Public Sector Trends
The state of the public sector isn't all chicken little!
Even if the economy does not slip back into recession, the jobs crisis will persist, because growth will be barely enough to absorb the flow of new entrants into the labor force and certainly not enough to make a significant dent in the unemployment rate.
The fundamental cause is the drastic breakdown in private-sector demand brought on by the 2008 financial crisis that burst the debt-financed housing and spending boom preceding it. Despite misleading claims that the size of government, regulation and excessive taxation have caused the jobs problem, business surveys repeatedly have identified weak demand as the primary constraint on job creation. In other recoveries during the last 50 years, public-sector employment increased. During the last year the private sector added 1.8 million jobs while the public sector cut 550,000.
What should policy makers do to combat the large and lingering job losses? It is proven success that when the private sector is curtailing spending, fiscal stimulus to increase growth and reduce unemployment is the most effective way to reduce the private-sector debt overhang choking private spending. When the Japanese government tried fiscal consolidation to slow the growth of government debt, the results were economic contraction and an increase in the government deficit. In contrast, when the Japanese government increased government spending, the pace of recovery strengthened and the deficit as a share of gross domestic product declined.
An extra percentage point of growth over the next five years would do more to reduce the deficit during that period than any of the spending cuts currently under discussion. And faster growth would make it easier for the private sector to reduce its debt burden.
But what about the growth of public-sector debt that would result from more fiscal stimulus? Some economists worry that the growing government debt will itself become a constraint on growth. But that certainly is not the case now — with weak private-sector demand and a huge output gap, spending and borrowing by the government are not crowding out spending and borrowing by the private sector.
