Deficit commission plan would kill 4 million jobs, analysis finds

[Joanne98]

The preliminary deficit reduction plan recently released by the co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility would kill four million jobs over the next three years, according to a recently published analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

"Using the rule of thumb that a 1% increase in GDP increases payroll employment by 1 million jobs, we estimate that Co-Chairs’ Proposal would thus reduce payroll employment by roughly 723,000 jobs in 2012, 1.4 million jobs in 2013, and 1.9 million jobs in 2014," economists Josh Bivens and Andrew Fieldhouse said in their report, "Fiscal commissioners’ proposal would cost millions of jobs."

Bivens and Fieldhouse said in their report that the proposal drafted by former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wy.) and Erskine Bowles, President Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, plays "lip service" to future economic conditions in America.

The EPI report said that because Simpson-Bowles proposal assumes the unemployment rate will remain roughly at the current level, or perhaps higher, austerity policies and slow economic growth would create "more job losses and less deficit reduction."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/deficit-commission-plan-kill-4-million-jobs-analysis-finds/

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Well, don't worry about it.

I'm sure they will find ways to make up for the shortfall, like cutting Medicare, increasing the SS retirement age to 95 and halting wasteful unemployment benefits.