And so does the speechifying of GOP candidate for Governor Larry Hogan. He’s not pleased Maryland lost another 4,100 jobs last month.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the December jobs numbers for Maryland today. Another 4,100 people were added to Maryland’s unemployment lines last month. Larry Hogan, who has emerged as the leading potential challenger for Governor, made the following statement:
“These aren’t just numbers. These are real people. They are fathers and mothers just struggling to make ends meet, put a roof over their family’s head, food on the table, and a coat on their kids backs. It’s real people like my youngest daughter Julie and 300 of her fellow coworkers who were laid-off by a Baltimore company just last week.
O’Malley officials revealed this week that they need to borrow another $300 million from the federal taxpayers in order to prop up the Maryland Unemployment Insurance Fund. They admitted that ‘this is necessary because of the unprecedented joblessness Maryland has experienced since 2007’, meaning since O’Malley has been Governor.
The incumbent Governor recently has begun to say he cares about jobs, jobs, jobs, at several press conferences and photo ops. After today, I am sure he will throw together a press conference, or appoint another commission to study how to create more government jobs. But, no last minute campaign stunt can change the undeniable fact that this anti-business Governor has lost more jobs than any other in Maryland history.
It is time for a change. It is time we had a Governor who understood that it is the private sector that creates jobs and leads us into economic recovery – not more government. Marylanders are looking for a leader who will take action immediately to stimulate our economy and encourage businesses to start hiring again. The people of Maryland deserve better.”
Larry Hogan is the founder and owner of several small businesses in Maryland. He has emerged as the leading threat to O’Malley and has more cash on hand in his campaign account than any potential gubernatorial challenger from either party.
More and more businesses are throwing in the towel as the economic recovery continues to sputter – meanwhile, Washington spends more and more money on who-knows-what. Well, we do know that O’Malley is in line for a nine-figure bailout to balance his FY2011 budget so we can account for that little bit.
The irony is that another Washington policy presumably supported by O’Malley is making the problem with the MUIF worse. Continually extending the time period a person can collect unemployment is drying up the fund because jobseekers can now spend much more time collecting the subsidy from the state.
The MUIF balance, as most insurance funds are, is predicated on the probability that a worker will collect unemployment benefits a certain amount of the time balanced against the much longer time period his or her employers contribute to the fund. Ideally the rates are calculated to balance out or show a slight excess to the fund over the expected timeframe an employee works during his or her lifetime, and it’s adjustable based on the history of the occupation and employer.
However, these difficult economic times, coupled with the desire to continually extend the benefit period, completely play havoc with the actuarial math done to set rates. The unprecedented payout period and shortage of employers contributing to the fund have created this double whammy, and increasing the rates charged to employers to cover the shortfall only makes it more difficult for them to retain employees because their overhead costs increase. And you guessed it – that adds even more to the unemployment rolls. Can anyone say vicious circle?
On the other hand, perhaps it’s a little bit too much to ask but I’d like to know what specific changes Hogan is proposing to alleviate the problem. Certainly the O’Malley jobs record is worthy of criticism (although I’m curious if O’Malley is indeed the champion of Maryland job-losing governors) but just which policies would change under a Hogan administration, and how would he get them through a likely Democrat-controlled General Assembly? (Getting enough Republicans to sustain his vetoes would be a start, which means picking up 14 seats in the House of Delegates or 2 in the Maryland Senate, if memory serves me correctly.)
At least there’s a Republican in the race who’s calling O’Malley out – I’ll give Larry that much.
I think that businesses are hunkering down to protect their bottom line, while they try to figure out if any administration is for or against them.
The latest from my employer concerning raises drops the percent from 2 to 1 and only if said employee exceeds all criteria. We have already been told that NO ONE will exceed the criteria. So make this year’s raise a big fat 0%!
BTW, I never got last year’s 2% raise and I had a very good evaluation.
Everyone in my company has had a pay cut.
When the company you moved here to work for had to cut its workforce from 19 to 5 (with some of those 5 being reduced to part-time) in the space of 2 years, you know things are bad.
The state and national economy combined to decimate the local building industry, and it’s not getting better anytime soon.