And the Job Hunt Ends – For Now

As the job market began to accelerate and add jobs to the economy my phone began to ring for job interviews, not all of the jobs were plumb jobs, the kind you write home about, but entry level jobs that are at least a way into a company and a step onto the corporate ladder for the climb up it.  I may have taken one of them had I been offered one, just to keep a roof over my head, food on the table, and keep my car from getting repossessed , although it is questionable that some of those jobs would have accomplished that, until I could find a better job.

When it comes to many of the entry level jobs I interviewed for it left me beyond shocked at what Corporate America considers a living wage for its entry level workers and/or unskilled labor, some of it borders on modern day slavery, or at least as exploitive as those written about by Charles Dickens during the Industrial Revolution.  But, it is not just the wage that is offered for some of the jobs; it is also the level of background checking that I found appalling for sustenance jobs that offer few skills to help the low level employee better themselves for the corporate ladder climb or in the marketplace in general.  Answering phones and making phone calls for a business is vastly different than a high level security job, like an FBI agent, yet they are being treated equally in Corporate America with the amount of background checking.   Thankfully I did not have to take a job that paid $7.25 to $12.00 an hour with anal checking background check, but it has opened my eyes to the plight of the unskilled worker and the gross exploitation by Corporate America of them, even within the United States.  My experience with Corporate America in my job search has left me with the knowledge that it has an entitlement issue that is as a repugnant as those seen during the Industrial Revolution and the Plantation Economy of the pre-Civil War south, even with a wage it appears Corporate America believes they have the right to ownership of its employees.

Just as I had begun to believe I was never going to find a job and accept that my fate was going to have me crawling back to my parents begging to live with them, which is what I would have had to do given my parents really did not want to take me back in or really believed that the job market has been that austere, fate lead me to where I needed to go.

I do not remember sending this business my resume, but when I spent at least four to five hours a day searching for a job it is no wonder I do not remember where I send all of them off to, even with a job hunt folder.  But one day a week and half ago, as I was doing my routine job hunting, the phone rang.  I did not answer and let the machine get the call; no message was left, but I did get an e-mail from the same phone number.  It was for a job interview with a software firm that I accepted for the Wednesday of the following week.  That Wednesday came and I went in and interviewed for a job that I really had no idea exactly what it would be for other than a sales support analyst, which from reading other online job descriptions of the same job could mean just about anything, since none of them are the same, some are nothing more than an administrative assistant in a sales department, with others requiring wide ranging complex duties.  I went in with the attitude that I am going to present myself with what I have and what I can offer the business and if it is meant to be, then I will get the job, if not, then keep looking.

As it turned out the business I was interviewing with is a small business owned by three men, one American and two Brits, who have a niche product for universities and need someone who has a wide range skills and talent that matched my skill set and interests perfectly.  My jack of all trades approach to doing business with my interest and experience in teaching software use online and ongoing education of the product is exactly what they needed as they look to grow the business and add online training and education on to their business in order to remain competitive.  Of course, there will be other duties, I will be an administrative assistant, a marketing assistant, sales, and data entry when necessary, but the position will allow me to use all of my skills, develop others, and be on the ground floor for creating departments that may include job creation, which will make me more valuable in the marketplace in the future, or I may stay on.  My brother took a job as a mechanical engineer with a small business during Reagan’s recession and it grew from a tiny business, like the one I am in now, to employing 300 people.  Alas, his job did not pay him that much when he came on, like what I am being offered now, but is more than what Corporate America is offering many.  He says his salary did rise as he stayed on and the business grew.  He expects the same for me.  Alas, the job and owners seem to be a good fit.  I start tomorrow after not working for fifteen and a half months.

April Jobs Report: Best Gain in Jobs in Four Years

It appears that the recovery is starting to really take hold.  In April, employers added 290,000 employees to their payrolls and since the start of the year there have been a total of 573,000 jobs added to the economy.

“It clearly shows that this economic recovery can no longer be a jobless one,” said Bart van Ark, chief economist of The Conference Board, a leading research firm.  “Companies apparently are finding they can’t squeeze out any more output without adding workers.”

The report also includes a separate survey of households that it uses to estimate the unemployment rate, which increased to 9.9%.

The rise in the unemployment rate is actually a sign of improving perception of labor market conditions.  The increase was due to an uptick in job seekers who had previously been discourage and dropped out of the job market.  There was a jump of 805,000 workers returning to the labor force in April alone.

Surely this is all good news.  It appears that the job market recovery is in its acceleration phase and if my phone ringing for job interviews over the last two weeks is an indicator, I am going to have agree.  But I am going to have to point out that we still have a long way to go to a full recovery.  In two years the US economy has shed 8.4 million jobs, not as bad as the number lost under Ronald Reagan, but it is still a significant number of people.  It is going to take years to put everyone back to work and get the unemployment rate to full employment.  It took Ronald Reagan six years to accomplish that, and if you want to be picky, the nation really was not at full recovery until Bush, Sr. was in office.  I have this to say about President Obama, he will get re-elected in 2012 if he gets the unemployment rate down by putting the nation back to work.  But, trends like this are going to have to continue for the rest of this year and over the next two years.  A lot of people need jobs.

On a personal level I think the job market is picking up, my phone has been ringing for interviews and I am getting requests for them via my e-mail as well.  The problem that I am encountering is that the competition to get a job is fierce.  On two occasions I turned up at job interviews where there were a dozen people vying for a job.  On one other occasion there were eight people there interviewing for one position.  Finally, I went to a job interview that was an open house, by invitation only style, where forty people were there.  One of the people flew in, courtesy of his son who works for Delta, from Seattle to interview with that business.  People need jobs right now and they are willing to go to any length to get one.  This upcoming week I do have a job interview scheduled for Tuesday with two strong follow ups.  Personally I think I will be able to find a job as the job market continues its climb out of the abyss, but I am still very, very worried regardless.  I am up against a lot of people and my unemployment benefits will run out at the end of June without another extension.  I think Congress will give extensions again this year only because the unemployment rate is so very high.  For myself if that does happen I will get the final tier of federal unemployment benefits of an additional six weeks, then I will have to apply for the final 20 weeks with the state.  That will take me through the remainder of the year and with a job market finally adding jobs I think I will be able to find a job, but I think it may take the rest of the year to do it.  I am more optimistic about the job market, but I am not optimistic enough to think I will find something by the end of June.

Things That Chap My Hide

At the end of January 2009 I lost my job.   At first, like many people who lose their job, I did not think it would take me more than six or seven months to find another job.  As it turns out I was very, very wrong.  It is nearly fifteen months and counting that I have been without a job and it looks as though there is no end in sight, so when I read over the following I just fumed.

Two years of unemployment benefits just isn’t enough for some jobless Americans.

Though Congress has extended unemployment insurance to an unprecedented 99 weeks, the safety net is not proving sufficient for hundreds of thousands of people who say they simply cannot find a job in this weak economy.

Currently I am in the third tier of federally extended unemployment insurance that means that I have been made eligible to receive 78 weeks of it.  For some, that is a long time, for me it is too as I have been looking for work diligently for in that period and really want to work, but cannot find work.  I am bored beyond belief and have started to suffer from long bouts of depression and worthlessness.  On that note, 78 weeks is too long, on the other hand, 78 weeks of unemployment benefits is not enough.  I still do not have a job.  I cannot live very long without some kind of income, even if it is unemployment insurance, although unemployment is not covering all of my bills anyway.  It is a very good thing I had a decent amount of money saved going into this, or I would have had my car repossessed long ago.  $1,100 to $1,200 a month is grossly insufficient.

Up to a million people could find themselves with neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check by year’s end, according to preliminary estimates by advocacy group.

Of those one million, I would be one of them assuming I get the final fourth tier of federal unemployment insurance, and if I get the final 20 weeks of state unemployment benefits that I would have to apply for with the state in order to get.

“If you are subsidized to stay out of the workforce, many people will,” said Alan Reynolds, senior fellow at The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Spoken by someone who has a job in this job market, since it is not happening to them they have no way of knowing what it is really like to be unemployed today.  It is unfortunate for those of us who are unemployed that people like him influence power brokers who have the power over me to tell me if I can get more extensions.  Clearly, these people think I am lazy and do not want to work.

Even though the economy is creeping back to health, employers have not resumed hiring.

I have personally experienced seeing very few jobs available or times when I have seen next to none available.  To exacerbate the problem there are 5.5 people for every job available.  I have gone to job interviews where there are 14 people in the reception area waiting to be interviewed for one job, still others with 28 people.  I have gone to information sessions at the university I graduated from where there have been 200 people trying to get the internships available with the CDC.  Yes, I have put internships into my job search.

Others, however, argue that the reason there are so many people still out of work is because they have unemployment benefits to fall back on.  If they weren’t getting, they’d be forced to get a job.

“People think that when benefits run out, most people will still be unemployed,” Reynolds said.  But “most will accept jobs that are less than ideal shortly before benefits run out.”

The reason, Mr. Reynolds, so many people are out of work is because there are not enough jobs available.  It is not rocket science.  However, since you have a job you just do not know what it is like.  This week, as an example, I have been looking for a server or delivery job in the food and hospitality industry.  No one is hiring.  There are not even burger flipping jobs available.  In the last week I have burned up a tank of gas looking for a job only to get rejected to my face versus over the phone or via e-mail.

Though Labor Department statistics say there are 5.5 job seekers for every opening, Reynolds said there is work available if people are willing to relocate or take jobs in a different field.

I have interviewed for jobs in other states, as well, in my job hunt, and I have looked across a wide range of fields and occupations.  Tell me, Reynolds, where are these jobs that you speak of, if we the unemployed choose to take just anything anywhere?

Even if Congress does extend benefits one more time, the jobless should expect that one to be the last, said Phillip Swagel, business professor at Georgetown University and former Department chief economist under George W Bush.

It is attitudes like this that add stress to my job search in this tough job market.  Assuming I get the fourth and final federal unemployment tier I can survive through Thanksgiving, without another extension it is September or October.  If I get the final state extension I can survive until January or February of 2011.  It is the not knowing, all of the uncertainty, and the tick, tick, tick of the clock winding down that is making my life so hard.

The jobs picture is starting to brighten, Swagel said.  The use of temporary workers is up and employees’ weekly hours are up – both signs that companies should start hiring soon.

Funny, I was talking with some restaurant managers who said they are not only fully staffed, but are overstaffed.  If someone should leave the person may not be replace.  I heard similar at country clubs I have gone to.  As for temp workers, good luck with that too.  I have gone to temp agencies and have experienced employees physically turning their back on me, or tell me – as I look for work in another occupation and field –  since I have no experience anywhere in my background they will not even attempt to place me.

“We are getting close to the point where there shouldn’t be more extensions, “ Swagel said.

Shouldn’t is the operative word.  Businesses are not hiring and there is no should in that.

How Long Should We Help the Unemployed?

Turning the Corner?

The United States has been in recession since December of 2007, with noticeable job losses starting in May of 2008, reaching their crescendo in May of the following year, and trickling less and less as the year ebbs on.  In that time I was one of the people who lost their job, so it is no wonder that I take special interest every month when the jobless numbers and unemployment rate.   The jobs report came out on Friday for the month of March.  It was much anticipated that the figures would be good as we climb out of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Leading up to my job loss was the real estate crisis, the Wall St. meltdown, subsequently followed with a two part bank bailout, presidential election, that saw a lame duck president choose to do nothing once the election was determined, thus exacerbating the situation, and finally, a new president was sworn in four months after the Wall St meltdown along with a new congress that gave Democrats complete control of both ends of Pennsylvanian Avenue.   Job losses were the steepest last winter and spring as I watched for four months starting in January; hundreds of thousands of people month after month lose their jobs. To me it was, and still is, more than a crisis, many of those people are my competition for my next job.  In my mind, the fewer people out of the work the more opportunity there is for me to get a job.  The jobs report came out and I paid attention.

The nation has an unemployment rate of 9.7%, which is not the highest it has ever been, but it is not good.  The state of Georgia has an unemployment rate of 10.5 %, with the city of Atlanta at 10.8%.  Why so high and why so persistent?  I looked back over the last decade and can easily see the reasons as to why and even why so persistent.  The last decade, most of which was under George W. Bush’s watch,  saw the weakest GDP growth in seventy years, with job growth that matched, both were just over 2%.  What fueled that growth were the interrelated booms in consumer spending, real estate and financial markets while simultaneously household saw incomes grow very slowly.  It was unsustainable.  There was no saving and export led growth that would have been sustainable and probably more resilient in a recession.  Eight years of a do nothing president beyond spending money on a war he lied to get us into, and economic policies that just did not work, brought us to the edge of complete collapse, something that could still happen.  We are not out of the woods completely yet.  In order to move ahead we must come to terms with this one simple truth that all presidents and the nation must accept, although one party just refuses to accept this, this time around and that is:

A president who needs to correct the failed economic policies of a predecessor will have more difficulty obtaining very low unemployment, so the degree of improvement over the previous administration is an important measure of success.

One party sees this as blame.  It is not blame, it is hard truth.  It is accepting that this is the fundamental problem that a year of time is not going to fix.  Yes, the unemployment rate is high and persistently so, but this is the reason.  George W. Bush saw a net job gain of just over three million jobs in his eight years in office.  We have lost 8.2 million jobs in the last two years, which means jobs lost include some of the six million plus jobs created under former president Bill Clinton.  That is really scary.  Two consecutive administrations created roughly ten million jobs and in two years eighty percent of those jobs have vanished.  President Obama may not just be shepherding us through the Great Recession, he may be shepherding us through the reprise of the Great Depression.

I am going to point something out about the total number people who are currently out of work in the United States, the cyclical unemployment rate, and structural unemployment rate.  Currently there are fifteen million people out of work; half of those people are the cyclically unemployed at 9.7%, the other half are the structurally unemployed.  The unemployment rate when the United States is considered to be at full employment is 5 percent and less, which means there are always about seven and a half million not working all of the time, also known as, the structurally unemployed.  It looks like a big figure, but the United States is the third most populous nation on earth with over three hundred million living here.

Okay, so I live in Atlanta where the unemployment rate is much higher than the national average and is expected to be one of the last areas to recover from this economic downturn.    Atlanta’s growth in the last decade was based on consumer spending, malls are over the place – shopping is a past time – real estate, and banking.  The state of Georgia has had the most bank failures in the nation at forty one of the 165 bank failures in the two year recession.  Atlanta does not have an industrial base to help lead the city out of this recession, although Atlanta never has had heavy industry.  Atlanta has, in the twenty three years I have lived here, has always been all about shopping, and malls, McMansions, urban sprawl, and making money.  It is not all gloom and doom for Atlanta, without going into the deatil, city is growing into the next Silicon Valley.  Atlanta’s future is technology and as I look for work I can see that it is.  This is a good thing to add to the portfolio.  Additionally, even with the gloom and doom, my phone is ringing for job interviews; most in the tech sector, one of which I have a face to face interview with on Monday, be it a million miles from where I live.  I also am waiting on huge business to get back with on when they plan on interviewing me for an open position there.  I hope to be back to work after this week, or very, very soon

So, I saw the jobs report come out and I wanted to know what was going on.  The United States gained 162,000 jobs.  42,000 of those jobs are temporary census workers for the 2010 census, so I am going to throw those out since the jobs will vanish for another ten years once the census is over.  So there have been a total of 120,000 jobs added.  Regular temp services added 40,000 jobs, which is a good thing.  At the start of any recession temp workers are the first to go, but are among the first to return as businesses test the recovery waters.  All job sectors either saw job gains, or remained flat, with only two sectors, finance and insurance, lost jobs.  Another indicator that the economy is starting to recover is that the number of hours worked is increasing too, instead of having hours cut, which what happens at the start of any recession.  If memory serves me correctly, that was about a three percent GDP gain for this reporting period.

This is a good start, but I am not going to fool myself.  This is just that, a start.  The unemployment rate is not expected to fall until sometime next year, with projections of it falling to 7.5% by 2012 and that it may be a total of five years from now before everyone is put back to work, although Ronald Reagan experienced the same thing.  Unemployment did not come to full employment until 15 months before his last term in office.

Of course, the Republican Party is foaming at the mouth angry over this jobs report.  It is astonishing how angry they are.  Frankly, it is unreasonably angry and angry enough for me to say this is more than about losing the health care debate, which is fueling their rage in a big way.  It is more than justified anger over a persistently high unemployment.  However, I believe that reason is another blog entry for another day.

This is a good jobs report; we just need see more of them for some time to come.

Obama, GOP spar over new jobs figures

Economy Made Few Gains in Bush Years

Bureau of Labor Statics Jobs Report

Job Market Picks Up, but Slowly

Tallying Presidential Success

President Barack Obama Signs Health Care Bill Into Law

Health Insurance Rate Hikes

Let’s Start Over

The Rest of the World Or: The Philosophy of Always Right, Never wrong, but Oh So Misunderstood.

Since WWII the US have undoubtedly held the role of world leader, at least as far as the Western hemisphere is concerned. They have helped Western Europe and Japan recover after the war, which most likely is the greatest success story in terms of foreign policy. They have fought many wars, not all of them necessary, and lost a good number of them. And that’s when it all went awry.

Wars cost a lot of money, especially when you have to fight them in some far away place, and they cost a lot of goodwill of your people when these wars are fought against a nation that has no direct relation to you and poses no direct threat. It is bad enough if you decide to fight these battles on your own – it’s your decision, and you have to live with it – but when you try to drag other, ‘friendly’ nations into this just because you can’t afford to do it on your own, then things can get ugly very quickly.

There’s a big right-wing movement in the US who feel that they’ve been abandoned by the rest of the world because we other nations did not want to participate in the war in Iraq. Against all the warnings from outsiders, resolutions from the United Nations and better judgment by all their ‘best friends’, GW Bush and his team decided that fighting one battle – more or less justified because of 9/11 – was not enough, and that they want to invade another country which had had nothing to do with it. On top of this, there was no exit strategy and no idea whatsoever about what to do once the plain battle is over. Now, almost exactly seven years later, the US budget deficit exceeds $10 trillion and is still rising, the economy is in shambles and the nationwide unemployment rate is somewhere around 10%.

The same people who always preach that you’re the master of your own fate decide to ‘not like the rest of the world anymore’, because ‘they’ve done oh so much to make the world a better place, and yet we don’t do anything to come to their help’. Well, if you really think that, try to go shopping to the local market in Baghdad and see how far it gets you (or your various limbs and other pieces of your body).

One thing that Europe has learned over the course of very bloody 1000 years of wars and battles is to not meddle with other countries any more. Similarly, Canada, the second largest nation in size with only 33mio habitants has always pursued a peaceful path. Who would they want to battle anyway? Most of all, we have learned that if you start something, you continue until the job is really done. The war in Afghanistan may have been won by 2003, but the situation was far from secure and the Taliban were still there, just biding their time to come back and hit harder. To start another war, unprovoked, was just plain silly and the surprise that nobody outside was interested in participating just plain idiotic.

Now, instead of supporting the one man who is rising to the challenge to fix the many wrongs – inside and outside the US – that GWB has caused, they do absolutely everything to torpedo him in every decision and bring him down. They rather see their own fellow Americans without Unemployment benefits and health insurance than granting their black president even the smallest chance of improving also their own situation. On top, they are angry with the rest of the world because we don’t feel like doing whatever it is that they want us to do. Oh, and the best of it: they are still angry with China, because even they were not interested in joining an idiotic war in Iraq. Well, here’s a news flash: Guess who’s holding a lot of your debts right now?

Here’s a word of advice to the right wing from a European citizen: if you don’t give a shit about the rest of the world when you’re clearly wrong, then don’t come whining to us when you’ve spilled your milk and there’s no cow in sight. Chances are that you killed it in times of aplenty, and we had told you not to do it.

Note: I am an Austrian citizen, living in Belgium, married to a Canadian, so I’ve experienced a lot of different cultures.

Then and Now

In late January of 2009 I lost my job.  It is one year later and I am still looking for work.  Of course, I am not happy about it, especially with having put myself through college a little later in life.  I was and still am expecting a little more from my degree than what I have been getting.  I switched careers right after Bush, Jr.’s recession earlier in the decade, there were still a lot of people out of work, so I had a hard time finding a professional career, but after searching doggedly from 2003 to 2006 I did find one.  In that time I did have a false start at a company that was run by two brothers who were brilliant businessmen, but two of the worst managers I have ever worked for, so with that experience in mind I trudge forward with a wary eye over my shoulder.  I look to the past for guidance in the present and the future.  Right now my experience is telling me to go back to restaurant work, like I did for a while and keep getting ready for tomorrow.

I see in the present high unemployment, but still not as high as it was when I first graduated from high school in 1981.  Two years after I graduated from high school the unemployment rate went from 7.4% to 10.8% in 1982.   Back then I was living at home with my parents, so having a job didn’t mean to me what it means to me now.  Of course now the unemployment rate is 9.7%, down from 10.2%, which is too high.  It was 7.6% in January of 2009, but it spiked immediately after that, the full impact of a near financial collapse of our banking system was taking affect.

Back then inflation skyrocketed.  It was high while I was in high school in the late 70’s and early 80’s, inflation peaked in 1981.  Interest rates were outrageous.  I can remember reading and seeing interest rates for homes as high as 25%.  The official interest for the period is 13.5%.  A person never knew how much anything would cost the next day.  We are not experiencing runaway inflation today, like we did back then, in spite of George W. Bush’s free spending ways in both of his terms, or the bank bailout, or the stimulus spending act, except by the alarmists.  There are always gloom and doomers.  Back then there was a lot of spending going on to help spur the economy; it was called the arms race with the former Soviet Union.  Back then we went from a creditor nation to a debtor nation.  We did not reverse that until status until the mid to late 1990’s. In fact, we had a surplus in 2000.  It was then reversed starting in 2002.

Back then we weren’t fighting a two front war, nor were did we come to the near financial collapse like what we faced in late 2008 through early 2009.  Back then what was needed was to break the back of inflation.  Steps were taken to do just that, and like then a lot of people lost their jobs.  Back then the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the President of the United States were called job killers.  Back then the president’s approval ratings sank to 35% two years into his first term.  He lost 27 seats in the Houses of Congress.  Now the chairman of the federal reserve and the president of the United States are getting called  nearly the same thing and like back then, the president is facing losing seats in both Houses, even with approval ratings at 49%, which are significantly lower than his honeymoon period of a year ago when it 79%, but 49% is still better than back then.  Back then by the time the 1984 election rolled around people thought the president would lose, like what is being said now about our current president for a race that is nearly three years off.

By 1984 the unemployment rate sank to 7.2% winning the president another term.  Unemployment ran high through most of that president’s two terms.  It averaged 7.5% over his two terms.  (In 1986, after not being able to find stable employment, I moved to Atlanta and worked non-stop until a year ago.  I had no idea the unemployment was 7.0% in 1986.  I would not have made the move, if I knew then what I know now.  That recession caused me to relocate.)  Right now unemployment is expected to remain at 9.7% or 9.5% and by 2012 elections fall somewhere between 6.6% and 7.5%.  Like back then and like back then unemployment is expected to not start approach what is thought to be full employment in six years.  Back then full employment was not achieved until 1989 and I suspect things will not be any different.  Back then we faced down an entire decade of cyclical inflation and recession, now we are facing down a decade of greed and ownership society.  We will move beyond this.  I believe this.

I write this for two reasons.  One I am out of work and looking for work in a flooded job market is emotionally trying.  I really do not want to return to the odd hours and hard work that restaurants offer, but I will if I have to.  I know it’s temporary.  The other reason is that today we forget our past, our recent past.  There are enough people walking around who remember back then, but I am afraid back then is remembered as the “good old days” and people being what they are will remember those days with a little bit more in focus.  I believe there is too much ill will being hurled at a human being who walked into the nation’s worst crisis since FDR walked into the Great Depression.

Paul Volker

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan Unemployment Rate.

Some Fed officials favor reeling in stimulus soon

Getting the JOB done

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is literally one year old today.  Despite the crowing of @johnboehner and House Republicans, or Senator John Cornyn who speaks out of both sides of his mouth, “it is not hypocritical for members of his party to tout projects funded by the federal stimulus project,“ the stimulation of the economy has and is continuing to work.

As I drive through Los Angeles, I see lots of the signs, “This project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”  Those are jobs, people getting up and going to work funded by the stimulus.  Listening to the President this morning, and the governor of Wisconsin afterwards, there are millions of people who are working today that wouldn’t be if the ARRA hadn’t been passed.

It’s one thing to interpret the numbers.  It’s quite another to lie about the effectiveness of legislation because you don’t like it.  The President has a job, and he’s doing it.  The Recovery Act shows that Congress can do its job, or at least it has in the recent past.  And there are millions of other people who’s jobs depend on them both continuing in that pattern.

Cornyn: It’s not hypocritical to tout stimulus

Stimulus Bill Worked

Judging Stimulus by Job Data Reveals Success