Jobs - Guiding Principle:
The most effective way to create and keep U.S. based jobs is to seek out and eliminate the barriers that limit U.S. based employer profitability.
Private capital, like water, follows the path of least resistance. That path leads investors to those opportunities where they believe they can earn the greatest return on their investment with the least amount of risk.
The most important relationship between jobs and capital is a simple one. Jobs follow capital.
Continuing with our water metaphor, private capital primes the pump of an economic venture by covering the initial costs until the economic activity generated by the business can sustain itself. As long as the activity produces a satisfactory return on investment for the investors, the resulting jobs and economic growth continue. The risk-reward nature of private capital ensures that investors and entrepreneurs closely monitor their capital and make pro-active, self-correcting decisions. As relevant facts change, the profit-motivated stakeholders make the necessary adjustments to protect their investments.
Conversely, government spending is rarely as economically efficient as private capital investment. Government spending is not motivated by profits but rather by political incentives. Without a profit motive, government spending is economically inefficient, poorly monitored, unresponsive to changing conditions, not self-perpetuating, and often politically unsustainable once scrutinized by the taxpayers. Once the government funds dry up, the economic activity and the jobs those funds created disappear.
Although government funded economic activity is less efficient than private capital, the role of government is none-the-less crucial to the success of free markets. Governments foster free markets and private capital formation when they:
- Ensure that all stakeholders (Investors, Employers, Employees, Creditors, Suppliers, and Customers) have access to the material facts that might influence their investment or other stakeholder decisions. (Transparency and Score keeper)
- Set clear regulations as to what are and are not acceptable behaviors and the punishments for violating the rules. (Rule Maker, Reduce Uncertainty)
- Enforce the regulations swiftly, vigorously, consistently, and impartially. (Referee)
Job Burden - Defined:
It costs more to create and maintain jobs in America than it does in any other country. Our disproportionate costs cause U.S. firms to outsource existing jobs while inhibiting entrepreneurs and foreign firms from setting up shop within our shores. As foreign governments make it increasingly easier and more profitable for American businesses to set up shop on their soil, we make it increasingly more difficult and less profitable to do the same in America. If we remain the most job unfriendly country in the world – we will fail!
Many of the costs that U.S. employers incur do not add value to the goods produced or the services offered but instead exist to support government mandated and societal driven social safety-net programs. Businesses have simply evolved as a convenient medium from which to collect the funds needed to operate these social safety-net programs. Conversely, foreign governments impose a significantly smaller cost structure on their businesses. This means foreign produced goods can be sold in America and around the world cheaper than American produced goods. This simple fact has been costing Americans their jobs since globalization began in earnest some forty years ago.
Because of their negative impact on jobs, we refer to these non-business related costs as the Job Burden. Each country has its own Job Burden, which we define as follows.
The Job Burden is the collection of legal, market and societal imposed costs on a nation’s businesses that do not add value to the goods produced or the services provided by those businesses.
Historic Perspective:
After the ravages of World War II when the manufacturing capabilities of the rest of the world lay in ruin, the United States transformed its relatively unscathed and vastly expanded wartime production capacity into the world’s sole manufacturing super power. Competing for scarce labor and persuaded by the demands of organized labor, American businesses absorbed the costs for employee benefits such as healthcare and pensions. Since U.S. production dominated the world, profits continued and the U.S. economy continued to grow. Nevertheless, we were planting the seeds for the economic problems we face today. As America prospered, she had the luxury to reflect on her historic social injustices and the economic imbalances often attributed to capitalism. During the 1960s, a revitalized Social-Progressive movement returned to power and instituted additional programs that applied their version of social justice through various regulations and wealth redistribution techniques. Proponents of these programs successfully convinced a naïve public that much of the costs of these programs would be borne by business. Again, since America was still the world’s production giant and since she more or less applied her new business costs and regulations equally across an industry, the increased costs did not materially effect profits and so America continued to grow. When globalization began rolling out in earnest some forty years ago, the imbalance between the U.S. job burden and those of our foreign competitors was regarded as little more than a nuisance. However, over the last couple of decades that nuisance has not just cost America jobs but entire industries. Our policies have systematically replaced the American made products that once dominated the world’s markets with foreign made goods. Over the last forty years, we have lost industry after industry to the concerted efforts of foreign governments, often with the aid of questionable U.S. trade policies. Some of the industries that America once dominated that today have either vanished or diminished include steel, energy, plastics, electronics, white goods, brown goods, computers, automobiles, apparel, furniture, home goods, lumber and more recently food production. We lose our best jobs and place our safety-net programs at risk in exchange for cheaper foreign goods – what a deal!
Save the Golden Goose:
One way to portray private sector job creators is to compare them to the fabled “Goose that lays the golden eggs”. While the job creators symbolize the goose, the golden eggs denote the jobs they create. Until we unshackle our employers from uncompetitive, non-product related costs, the United States will continue to hemorrhage jobs and industries to the rest of the global economy. It is a simple formula: The more we ask our businesses to pay for our social programs and other non-business related costs, the more jobs we will lose to foreign competitors who are eager to keep their costs down and take our jobs. In essence, we are purposefully killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Why? Consider recent Congressional actions either passed into law or pending Congressional action e.g. PPACA (Obama Care), Cap & Trade, Financial Regulations. Each of these programs adds significantly to the job burden and forces more jobs overseas. The question that every American should ask is “why is Congress killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?” Attempts by some in Congress to “shame” American business leaders who outsource or relocate to less costly shores as “un-American” are ridiculous demagoguery. By definition, capital must follow the path of least resistance or risk being lost. It would be a violation of a business leader’s fiduciary responsibility not to do everything in their power to maximize the return on any owner’s capital investment, even if that means going offshore. It is the responsibility of Congress to ensure that investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders do not perceive their best opportunities lie offshore. Any Congressperson who does not understand and accept these fundamental economic truths is not qualified to set economic policy for a country founded on free-market principles.
You Already Pay
The dirty little secret about the job burden is that businesses do not actually pay for our safety net programs or any other Job Burden cost – they never did. In order to stay in business every business must increase the price of their products to cover all their costs, including all their taxes and any other job burden cost, and we, the consumer, pay for these costs when we purchase their products. The resulting increased prices drive our job creators overseas because they simply cannot compete if they continue to make their products in America. See Who Really Pays for the Job Burden.
Consider the irony. Some political interest group wants some new safety-net benefit or regulation but knows that Americans will not want to pay for it so our politicians and news media convince us that our businesses will pay for it. But in reality, business can’t pay for anything. All business can do is collect money from their customers to pay their suppliers, employees and other obligations and hopefully end up with a profit for their investors. In order to pay for the new benefit, all else being equal, the business must increase its prices. The increased prices allows a foreign competitor, not subject to the increased benefit cost, to offer a similar product at a cheaper price and poof; there go the American based jobs along with the means for contributing to all our safety-net programs, not just the new one. You would think that after making that mistake a couple of times; we would have learned how counter-productive it is to think that our businesses pay for our safety net, taxes or other job burdens. But year after year, Congress after Congress, we the people continue to allow our elected representatives to make that same mistake.
What are some of the costs that make up the U.S. Job Burden?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) keeps track of the cost components of the various U.S. business sectors. We analyzed the 2009 business sector named the “Consolidation of U.S. Goods Producing Industries[1]” – better known as manufacturing.
U.S. Manufacturing
Total Compensation per Hour Worked[2] $32.35
The BLS includes a number of Job Burden costs in the above compensation figure.
Ø Payroll Taxes: $2.91 per hour worked or 12% of base payroll[3] for legally required benefits. These include Social Security; Medicare; Federal Unemployment Insurance; State Unemployment Insurance and Worker’s Compensation. This figure represents only the employer paid portion for these programs, not the employee paid component.
Ø Insurance Premiums: $3.03 per hour worked or 12% of base payroll in employer paid Insurance costs of which health insurance premiums account for over 93%. The other types of corporate paid employee insurance include life insurance, short-term disability and long-term disability insurance. Again, we are only discussing the employer paid portion, not the employee paid portion.
Ø Pension Plans: $1.44 per hour or 6% of base labor for company paid retirement and savings (e.g. pension plans and 401K plans).
The job burden amounts above total $7.38 per hour worked or 30% of base labor.[4] An additional thirty percent for every labor dollar is a huge burden to add to the selling price of American made goods. Moreover, if that were not enough, we are just getting started with the U.S. job burden.
In addition to the business paid portion of our social safety-net programs, we must add the business paid state, local and federal income taxes. In recent years, most major nations have reduced their statutory corporate income tax rates. Of the 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 27 have cut their general corporate income tax rates since 2000, with an average cut of more than 7 percentage points.[5] The U.S. effective rate of 35 percent is the highest in the OECD, and is 15 percentage points higher than the OECD average of 20%. China’s effective tax rate is less than half ours at 16 percent[6]. Just like any other cost, businesses must pass along their income taxes to their customers in the form of higher prices. So, after paying the worlds highest payroll taxes, Insurance premiums and pension plan costs, which business pays regardless of their profit or loss, if a U.S. based business can make a profit, it must pay the worlds highest income taxes. Of course, they can always decide to set up shop overseas and export their goods to America cheaper than they can make them here. The result: We lose our best paying manufacturing jobs as well as their contributions to our safety-net programs.
Wait – there’s more. How much does it cost our businesses to account for, manage and try to minimize U.S. job burden costs? Our businesses employ scores of tax accountants and a bevy of tax lawyers just to keep track of and minimize the costs of the wide array of ever changing state, local and federal tax laws. Furthermore, American businesses allocate significant portions of their Payroll and Personnel departments to administer the various tax schemes and the prolific number of unique health insurance plans and other benefit programs. Then there are the manual and computerized systems, procedures, documentation and training programs that must address the assorted taxing authorities and various benefit plans. Once again, the consumer pays for these programs through higher prices. Well, at least until the employer moves his operations overseas where he can reduce his costs and all you lose is your job – but at least those imported jogging shoes are cheaper.
We are not done yet. On top of the costs outlined so far, we have foisted an onerous set of state and federal regulations upon American employers but not their foreign competitors. Many of the regulation compliance costs, depending on industry, are formidable, even cost prohibitive. The AUP is not against business regulations that serve a valid purpose such as those that benefit work-place safety or the environment. What we reject and what all Americans should reject is any regulation that applies to U.S. based employers but not equally to foreign-based employers who compete with U.S. based jobs and sell their products in the U.S. E.g. oil production (drilling) and refining; lumber, steel, ship building – the list is large. Putting aside the ideological debate over free trade vs. fair trade, when American law kills American jobs and then we import those same goods, that is not free trade or fair trade. That is just a bad trade.
Pro-Labor or Pro-Business:
AUP supporters are often asked if we consider ourselves pro-business or pro-labor, as though all Americans are forced to choose between one and the other. We contend the basic premise is flawed. The Americans United Party supports the American people and argues that all Americans should support both business and labor. We view American labor as America’s team in the worldwide competition to attract jobs to America. All Americans must provide our team with every advantage in that competition, not tie our hands behind our back.
Historically, labor and business were natural antagonists as each tried to derive more power at the expense of the other. Evolving political parties, prior to globalization, invariably favored one contingent or the other and therefore attracted members who were either pro-labor or pro-business. Typically, Democrats attract pro-labor and pro-union members while Republican interests more closely align with business leaders, capitalists and investors.
In this global economy, we must rethink those traditional strategies and allegiances. U.S. labor, whether union or not, blue collar or white, management or individual contributor, must recognize that Americans are in competition for jobs that could be based anywhere in the world. Americans must recognize that the once valiant struggle between labor and business is now counter productive to our national interests in a globalized world. Our labor team, which consists of any American who wants to work, must commit to winning the global competition for jobs. We must provide employers, both foreign and domestic, with a reason to invest their capital in America and to create their jobs in America. We have said it before but it is important enough to say it again - if we remain the most job unfriendly country in the world – we will fail!
Global Labor:
An alternative organizing structure confronting U.S. labor is to unite globally. The Americans United Party believes strongly that this would be a disastrous strategy for America and her workers. American workers still maintain one of the world’s highest standards of living. If American workers want to reduce their standard of living to that of a yet to be determined world average, then joining a world labor movement would certainly accomplish that goal. If, on the other hand, American workers want America to maintain her standard of living leadership role, then the strategy must be one of how best to entice jobs to American shores. The best way to do that is to eliminate the job burden.
Labor must become pro-business:
Profitable businesses are the only economic growth engine we have. The jobs those profitable businesses produce are the most effective way for Americans to contribute to and benefit from that growth engine. As a labor force, we must develop an approach to entice employers to bring their jobs here not punish them with costs and regulations that reduce their profits and force them to friendlier shores. We must set about to restore America as the most job friendly country in the world. Our politicians, labor unions and special interest groups must unite under this unified American national self-interest. The only way to “jobs, jobs, jobs” is to help business and capital be more profitable here than anywhere else. It is long past time for all Americans to demand that our political, business and labor leadership understand that we will not tolerate further attempts to pit labor against business.
The Best of Both Worlds:
Eliminating the Job Burden does not mean we have to relinquish the gains made by organized labor. On the contrary, the AUP wants to protect and even enhance the quality of work life gains that organized labor has achieved over the years. In fact, we want to take it a step further. We want all Americans to benefit from the protections forged by organized labor, not just a select few. Our philosophy in this regard is simple: As a nation, we can have any safety-net program, benefit plan or quality of work-life standard we want! All we have to do is pay for it! And, equally important, we must guard against attempts by our politicians and special interest groups to hide or postpone the costs of our programs in various tax and debt schemes that eventually come back to bite us and put our nation’s financial future at risk.
What we have to do is stop pretending that our businesses pay for any of these programs and recognize that we pay for them as consumers. Once we recognize this fundamental economic truth, we can free our businesses from the job burden, which will lead to the creation of American based jobs so we can pay for our safety-net programs through our purchases.
National Retail Sales Tax: (Safety-Net Tax)
So then, if we do not want our businesses to pay for our safety-net programs and other job burden costs because it kills our jobs, and yet we still want to keep our safety-net programs, what then is the best way to pay for our programs? Although not without problems – and any tax plan has problems, the Americans United Party believes that a National Retail Sales Tax (NRST) designed specifically to protect the poor and the safety-net is the fairest, most efficient, effective and economically prudent method for funding our social safety-net programs. We have named our National Retail Sales Tax the Safety-Net Tax. Before you roll your eyes at the thought of another tax, consider the objectives and constraints placed on the Safety-Net Tax when compared to the job killing devastation of the job burden.
Safety-Net Tax Objectives:
Ø Revenue Neutral: The Safety-Net Tax is not a tax increase. It is revenue neutral. The law that establishes the Safety-Net Tax limits the revenues collected to those of the job burden costs it transfers from businesses.
Ø Unavailable for Loans: The main reason why Social Security is in financial trouble today is because Congress has borrowed the over $2 Trillion in surplus that taxpayers have paid into Social Security and used it for other purposes. The statute prevents Congress from borrowing the funds raised through the Safety-Net tax for any purpose – ever. The funds raised can only pay the costs of the safety-net programs defined by the statute.
Ø Eliminate the Job Burden: Whereas consumers already pay for the job burden in the form of increased prices, the Safety-Net Tax will eliminate the Job Burden without increasing aggregate costs to consumers. Caution: There will no doubt be individual products and services whose prices plus the safety-net tax may exceed the previous price alone for some time for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons for the Pre-bate discussed below is to address those imbalances.
Ø Reduce the price consumers pay: Freeing employers from the job burden will allow them to eliminate the support costs associated with those programs and thereby allow U.S. employers to be more efficient vis-a-vie their foreign competition.
Ø Pre-bate payments to all adult Americans: All U.S. domiciled, non-incarcerated American citizens over the age of 21, regardless of income level or employment status would receive weekly payments from the Federal Government called the Safety-Net Tax pre-bate. The amount of the pre-bate would equal the average Safety-Net Tax paid for the cost of a minimal standard of living basket of necessities. This feature of the plan insulates the poor from any perceived economic disadvantage while simplifying and thereby minimizing the administrative costs of the plan, while removing any stigma associated with a pre-bate directed only to the poor. The pre-bate makes the Safety-Net Tax far more progressive and much better for the working and non-working poor than the employee paid payroll taxes and the job burden costs that are currently imbedded in the price of goods and services.
Ø No Marriage Penalty: The actual pre-bate formula will compute payments for the individual not the household thus ensuring there is not a marriage, family or other co-habitation penalty.
Ø Replace Pay-As-You-Go entitlement funding: AUP entitlement reform replaces pay-as-you-go funding for Social Security and Medicare with pre-funding at birth. Our pre-funding plans eventually reduce the costs of entitlement funding and eventually significantly reduce the corresponding Safety-Net Tax rate. See American Birth Contribution Plans.
Ø Automatic Consumer Savings: Future cost-savings from safety-net program improvements such as those prescribed by the American Birth Contribution plans for Social Security and Medicare will, by statute, automatically reduce the Safety-Net Tax rate.
Ø Rate increases require a public vote: The proposed law prohibits Congress from increasing the Safety-Net Tax rate-range without public approval via a national referendum.
Ø Program cost increases or new programs require a public vote: The proposed law prohibits Congress from increasing the current or future costs or benefits of any existing program or any new program without public approval via a referendum.
Ø New Fiscal Tool: Congress will delegate plus or minus 3 percentage points of the Safety-Net Tax rate to the Federal Reserve Board. This provides the FRB with a powerful fiscal tool to complement their Prime Rate monetary tool. [DEBATE]. The FRB would employ this power periodically to help regulate the U.S. economy.
The Safety-Net Tax vs. the Fair Tax
HR25, better known as the Fair Tax Act, has been pending action by Congress since 2009. You can learn the details of the Fair Tax proposal along with other information about the Fair Tax at www.FairTax.org.
The Safety-Net Tax is similar to the Fair Tax proposal but differs in several fundamental ways.
1. The Fair Tax replaces all Federal income and payroll taxes for individuals, businesses and government. The Safety-Net Tax does the same except it does NOT replace the individual income tax. However, under a separate proposal, the AUP recommends replacing Individual income taxes with either the Fair Tax or a simplified flat tax.
2. The Fair Tax does not include a number of job burden costs such as healthcare premiums and pension plans. The Safety-Net Tax includes these and other job burden costs. In fact, the proposed law would make it illegal for any U.S. based employer to provide any of its U.S. based employees with any type of health care, pension plan or other identified job burden costs. See American Catastrophic Health Insurance (ACHI) and AUP – Pensions for solutions that cover all Americans while allowing U.S. based employers to compete globally.3. The elimination of the business portion of payroll taxes by the Fair Tax will reduce a significant portion of the job burden and would no doubt generate significant positive economic benefits. However, the Fair Tax is intended to make April 15th just another day by eliminating the federal income tax and repealing the 16th amendment. The primary purpose of the Safety-Net Tax is to transfer the job burden costs from employers to an alternative funding mechanism that will immediately make American labor more cost competitive and thereby increase jobs without damaging our safety net programs.
Is the Safety-Net Tax a Value Added Tax – VAT?
The Safety-Net Tax is not a value added tax and the Americans United Party strongly opposes any VAT tax for any reason. The Safety-Net Tax is a national retail sales tax paid entirely by the final consumer and not paid by any business in performing its business. With a sales tax, the consumer’s receipt shows the total amount of tax paid. This allows consumers to see the cost of a product vs. the cost of government. A VAT tax is a tax added to each step of a manufacturing and distribution chain and added to the price of the product as it improves from business to business. The consumer price tag includes, yet obscures, the accumulated taxes. Consumers do not see the taxes baked into the price they pay. A VAT tax allows governments and politicians to hide the actual tax paid at the cash register. A sales tax on the other hand is an “honest tax” because it shows the consumer-taxpayer the real tax they pay. Furthermore, a retail sales tax is less complicated for business, less susceptible to fraud, and hence less costly to the economy.
How to Implement the Safety-Net Tax:
The Fair Tax authors have completed most of the design effort required for the Safety-Net Tax. The Safety-Net Tax would adopt those plans as they relate to such things as State Sales Tax retail collections and remittances along with pre-bate administration, computation of the sales tax rate and many other activities better left for a detailed implementation plan.
One way to think about how to transfer the actual Job Burden costs from employers to a National Retail Sales Tax mechanism is to evaluate each program supported by a burden, develop an independent proposal that specifically addresses the goals of that program, and transfer the costs to the national sales tax as we rollout each program. That is certainly a viable approach. However, we recommend a more expeditious approach that accelerates the economic benefits while minimizing risks and economic disruption.
Phase I: Transfer the Safety-Net Job Burden Costs:
1. Payroll Taxes: This step transfers the entire payroll-tax-collection mechanism to the Safety-Net Tax mechanism. The major milestones include; relieve businesses from close to $1 trillion in annual costs, initiate the pre-bate payment mechanisms; state-collection mechanisms; Federal distributions to state run programs like Medicaid and Unemployment. See Safety-Net Tax Implementation Plan: Payroll Taxes.
2. ACHI: Implement the American Catastrophic Health Insurance (ACHI) transition plan. The major milestones include; all Americans covered under either ACHI or Medicare; free business from health related costs. Monitor and Audit ACHI; implement ACHI Grandfather Phase; transfer State Medicaid programs to ACHI. Note: ACHI includes Medicaid but not Medicare. See Safety-Net Tax Implementation Plan: ACHI.
3. ABC-Social Security: Implement the American Birth Contribution Plan – Social Security transition plan. The ABC-Social Security Plan replaces today’s pay-as-you-go funding of Social Security with pre-funding at birth. See Safety-Net Tax Implementation Plan: ABC – Social Security.
4. ABC-Medicare: Implement the transition plan for the American Birth Contribution Plan – Medicare. The ABC-Medicare Plan replaces today’s pay-as-you-go funding of Medicare with pre-funding at birth. Note: The state portion of Medicaid would have transferred as part of the transition to ACHI. See Safety-Net Tax Implementation Plan: ABC- Medicare.
5. ABC-Pension: Implement the transition plan for the American Defined-Contribution Pension Plan. See Safety-Net Implementation Plan: ABC - Pension
6. Federal Income Taxes: Implement the transition plan to transfer federal business income taxes to the Safety-Net Tax.
Phase II: Level the Trade Balance Playing Field:
At this point, we have transferred most of the safety-net programs and business taxes to the Safety-Net Tax. Motivated by profits and competition, businesses would strive to eliminate the programs that previously supported the obsolete job burden programs. The purpose of Phase II is to level the global market playing field. Phase II would implement a series of import taxes designed to offset those regulation compliance costs incurred by U.S. based employers that do not apply equally to foreign firms. This will be a sensitive area that if not handled carefully may result in undesired trade conflicts between nations. The objective is simple and should be kept in mind as we tackle each unique situation. For environmental regulations: We should not import products that harm the planet more than we allow at home. If we do, then we should levy an import tax that would enable a U.S. based firm to restore the planet to a state equal to what our production regulations would achieve even if the foreign country would not allow the U.S. based firm to make the corrections. It is important to note that the funds collected would NOT to be sent to the foreign firm or country to be used to make the environmental corrections. The tax would allow the U.S. firm to compete and maintain the environmental standards. For other regulations: We should ensure imports address the same issues as our regulations or impose an import duty equal to the U.S. based cost to achieve the desired benefit. Regardless or the type of regulation, we must ensure that this concept isn’t used to protect American manufacturers from more efficient foreign production processes.
Sense of the Congress:
We request that Congress immediately commit to eliminating the job burden and reconsider any pending or future legislation that would add to the job burden and further impede job creation. We request that both houses of Congress declare a “Sense of the Congress” advising the world that the United States is committed to eliminating the U.S. job burden and is once again “Open for Business”. This simple act will immediately reduce the economic uncertainty that is crippling business expansion and restraining job creation. The short-term benefits derived from such a statement can only be sustained if the Legislative and Executive branches of the U.S. Federal Government follow through on their commitment and eliminate the job burden.
Summary:
Globalization has thrust us into a ruthless economic competition with the rest of the world. They want what we have! They do not care if they get it by “raising all boats in a rising tide” or if they have to reduce our standard of living in order to raise theirs. All Americans must rise to the challenge. We can no longer afford to have our political parties and news media pit labor and business against one another or allow our various ideologies to get in the way of sound economic policies. As a labor force, we must recognize that we need American based jobs and we must do everything in our power to entice employers and investors, both foreign and domestic, to create jobs in the U.S. and utilize American labor. We will not do that by vilifying big business, fomenting class warfare, over-taxing and over-regulating our businesses or continuously increasing the costs to conduct business in America. As a government of we the people, we must recognize that private enterprise jobs, mainly manufacturing jobs are the only way to achieve and maintain prosperity. We cannot tax our way to prosperity and government cannot spend its way out of an unsustainable national debt. We can reclaim our economic leadership post but only if we commit to undo the harm caused by the job burden.
[1] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – Economic News Release Table 1: Civilian Workers dated September 2009; U.S. Goods Producing Industries:
[2] http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/print.pl/news.release/ecec.t01.htm
[3] ($32.35 - $7.38 = $24.97 base labor cost. Payroll Taxes/Base Labor Cost = % of base labor = $2.91/$24.97 = 12%.
[4] ($32.35 - $7.38 = $24.97 base labor cost. Job Burden/Base Labor Cost = % of base labor = $7.38/$24.97 = 30%.
[5] http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb_62.pdf
[6] http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb_62.pdf
