Job Growth

JOB GROWTH -- (House of Representatives - January 28, 2004)

(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, to counter my friend, not in the area of football but on the issue of jobs, we all know that the economy is growing; but we continue to hear this argument that we are slow in the area of job growth.

We have seen the report yesterday of a dramatic increase in consumer confidence, the highest levels since mid-2002.
Obviously, productivity is at unprecedented levels. Investment is higher. Fifty percent of the American people are members of the investment class. And the market is over 10,600.

So the interesting thing for us to note is that as we look at this job creation issue, it is important for us to observe that what we have regularly found is that the Department of Labor's payroll survey is the one that has been reporting not tremendous job growth. We must look at the household survey, which has shown that there have been 1.9 million new jobs created during this administration since November of 2001. It is important that while this rhetoric of jobless recovery is constantly put out there, the household survey takes into consideration something that the payroll survey does not, and that is the self-employed, those who are creating jobs in the private sector on their own. So it is important for us to responsibly look at these numbers, Mr. Speaker.