The reason the government can't make jobs.

It seems like a simple enough solution, doesn't it? People need work. Why not just make the government say that there is work? I mean, the government can make things happen. After all, the government makes laws happen, and treaties as well. What is so different about jobs?

Well, the thing that's different is that jobs are simultaneously an asset and a liability. Well, all things are in a broader sense, but in this specific case it's far more obvious. You can order a job into existence, but that costs money, like a lot of money. While there is no authoritative statement as to the actual cost per job of the Recovery Act, number range from $275,000 per job to $100,000 per job. This is, well, a little outlandish considering that the median household income is only $44,389 and median personal income is approximately $27,500.

So, if jobs are that expensive how do governments and businesses get it done under normal circumstances? Well, normally businesses only hire when the job generates more money than it costs, or sensibly supports other jobs that generate more money than they cost. Governments tend to have specific jobs to do, and work as hard as they can to get that done with the fewest number of jobs.

So, it's not that the government can't create jobs. It's that creating jobs only make sense some of the time. To prioritize the existence of a job over the reasons to have a job is to create an expensive mess. It's not so much the fact that creating a job is hard, it's the willing of a job into existence in spite of the usual reasons for doing so that made this hard.

Frankly, I think that it would be easier and more direct to use the power and money to assist people who have reason to hire to do so as opposed to a more ham handed attempt to force things to happen. How about this, give new businesses tax credits and more financing options if they create five jobs and stay in business more than a year? Maybe pair it with free entrepeneurial classes that cover how to handle the complicated parts of starting a business. This way you don't unjustly benefit the rich, you don't benefit existing businesses inequitably, race should be an utter non-issue, and above all you speed up the natural growth and reformation of the market would is happening anyways as opposed to try to force it.

The government has a role to play in the economy, but a politician cannot force the economy to do what he wants. Power is everything in politics, but it's little more than a sideshow to the economy. Using power to get the economy to do things is a recipe for pain and frustration. I don't mind that this was tried before, but I worry that no lesson was learned from it.