Government Projects do not “Create Jobs”

August 19th, 2008 10:55 am  |  by  |  Published in Big Government, Constitution, Economics, jobs, Liberty, Politics  |  0

Isaac M. Morehouse posted an article over at the Ludwig von Mises Institute discussing the fallacious argument that the government can “create jobs” with expensive programs, in the sense that these programs create wealth:

State projects may create jobs, but the proper question is, do they create wealth? The state could easily reduce Michigan’s unemployment to 0% by mandating that every unemployed citizen shovel dirt on some state project without pay. Employment alone is not a good indicator of economic success; overall wealth is. Even if state spending can “create jobs,” creating jobs alone does nothing for our state’s overall prosperity or standard of living.

The question then becomes, do state projects, as the ad claimed, “boost our economy”? The answer is no.

Read the article here.

Leave a Response

You must be logged in to post a comment.