Are Americans Finding Work?

By: Alex Mendez Last night on the Tonight Show, President Obama painted to Jay

Leno and the audience a rosy picture of how great the economy and the private sector are doing. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the past year there has been 980,000 new jobs. Those numbers sound great, right? What the President fails to mention is that 692,000, or 71%, of those jobs are part time, while 288,000, 29%, are full time jobs. Whats the difference? The government considers a full time job anything over 30 work hours per week. If we take a person working a part time job working 29 hours a week, making minimum wage ($7.25 an hour) that person is making $210.25 a week. In a month, this person will make $841 and in a year will make a total of $10,933. That is not enough for a person to live on; this is not improving our economy. It is turning our economy into a part time economy; which explains why the economy, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, is growing at an anemic 2.7%. The President also mentioned that he wishes the Congress would

pass more government funded programs and invest on infrastructure. I agree with investing on infrastructure, however we cannot continue to spend money like a teenage girl with a credit card. If we begin adding these massive projects, we need to make equal cuts. For example, if the Congress decides to spend $5 Billion improving the ports on the east coast, they need to nd another $5 Billion of current spending that can be cut to balance the difference, we cannot spend ourselves into bankruptcy. Also, if these projects were to be taken on, it needs to be done by the people who truly create jobs: the private sector. The private sector is the number one job creator in the nation and is what our

government needs to be focused on improving it. Its like Reagan said, The best social program is a job. That is what Americans need, jobs, and not part time jobs. One of the key things the Congress needs to focus on is Defunding

Obamacare, which you can read more about on one of my other pieces. Obamacare is creating this part time economy with the $2,000 ne per employee that is not provided healthcare by their employer. A part time job can support a family and real change needs to happen in DC, the failed policies of the last 5 years has not helped our economy. Once we start cutting our ungodly spending, pass a balanced budget, stop raising the debt ceiling and actually tackling the debt and investing in strong private sector jobs, we will see our economy return and grow at a faster rate.