The Great Job Debate
The Indianapolis Mayoral race is focusing on jobs with both Greg Ballard and Melina Kennedy staking out their positions. Melina has tried to argue that Indianapolis has lost 35,000 since Ballard took office, although she told WIBC the number was 21,000 jobs. The Mayor, who unveiled his job plan today, has argued the city has had more job commitments in the 2010 than it did from 2002-2006, although some of those jobs won’t materialize for a few years. So who is a voter to believe?
Like a lot of things in this world, where you sit depends on where you stand. Melina cites Bureau of Labor Statistics that employment in the greater Indianapolis area (not Marion County proper) dropped a percentage point from June 2010 to June 2011. The Mayor cites those same sources as Indianapolis area unemployment rate dropping twice as fast as the national average going from 9.1 percent in July 2010 to 8 percent in July 2011, although there 2,900 fewer people working in June 2011 than May 2011.
Melina has hinted that the Mayor’s increase in fees for business is partially to blame. However she fails to acknowledge (either by choice or by accident) that prior to certain business fees being increased, 98% of the city’s population was paying for services that on 2.5% of the people actually used. Now those fees fully cover the costs of the services. And the Mayor has only recently found his footing in answering that attack that easy for the average citizen to understand.
But back to the jobs question. As I said before, where you sit depends on where you stand. If you’re out of work, your unemployment rate is 100%. I personally think Melina would have more traction on the job issue if Indianapolis, just like Indiana and the rest of the country wasn’t in the middle of a national (soon to be double-dip) recession. According to the BLS, up until the bottom started to fall out of the economy in 2008, Indianapolis saw 27,000 jobs created in the first half of 2008. And there are 26,000 more people working today than there were at the beginning of the year. Anyone can make numbers say anything they want them to. For example you could argue when Melina was in charge of economic development for the Peterson administration, the city lost 17,000 jobs. The real fight is one of perception. Do the voters think times are still tough, yes. Do they think Indianapolis is on the brink of Armageddon, no, but we haven’t seen all the campaign commercials either. Time to get back to work.
