July Jobs Analysis: More Spending, Restrictions from Congress Won’t Help

The U.S. economy added 943,000 jobs in the month of July, with a decline in unemployment to 5.4 percent according to government numbers released today. Competitive Enterprise Institute experts said lawmakers can aid further recovery not by spending or imposing mandates and restrictions but in finding ways to remove barriers to work.

CEI Research Fellow Sean Higgins:

“The Labor Department reported Friday that 5.2 million persons reported not working in July because their employer closed or lost business due to the pandemic, down from 6.2 million in June. It’s encouraging that the dramatic one-month decline in the number of people seeking unemployment benefits – one million fewer people – exceeds the 943,000 in new jobs the government reported for the month of June. The evidence is starkly clear that for the economy to recover we simply need to let people get back to work. Additional spending isn’t necessary and new restrictions to counter the Delta variant will only imperil the economy’s recent gains.

CEI Senior Fellow Ryan Young:

“Clearly, people do not need another spending binge from Congress to find work. If anything, Congress’ spending will cause active harm by using up investment capital that instead could have gone to startups that need it to grow, hire, and adapt to COVID-era conditions.

“The recovery’s biggest obstacle, besides Congress, remains vaccine hesitancy. While the vaccination rate is now over 70 percent, that is clearly not enough to keep the delta variant from spreading. Mandated or not, masks and various degrees of lockdown will simply be a part of life until people get vaccinated. That should be the top recovery priority.

“While there is only so much Congress can or should do to address vaccine hesitancy, there is plenty else they can do. Lawmakers should loosen occupational licenses, lift trade barriers, make project permitting requirements swift and reasonable, direct agencies to scrub outdated regulations, and keep inflation in check. These measures would help far more people than would adding to the national debt.”