Aubrey Huff and Kurt Warner returned to lead their teams to championship games.
Photo by Getty
A recent story on business skepticism about President Barack Obama's jobs plan struck me for the way companies came across as whiny—or worse.
In the article, a variety of business leaders pooh-poohed the president's plan as unlikely to boost their hiring.
Jeffery Braverman, owner of an e-commerce company that sells nuts and dried fruit, told the New York Times that the plan's proposed $4,000 credit for hiring the long-term unemployed would not spur him to hire someone. "Business demand is what drives hiring," he said.
Perhaps the demand for Braverman's dried fruit and nuts is drooping. But overall, business demand in the United States has been inching upward in recent quarters. As importantly, corporate profits have been climbing. Profits from current production increased $57 billion in the second quarter, on top of an increase of $19 billion in the first quarter.
In many cases, the revenue and earnings growth has been coming at the expense of workers. Workers who are stressed as they shoulder heavier and heavier loads.
In this context, dismissing Obama's plan, which includes cutting in half the taxes paid by businesses on their first $5 million in payroll and eliminating payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll by adding new workers' amounts to unseemly griping.
Even worse than the whining, though, is the way bias against the long-term unemployed persists. In the article, Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of computer chip-maker Nvidia, said his firm is hiring. But the jobs proposal wouldn't keep him from looking askance at the long-term jobless. "The people we hire tend not to be out of work for six months," said Huang. Instead, he told the Times, the company recruits recent graduates from the country's top engineering schools. "The guys we hire are like sports stars," he said.
Huang must never have heard of stars like Kurt Warner or Aubrey Huff—who were effectively out of work before helping to lead the National Football League's St. Louis Rams and Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants to championships. Evidence and common sense make clear that discriminating against the jobless is bad for business' and will become illegal nationwide if Obama's plan becomes law.
It's unclear whether Obama's plan, at least in its entirety, will become law. Still, it is disconcerting to see businesses react so negatively to the jobs plan. After decades of corporations complaining that government rules make it too hard to hire, here is a proposal to ease the burden significantly. Companies ought to welcome these ideas for themselves, for their workers and for the country.
