Don's Tuesday Column

       THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   4/09/2024

Round-Up—and misinformation on jobs

Residing in our Bend, Oregon, ski shack does not insulate us from Tehama County goings-on; the Daily News is only a few clicks away on the internet of things. Hence, we see the Red Bluff Round-Up approaching.

Interestingly, the Red Bluff Round-Up shows up on Bend airwaves. News segments covering the High Desert Stampede, currently (April 3-6) romping in the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center in Redmond, OR— mention that the Red Bluff Round-Up is next in line.

We attended a rodeo on our honeymoon in September, 1985, in Cloverdale, CA; our current “crowd avoidance” syndrome keeps us away from such events. I’ll never forget my own “bucking bronco” experience at a nearby dude ranch, when riding a trail horse named “Rambo” found me holding on while my steed kept bucking.

The mystery of my rambunctious bronc was solved at that rodeo when I observed that the cowboys were bending their legs and heels to contact the horses’ flanks, inducing attempts to remove said cowboy. I told Barbara, “That’s what I was doing; no wonder the horse tried to buck me off.”

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One thing never expressed in this column is a desire for people who don’t share this writer’s views to leave our beautiful county of farms, orchards, rivers, forests and mountains. I’ll leave such “eliminationist” sentiments to others; I feel we can all get along, express our beliefs, held deeply or not, and agree to disagree.

As has been stated, hundreds of thousands of Californians, from the wealthy to the more numerous middle-class, and workaday Millennials, constitute an outflow seeking more favorable economic fortunes in those supposedly despotic “red states.” They’re voting with their feet and moving vans to find greener ($-wise), and perhaps freer, states to grow future families.

Progressives who insist on fealty to the lockstep, left-leaning political establishment in Sacramento—from conservatives, a super-majority in Tehama County—would seem to be the ones out of step locally. ‘Nuff said; no literary rocks need be thrown back and forth.

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Having worked a dozen years in restaurant management, plus a prior adult life in various food services, I’m qualified to opine on the just-enacted $20 minimum wage imposed by that same Sacramento cabal of union bosses, political hacks and do-gooders.

From Taco Bells, to Arby’s, to Burger Kings, from the San Fernando Valley to Corning, Red Bluff and Redding, I’ve seen imposed minimum wage laws undermine the ability to reward the best workers by forcing the entry-level ones to be paid more than they’re worth. The new $20/hour wage—written to exempt some of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s contributors’ and relative’s businesses—is forcing reduced hours and lost jobs among those whose economic lives were supposed to be improved.

It's forcing some owners, who’ve given thousands of young people a step up the ladder of income and self-sufficiency, to close their restaurants with no notice, telling hourly and salaried employees to go home and wait for their last paychecks. There has never been a net improvement in the lives of affected workers, when those who’ve lost hours and jobs are balanced against the relatively fewer numbers who see higher paychecks. Are you willing to pay $15-$20 for a fast-food meal just to fulfill some ideologue’s idea of “fairness” for lowly workers?

On a related note, our local jobs picture is a microcosm of national data, which is interpreted by Democrat-supporting media in such “news” items as “Another month of job growth points to continued strength,” (AP article, Daily News, April 6). The “outpouring of jobs (303,000)” bolstered hopes, alright—hopes that misinformation about the economy can overcome American voters’ actual experiences in time for November’s election.

You decide if the following data supports such optimistic, “hooray for our leader” sentiments: For March, full-time jobs declined by 6,000; part-time jobs rose by 691,000. Government jobs added: 71,000; manufacturing jobs added: 0. Health care (a government adjunct) had the largest gains in the last year.

In the last 4 months, the labor market has lost 1.8 million full-time jobs (S. Pomboy). Over the last year, part-time jobs are up 7.5% while full-time jobs are down 1.35%. Part-time paychecks do not create abundance.

Over a year of monthly reports, the jobs have been quietly reduced up to 600,000; by nearly 180,000 just for recent months. Over 12 months, more than 650,000 native-born Americans have lost jobs; more than a million foreign-born workers, meanwhile, got jobs.

“Millions of New Illegal Immigrants Mask True State of US Economy,” (Theepochtimes.com) states the BLS figures showing that immigrants—legal and illegal—gained 3.4 million jobs over 4 years, while U.S.-born workers lost 78,000 jobs. As of March, 31 million immigrant workers made up nearly 20 percent of the labor force; about 9 million of those are illegally present (Camarota, Center for Immigration Studies).

Contrary to Biden’s claimed “15 million new jobs,” per BLS: Native-Born Employment is over 5 million jobs below the pre-pandemic 10-year trend-line; Foreign-Born Employment is roughly a million jobs above that same trend. A “bug” or a feature? A “glitch,” or a trend designed to punish American workers?