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The 20,000 January Jobs That Weren’t

February 7, 2012

While Three Million Americans Remain “Missing” from Workforce, Dems’ Keystone Sabotage is a Reminder of Jobs That Could’ve Been 

  • The January jobs report released last week was followed by depressing estimates that more than 3 million Americans have dropped out of the workforce altogether because of their inability to find work.
  • This fact is all the more concerning given that Democrats are still busy destroying shovel-ready Keystone pipeline jobs as political payback for their Washington interest group allies.
  • Meanwhile, the administration’s own environmental impact statement on Keystone indicates that the project was actually positioned for approval until Obama decided that bending to the desires of the Democrats’ Washington interest group allies was more important to helping his re-election effort than allowing the creation of 20,000 shovel-ready jobs. 

The January jobs report released last week was followed by depressing estimates that more than 3 million Americans have dropped out of the workforce altogether because of their inability to find work:

OVER 3 MILLION “MISSING WORKERS” WHO HAVE DROPPED OUT OF LABOR FORCE: “There are currently over 3 million ‘missing’ workers who should be participating in the labor force but are not actively seeking work.” (“Jobs Preview 2012: The Year of the Missing Worker,” HPS Insight, January 2012) 

IF U.S. LABOR FORCE WAS SAME AS IN JAN. 2009, UNEMPLOYMENT WOULD BE 11.0 PERCENT: “If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was  the same as it was when Barack Obama took office—65.7 percent then vs. 63.7 percent today—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 11.0 percent.” (James Pethokoukis, “Why the Official 8.3 Percent Unemployment Rate is a Phony Number—and What It Means for Obama’s Re-Election,” The American, 2/3/2012)

COMPARED TO WORKFORCE PARTICIPATION LAST YEAR, UNEMPLOYMENT WOULD BE 8.9 PERCENT: “2. But let’s not go all the way back to January 2009. In January 2011, the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent with a participation rate of 64.2 percent. If that were the participation rate today, the unemployment rate would be 8.9 percent, instead of 8.3 percent. As an analysis from Hamilton Place Strategies concludes, ‘Most of the shift of the past year is due not to the improvement in the labor market, but the continued drop in participation in the labor force.'” (James Pethokoukis, “Why the Official 8.3 Percent Unemployment Rate is a Phony Number—and What It Means for Obama’s Re-Election,” The American, 2/3/2012)

This fact is all the more concerning given that Democrats are still busy destroying shovel-ready Keystone pipeline jobs as political payback for their Washington interest group allies:

“THE ANTI-JOBS PRESIDENT” REJECTS JOB-CREATING KEYSTONE PIPELINE:(Editorial, “The Anti-Jobs President,” The Wall Street Journal, 1/19/2012)

OBAMA THROWS 20,000 “SHOVEL-READY” JOBS IN THE DUMPSTER: (Editorial, “Keystone Cop-Out,” The Wall Street Journal, 11/11/2011) 

LONG-TERM JOBS IMPACT: UP TO 130,000 JOBS: “Many of those 20,000 jobs on the construction of the pipeline would have been filled by skilled union members. Eventually, the completed pipeline was expected to result in as many as 130,000 jobs, many of them on the upper Texas Coast, where the heavy oil would be refined into 700,000 barrels of oil daily.” (Editorial, “Keystone Pipeline is the Wrong Call,” The Houston Chronicle, 11/11/2011) 

KEYSTONE JOBS MAY GO TO CHINA AFTER OBAMA DECISION: “President Barack Obama’s decision yesterday to reject a permit for TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline may prompt Canada to turn to China for oil exports.”(Theophilis Arigitis and Jeremy Loon, “Obama Keystone Denial Prompts Canada to Focus on China,” Bloomberg, 1/19/2012)

GREEN GROUPS THREATENED TO ABANDON OBAMA IF HE APPROVED KEYSTONE: “Environmental groups have been protesting the pipeline that would run from Alberta oil sands to Texas refineries, and there have been rumblings that greens would abandon Obama next fall if he approved it.” (Dan Berman and Darren Goode, “Obama Punts Keystone XL Pipeline,” Politico, 11/10/2011)

Meanwhile, the administration’s own environmental impact statement on Keystone indicates that the project was actually positioned for approval until Obama decided that bending to the desires of the Democrats’ Washington interest group allies was more important to helping his re-election effort than allowing the creation of 20,000 shovel-ready jobs:

FINAL STATE DEPARTMENT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT IN AUGUST 2011 HAD DETERMINED THERE WOULD BE “NO SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS TO MOST RESOURCES ALONG THE PROPOSED PIPELINE CORRIDOR”:(Steve Gelsi, “TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline Clear Hurdle,” MarketWatch, 8/26/2011) 

USA TODAY: OBAMA DECISION “THE MOST CRAVEN SORT OF ELECTION-YEAR POLITICS”: “What’s really going on here, of course, is the most craven sort of election-year politics. The Obama administration seemed to be on its way to approving Keystone when environmental groups made the pipeline a key test of their support for the president, who suddenly decided the administration couldn’t possibly make a decision until sometime after the election.” (“Obama’s Pipeline Decision Delays Energy Security,” USA Today, 1/18/2012)