November Jobs: Another Slow Month in Six Long Slow Years
Job Creators Network, is the voice of real job creators that has been missing from the debate on jobs and the economy say corporate taxes must be reformed in 2015, to “kick the US economy into gear.”
The November jobs report just released shows another month of modest job growth is not sufficient to create a strong economy. The corporate chief executives of Job Creators Network (JCN) called for action from the new Congress, because the current congress has been asleep at the wheel.
JCN says the U.S. has the most oppressive business taxes in the developed world, and they are one of the major challenges that are holding back the next great economic boom.
Job Creators Network CEOs say Washington could fix this problem in the next year, if they could work together.
“Today’s jobs report shows no more jobs created than what America needs to keep our head above water,” Laura Kozelouzek, CEO of Quest Workspaces and a member of the Job Creators Network says. “After a recession, the economy is eventually supposed to kick into gear and roar ahead. But six years out from 2008, this recovery feels more like purgatory.”
This latest jobs report showed no more jobs were created in November, the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.8 percent. 5.8 percent may seem like a great number, but it hides the fact that millions have given up looking for work. The participation rate for men is the lowest it has been for a very long time. In the 1950s it was around 87 percent, and now it is 62.8%, according to the Wall Street Journal, making the unemployment rate look like an obviously ridiculous sleight of hand number.
“America’s corporate tax rate is higher than all of our big trading partners and our tax code is too complicated to understand without armies of lawyers and accountants. That’s a big reason our economy isn’t booming. Addressing this problem should be Job One in Washington” – Laura Kozelouzek, Quest Workspaces CEO
The nominal corporate tax rate in the United States, combining federal, state and local rates, is nearly 40 percent, according to a recent Washington Post report. All 33 other large industrial economies have a lighter business tax burden. The Canadian levy is estimated at just over 26 percent.
“If you have to pay the highest tax rate in the world to fill a factory with American workers, yet doing the same with Canadians will cost much less, then it’s an obvious business decision,” Kozelouzek said.
Elise Gould, writing at the Economic Policy Institute, said “Even at 321,000 jobs a month, it will be nearly two years before the economy looks like 2007.” She was citing a Congressional Budget Office chart showing the potential labor force into the future.
If President Obama is able to push an amnesty for millions of people illegally in the country, it could be even worse, especially if open borders help attract even more people.
Laura Kozelouzek, part of the Job Creators Network, says a Democratic President could work with a Republican Congress on bi-partisan reform that would create jobs to really lower the unemployment rate and increase the participation rate. She cites NAFTA for being one of the great tax cuts, that resulted in one of the strongest economic booms, because it lowered the cost of selling American goods to the world. This was achieved with a Democratic President and Republican votes in Congress.
