Joe Biden’s False Narrative About U.S. Economic Recovery

Forced-Unionism Champ Buoyed by Right to Work Employment Growth

On February 7, Big Labor Democrat politician Joe Biden seized upon the opportunity afforded him by the blanket national news coverage of his 2023

State of the Union address to make the case to the American people for why his presidency is a success, rather than the dismal failure that a growing majority of citizens perceive.

Not surprisingly, in the economics portion of his speech, the President focused on what may be the only statistical indicator that has generally looked encouraging since he moved into the Oval Office in January 2021: employment growth.

National Employment Now Above Pre-COVID Level, No Thanks to Joe Biden

Thanks to this positive trend, the number of employed people across the 50 states is now a little higher than it was in February 2020, the last month before COVID-19-related lockdowns caused nationwide employment to plummet.

The Biden White House wants Americans to believe it caused the employment-market rebound that has occurred over the past three years.

But given that the aggregate employment of the 23 forced-dues states is still significantly below where it was pre-COVID, and given that Mr. Biden has pushed throughout his presidency and continues to push for destruction of Right to Work laws in the other 27 states, it is ridiculous to believe such a thing.

As of December 2022, the last month for which the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) state-level household survey employment data were available as this Newsletter edition went to press, the combined number of employed people in forced-union-dues states was still 1.28 million below where it had been pre-COVID.

Meanwhile, the aggregate number of employed people in Right to Work states was 1.46 million above its pre-COVID level.

Anemic Employment Creation Is A Long-Term Malady For Forced-Dues States

During the later months of 2022, the employment market in states lacking Right to Work protections was actually moving in the wrong direction.

According to the BLS, the total employment for non-Right to Work states as of last December was nearly 100,000 lower than it had been in June of 2022.

But Right to Work states’ December employment was 301,000 higher than it had been early last summer.

National Right to Work Committee Vice President Greg Mourad commented:

“The relative weakness of Big Labordominated states’ employment recovery after the short, but very steep, COVID-19 recession is largely due to many union-label politicians’ stubborn resistance to ending pandemic-related restrictions on economy activity.

“Of course, it is now obvious that keeping those restrictions in effect for extended periods of time did not reduce the overall loss of lives due to COVID. In fact, it probably cost lives.

“And anemic employment creation was a problem in forced-dues states for decades before COVID.

“For example, among the 22 states that had Right to Work laws in effect for the entire decade from 2011 to 2021, employment grew by an impressive 13.2%.

“Meanwhile, the combined employment growth of the 23 states that still lack Right to Work laws today was less than half the Right to Work state average.”

Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Taxpayers’ Money Used to Prop up Big Labor

Throughout the first two years of his presidency, Joe Biden sought to snuff out the 27 state Right to Work laws that, as BLS data confirm, have played a key role in helping the U.S. remain a generally attractive place for homegrown and international businesses alike to make job-creating capital investments.

Time and again since the beginning of 2021, Mr. Biden has exhorted Congress to send to his desk the so-called “PRO” Act, a package of new privileges for powerful union bosses that he is desperately eager to sign.

The single most damaging provision in this extraordinarily destructive measure would effectively wipe out all state Right to Work laws by making the extraction of forced union fees from employees as a job condition legal nationwide.

Even though the January switchover in partisan control of the U.S. House stemming from Right to Work gains in the 2022 elections put the kibosh on the “PRO” Act for the time being, Mr. Biden called yet again for its passage during his State of the Union address a few weeks ago.

And, in order to tide over the union hierarchy until the day he can at last fulfill his 2020 campaign promise of ensuring there is “no Right to Work allowed anywhere in the country,” Mr. Biden and his allies have spent hundreds of billions of dollars in federal taxpayer money over the past two years attempting to bail out Big Labor.

For example, the so-called “American Rescue Plan” President Biden signed in March 2021 sent more than $530 billion in bailouts to state and local governments, allowing Big Labor-dominated states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California to paper over huge shortfalls in their grossly mismanaged government union pension funds.

Employers Bribed Into Acquiescing to Unionization With Taxpayers’ Money

The egregiously misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” Mr. Biden signed last summer was also stuffed with Big Labor giveways.

For example, this sweeping Tax-and-Spend bill (which many economists warned would actually increase inflation) sets a new “base tax credit” for solar and wind production of $5.20 per megawatt-hour (MWh).

But if contractors for renewable energy projects acquiesce to labor regulations that effectively ensure their employees will be unionized, they are eligible for a tax credit of $26 per MWh. That is, five times as high.

“It’s not surprising that, even as the vast majority of Americans as measured by scientific polls continued to register their disapproval for the Biden Administration after the 2023 State of the Union address, dozens of national union bosses reacted to the speech with wild enthusiasm,” said Mr. Mourad.

“Ordinary citizens correctly sense that the President’s proposals would do nothing to expand job opportunities for the American workforce as a whole or increase the real compensation of the average employee.

“But Joe Biden has something to offer for practically every imaginable variety of union boss.

“If he were genuinely committed to advancing the interests of workers, the President would be proposing a bold move in the opposite direction: elimination of the federal labor-law provisions authorizing forced union dues and fees as a job condition, so that the entire country could benefit from a Right to Work employment market.”

---

This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.

To support our cause and help end forced unionism, go here to donate.

---