

By the end of the year, the number could grow to 1.5 million. 

For many, those weekly benefit checks are the ever-so-thin cushion that allows 

them to keep up with their utility bills, stay current on their credit card bills, and 

meet basic necessities. 

Congress and the President worked swiftly to expand and extend the unemployment insurance program for the thousands of workers losing their jobs each month. 

We funded up to 20 additional weeks of benefits at the state level through the 

Extended Benefits program. 

The Emergency Unemployment Compensation program also provided up to an additional 20 weeks of federally-funded benefits for workers in all states, and an additional 13 weeks for laid off workers in states with exceptionally high rates of unemployment. 

Many jobless Americans are receiving an additional $100 each month due to provisions in the Recovery Act. 

But, for many of these unemployed workers, it is not just the income that they 

have lost. For millions of jobless Americans and their families, health insurance 

benefits have evaporated or may stop. 

The Joint Economic Committee released a report yesterday estimating that 1.4 

million women and 2.7 million men have lost their employment-based health insurance because of job losses during the recession. 

Today’s jobs report makes it clear—we are making progress, but it will be a long 

road to recovery. 

By extending unemployment benefits, we will give out-of-work Americans across 

the country some peace of mind as they continue to search for work. 

By passing health care reform, millions of uninsured Americans will have access 

to affordable health insurance benefits, regardless of their employment status. 

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to act 

swiftly on behalf of the millions of unemployed Americans across the country. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK, RANKING REPUBLICAN

Thank you Chairwoman Maloney for arranging today’s hearing and thank you 

Commissioner Hall for testifying today. 

Unfortunately, today’s employment report on labor market conditions in July 

brings more bad news: employers shed 247,000 payroll jobs and the unemployment 

rate stands at 9.4%. While the pace of job loss has receded, and the unemployment 

rate has edged down, labor market conditions remain weak and American families 

are hurting. In total, we have lost 6.7 million payroll jobs since the beginning of 

the recession. Behind these numbers is a great deal of dislocation, pain, and suffering in American families. 

31 

I am concerned about the way that the Federal government is addressing the economic downturn and, in particular, the lack the lack of focus on jobs and the growing ranks of unemployed workers and families losing their homes to foreclosure. 

Earlier this year, Congress and the President set up a $787 billion so-called ‘‘stimulus’’ plan, filled with hundreds of billions of government spending that was to be 

distributed in a timely, targeted, and temporary manner. Yet, the money has not 

gone out the door in the timely manner necessary to help our economy now. Rather, 

only a little over 10% of the $787 billion in stimulus has been spent, and the remainder will be slowly spent over the coming months and years, when our economy 

will presumably already be expanding. 

Additionally, the stimulus was not adequately targeted towards job creation and 

foreclosure prevention which are weighing heavily on the economy. Instead of preventing job losses and foreclosures, the bulk of stimulus money is being used to fund 

long-term investment projects, some of which will not be ‘‘shovel ready’’ for years. 

This is not temporary stimulus, this is long-term government spending. Thus far, 

the stimulus has failed on all three fronts: funds have not been spent in a timely 

manner; spending has not been targeted to employment and foreclosure prevention; 

and the vast array of long-term infrastructure projects are in no way temporary. 

During the depths of the recession, Congress has been debating a health care 

overhaul that does nothing to reduce health care price and cost inflation, but seems 

only to promise massive increases in government deficits and debt and increases in 

taxes on businesses and American families. Congress has also been debating ‘‘cap 

and trade’’ schemes to reduce carbon emissions, which will surely increase energy 

costs for businesses and American families. While health care and carbon emissions 

are serious issues to consider, what we have done to date seems mostly to have generated increased uncertainty, in the midst of a deep recession, for businesses and 

families about their future health care costs, energy costs, and taxes. Raising the 

specter of trillions of dollars of increased government spending on health care and 

an increase in energy costs and higher future taxes in the midst of our deep recession seems to be anything but stimulative. 

If you believe in providing debt-financed stimulus to the economy, I believe it 

should at least come on line and produce effects when it is needed, which is now. 

To the many Americans who are ‘‘paycheck ready’’ today, what good, in terms of 

stimulus, is a road that will not be ‘‘shovel ready’’ and built for years to come? There 

are unemployed workers who need relief now. There are unemployed workers who 

are losing their homes to foreclosure now. There are employers, struggling in the 

face of reduced demand for their products, who find now that they simply cannot 

make it economically with their existing workforce, and they are forced to lay more 

people off. And as the ranks of the unemployed grow, more and more families are 

finding it difficult or impossible to hang on to their homes and they are suffering 

through foreclosure actions now. These Americans do not need to have a road built 

in 2013, they need help now. 

I voted against the stimulus because it simply contained too many deficit-financed, long-term spending projects that are difficult to think of as economic stimulus. The stimulus provides only minor tax relief. Yet cutting taxes takes very little 

time, and time is of the essence in trying to stimulate the economy. Lack of tax relief in the stimulus was and is disappointing. Some of the long-term infrastructure 

spending in the massive stimulus could very likely be sound investments for the 

American economy. However, such investments should be made according to careful 

cost-benefit analysis on a project-by-project basis. That is not what was done in formulating the stimulus. Rather, there was a rush to spend and a rush to run up deficits and debts even further. For the sake of American workers and their families 

facing job loss today, or who are unemployed, or who are losing their houses to foreclosure, we should redirect stimulus efforts today. 

My concern today is with continued job losses, growth in the number of American 

workers who are unemployed, and growth in the number of American families who 

are losing their homes to foreclosure. We seem to be moving in the wrong direction 

by adding uncertainty to decisions that American families and businesses need to 

make as they plan for the future. The direction we are taking threatens to lengthen 

the recession and work against a recovery in the labor market. The direction we are 

taking has been one of adding to uncertainty—uncertainty about future health care 

costs by pushing for bigger and more expensive government intervention in the 

name of reform; uncertainty about future carbon costs inherent in a cap and trade 

emission scheme that threatens American jobs; and uncertainty about future taxes 

and national debt. 

I look forward to the testimony of Commissioner Hall. 

32 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE KEVIN BRADY, SENIOR HOUSE

REPUBLICAN

I am pleased to join in welcoming Commissioner Hall before the Committee this 

morning. 

It is welcome news that the unemployment rate in July did not rise further. However, as job losses appear to be slowing, the loss of an additional 247,000 nonfarm 

payroll jobs in July is somber news. The unemployment rate remains far above projections by top Administration economists that the rate would peak at 8 percent if 

the stimulus were adopted. The current rate of 9.4 percent reflects the serious facts 

that 14.5 million Americans are unemployed and the number of long term unemployed rose by 584,000 to a total of 5 million people. 

There are signs that the recession is bottoming out and that production may increase to replenish inventories, but the economy remains in dire condition. Mortgage 

delinquencies and home foreclosures are rising fueled by high unemployment. The 

prospects for sustained economic growth are far from clear. The ‘‘stimulus’’ adds to 

the deficit while employment and GDP will be lower and the debt-to-GDP ratio 

higher than the Administration projected, and the far-off claim that stimulus policies are creating a significant amount of jobs is greatly out of touch. 

Under Administration policies, excessive budget deficits, a spiraling federal debt, 

tax increases, and the prospect of inflation are putting the long-term economic recovery at risk. The increased weight of government on a weak economy only raises 

the challenges of restoring vigorous, sustained economic and job growth in the years 

ahead. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KEITH HALL, COMMISSIONER, BUREAU OF LABOR

STATISTICS

Madam Chair and Members of the Committee: 

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

we released this morning. 

Nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 247,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.4 percent. Payroll job losses over the past 3 

months have now averaged 331,000, compared with an average of 645,000 over the 

prior 6 months. Employment has fallen by 6.7 million since the start of the recession in December 2007. In July, employment declines continued in many of the 

major industry sectors. 

Construction employment fell by 76,000 over the month, with losses throughout 

the component industries. Over the past 3 months, job losses have averaged 73,000 

compared with 117,000 over the prior 6 months. Employment in construction has 

fallen by 1.4 million since December 2007. 

Manufacturing employment also continued to decline, with a loss of 52,000 in 

July. Factory employment has fallen by 2.0 million since the start of the recession. 

The seasonally-adjusted employment estimate for motor vehicles and parts rose 

over the month (28,000). Because layoffs in auto manufacturing already had been 

so large, fewer workers than usual were laid off for seasonal shutdowns in July. 

Thus, the seasonally-adjusted gain does not necessarily indicate improvement in the 

industry. Employment in motor vehicles and parts manufacturing has been on a 

long-term decline. The number of jobs in the industry, 661,000, is now half what 

it was early in 2000. 

In July, job losses continued in wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, 

and financial activities. However, these industries have lost fewer jobs on average 

since May than during the prior 6 months. Similarly, job losses have lessened substantially in temporary help services. Employment in leisure and hospitality has 

been little changed over the past 3 months. Health care employment grew about in 

line with the trend thus far in 2009. 

Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers in the private 

sector were up by 3 cents in July to $18.56. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.5 percent. From June 2008 to June 2009, the Consumer 

Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers declined by 1.7 percent. 

Turning now to some measures from our household survey, the unemployment 

rate in July was 9.4 percent, little changed for the second consecutive month. The 

rate had been 4.9 percent when the recession began. There were 14.5 million unemployed persons in July. 

The number of long-term unemployed continued to rise. In July, 5.0 million people 

had been unemployed for more than 6 months, accounting for 1 in 3 unemployed 

persons. 

33 

The employment-population ratio was 59.4 percent in July. The ratio has fallen 

by 3.3 percentage points since the recession began. 

Among the employed, there were 8.8 million persons working part time in July 

who would have preferred full-time work. After rising sharply last fall and winter, 

the number of such workers has been little changed for 4 consecutive months. 

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment fell by 247,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.4 percent. 

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

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Æ 


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