Barney Frank: “I am here to talk about a very serious economic and, therefore, social problem facing the country. We talk about the…”

“I am here to talk about a very serious economic and, therefore, social problem facing the country. We talk about the unemployment statistics, we talk about the ebb and flow in the job market, and the particulars are important. But by now we have enough evidence over the past several years so that we should be focusing not on month-by-month figures, but on what appears to be a very significant change in the nature of our economy. Indeed, I think we may be at a major inflection point. I hope I am too pessimistic. I hope tomorrow there are going to be figures that show much greater growth in employment than we have seen. But even a good one month is not going to undo the problem we are facing. Here is the problem: we have had a recovery from a recession over the past couple of years. In 2003 in particular, in the third quarter we had very significant growth, aided by a series of government programs and the natural cyclical rebound from a period of slowdown, and we had growth in the fourth quarter. What we have not seen is the growth in employment that ordinarily accompanies this degree of economic recovery. In short, it appears from a variety of indicia that we are at a point where the ability of the private sector in this country to create wealth is now outstripping its ability to create jobs.”