The Cost of Austerity: 3 Million Jobs

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Here is the Congressional Budget Office’s latest estimate of the economic benefit of eliminating sequestration:

Those changes would increase the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.7 percent and increase the level of employment by 0.9 million in the third quarter of calendar year 2014 (the end of fiscal year 2014) relative to the levels projected under current law.

Spending cuts and tax increases since 2011 have cut the deficit by about $3.9 trillion over the next ten years. The sequester accounts for $1.2 trillion of that, about a third of the total. So a rough horseback guess suggests that the total effect of our austerity binge has been a GDP reduction of 2 percent and an employment reduction of nearly 3 million.

If the economy were running at full capacity, deficit slashing wouldn’t have this effect. It would be perfectly appropriate policy. Unfortunately, Republicans don’t believe in cutting spending during good times and increasing it during bad times. They believe in cutting it during Democratic presidencies and increasing it during Republican presidencies. That might not be so great for people who wish they had jobs right now, but then, that’s never been the party’s goal in the first place.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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