we want to be thoughtful as senator cruz says not to endanger the united states in any way but to do our part to deal with a worldwide problem which he appreciates more than any any of us could on this panel. so those who have given up on this institution i hope today's hearing is an indication that sometimes we do move in the right direction even if we have different starting places. if there are no further comments from our panel i want to thank the witnesses for attending and her colleagues for participating and the hearing stands adjourned. ..

>> morning, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for being here today on this icy, rainy morning. i am pleased to introduce jeffrey snow, the new director of the sexual prevention office. he is joined by an expert and a doctor from the defense man power data center.

general snow is going to make remarks and we will open the floor to questions. they are happy to answer questions. please state your name and media organization before asking your question and we have 30 minutes. the floor is yours. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. i am jeff snow and i am the director of the sexual defense response office. i feel lucky to be joined by my esteem esteemed colleagues. we released the report from 2012-2013. i will take a few minutes to share highlights of the report. this report provides an

assessment of the quality program, statistical data and the focus of cadets, faculty and staff. before i get into the the specifics of the report, i want to make one point clear: sexual assault is a crime and has no place at the academy or the arms forces. the academy develops the future and we have to foster a climate of respect. cadets must be empowered with the courage to take action in situations of sexual assault, sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior. each of the services were found

to be compliant for the school year that started in june of 2012 and ended in may of 2013. the academy's initiatives enhance training, improve awareness and promote a safe environment for all cadets. the measures are detailed in the report and we can address the specifics if you have follow up questions. reports of sexual assault decreased at 2 of the three academy. because there is no prevailing

rate for the previous year, the department cannot determine if the increase was due to fewer assaults occurring or due to fewer victim's opting to report. rates of unwanted sexual contact and harassment will be updated via survey conducted later this year. faculty and staff participated in focus groups and during the groups participants believed the reports would be taken seriously and dealt with appropriately. that is good. cadets also identified peer pressure as a barrier to reporting. that is not good. both the academic year that concluded in may and the intervening period we have seen

emergency petraeused on the sexual assault and prevention response programs. -- placed -- there is more work to be done. it is critical to embrace respect for all. to continue the important work, secretary hagel has directed the following initiatives. first to insure unit of effort and purpose, the superintendents will have prevention and response and strategic plans aligned with the respected service plans. second, to improve the affect e effectiveness of policy they will have tools to evaluate and

report progress, prevention and response. third, to increase the victim confidence associated with reporting the superintendents must develop things that cause peers not to fear social retaliation and provide them with the skills and knowledge to strengthen their ongoing mentorship programs. four, to further increase the impact of the criminal behavior, they will learn the objectives and put them into the curriculum.

they will review and expand

acadimies. they student on student as well? or faculty on student? >> let me take the first part and i will have the others speak tr the second. in the case of the united states military academy, they decreased from five. there were 15 in 11-12. and that went to 10 in academic program 12-13. in the case of the naval academic they increased by two.

they went from 13 to 15. and the air force academy went done to 45. and nate talk on the second problem. >> the majority of the reports that involved cadets were just between them. we had only one instance of faculty member involved in a case of abusive, sexual contact at the naval academy. >> courtney from nbc news. two questions: do you have data for the navy academy since the numbers went up -- whether there was an increase in female

midshipman? is the percentage up for men versus women? and can you give us a rough idea of how you are defining sexual assault for this report? it is it more than rape? categories, please. >> the first answer is we know in the case reports that sexual assault in an underreported crime. we want to increase the numbers of those reporting. i will let nate talk. >> the number of women at the academy are about the same as before, but to be accurate you can check with their officer to be exact. the second part of the question? >> how you are defining sexual assault in the report. >> reporter: sexual assault represents a range of crimes between adults.

that range involves illegal sexual touching, non-penetrating crimes and all the way up to penetrati penetrating claims. >> not sexual harassment? >> that is correct. >> is there anything to suggest why the airports had the most incidents? and is there anything to suggest why this is such a problem with the air force academy? >> the air force reporting climate is positive and that is what we have heard from numerous visits. >> one of the things the air force academy does is they have a sexual response coordinator

who is well-known throughout the academy. she and the team work overtime in getting in front of the cadets. as an example of my experience, asking an academy cadet at the air force, if you needed to report a sexual assault, what would you do and almost every single one of them says i would call 333-sarc. they know her by name because she is in front of them. >> we didn't ask about the numbers, but to echo what was said, we heard at the air force they are more familiar with their sarc, and she has higher visibility. >> teresa beasley? >> i will say one of the benefits of a report and when you look across the service a d

acadamies is you can apply to the others >> that is right. all of the people have hard sarc people. ms. beasley has been there the longest and has the a good institutional history. >> christina from the hill. are there trends you can make for the cases? mostly males and females? and examples of sexual behavior. >> it is more men on women but i

will refer to may colleague. >> it is male on female largely. only had to instances of male on male violence. these are folks that are peers or near peers and almost all of them were cadet on cadet. >> the survey we conducted in 2012 has a few measures with sexual harassment being involved and we ask about sexist behaviors and these are verbal and non-verbal behaviors that are assaulting or offensive based on a woman's gender. for example, woman don't belong at the academy. the rates for crudeness behavior, the typical locker room talk, and for the sexist behavior on the survey in 2012

about 80-90 percent said they experienced that. but we asked if they were right and many said they were right but many are surprised it isn't higher. this is where we sarted seeing the culture we are discussing -- started -- >> no one should believe they best tolerate this has part of their education and learning to be an officer in the u.s. armed forces >> and to underscore that why do we look at the experience of sexual harassment and behavior and those are in tolerable behavior, but there is a strong correlation between the

experience of sexual harassment and the sexual assault of people in military units. because the two problems are on the same continuum of harm, getting at the sexual harassment is part of the prevention work that knows into sexual assault. >> how do you think you can crackdown on the current behavior? >> that is something the secretary is directing the super n teinten intendants to ic -- to take a look at -- and innovate solutions. >> i am with the american voice press. it sounds like you want

generational change. and i am just wondering if you would comment on that and the second thing i would ask you to comment on is are these people coming in from civilian world? what affect does the civilian society have on these kids as they go to the institutions? >> first all of, just listen, this is a complex problem. it is going to require a complex set of initiatives, solutions and innovations. it is tough thing. it is going to take time. in terms of the cadets themselves, i think the real key is from day one to impart them with the appropriate values. you are talking about the very c

competitive to get in. but the key is from day one what are the values we try to impart on them so they get off on the right foot. and i will open it up to the panel. the department's approach to providing sexual assault is we do inspire to lead change. >> generational change like we did with ending discrimination and the appeal of don't ask don't tell. we expect standard in behavior and that is how we led change in the other culture things and that is how we will do it here. the environment with sexual assault happens in the environment where assaults occur. so we have to start with the low continuum of harm and protect

the offenders and conduct investigations and hold the offenders accountable. that is for the end state of this department: to prevent the crime by instilling dignity and respect. sticking your neck out and telling someone to knock it off is hard because it creates social retaliation. >> john from "politico." can you talk broader about i

implementing everything that was in the law that president obama signed. and you have a december deadline to make the changes, what are you benchmarks to achieving that? >> very good question. i will defer to alan on this particular question. but the first thing, what am i doing? there have been a number of directives that have been put in place. the first think i am doing is making sure i understand, and we the department are taking the appropriate steps to implement them. you alluded to the report and with regard to that we are making sure we understand the requirements of that. and then working with the whitehouse on insuring we have a

clear print to make sure we meet that requirement. >> talking about implementation we have taken a strategic strategy and we have very clear benchmarks. and we have 80-90 tasks. we get external findings and we are implementing policies and apply them in the lines of effort for the prevention and accountability and oversight lines of effort and we have a robust structure with the secretary of defense. and he is calling them accountab accountable meetings. and we have a bi-monthly product

team that provides daily oversight. we have had 6 0 provisions tat are tracked and we are working with the whitehouse on metrics. >> we have prepared the first set of six metrics that have been through the joint chiefs received the approval of boefth both of them and the office of secretary defense will be providing the whitehouse with them. and we will be developing a second set of metrics that get at prevalence and culture change. >> thanks, kathy. i wanted to conclude may making a couple points. one, my mission is clear: reduce with the plan to

eliminate sexual assault. it is daunting task. i have lost a lot of sleep in my first week, but i am committed to the mission. as you can see from the folks at this table, i am supported by a dedicated team and a group of professionals that want to do the same thing. there is going to be days when we present bad news to you. there is going to be others when we can demonstrate progress on the problem. either way, i am committed to giving you the results in a tra tra transparent manner. we will continue to provide support for victims and holding the military accountable for progress on this issue at the service academies and at other

places. we will continue to implement programs and inishitives that make a difference. for those that have been a victim of this crime, i want you to know we are working hard to establish a climate where these assaults don't happen. please consider reaching out to your local sark, victim advocate, health care professional or the dot hotline. you mean be treated with the privacy you desire, the sensitivety you deserve and the seriousness this crime demands. thank you very much.

>> former defense robert gates on his book "duty". we will have live coverage of the secretary gate's remarks at the national constitutional center in philadelphia. >> it disappointed all of us to see the deteriation inside iraq. i spent a lot of my life over there. from 2006-to september of 2010 i was there as we continued to reduce the level of violence and the violence was going on.

we left it in a place where it was capable of moving forward. we are seeing now because of political issues that security issue has now devolved into something that is concerning. we have to be aware across the middle east what is going on in syria, laeb lebanon and inside iraq. it is this building of conflict between the two and the instigation of that by al qaeda and other organizations trying to take advantage of this. >> we will look at the security situation in the middle east and the future of the u.s. army. and then we will have the love

and war relationship at 11 p.m. and then prohibition and the rise of the gangsta sunday morning. >> today the labor department released the december job's report showing the unemployment rate fell to 6.7% after the economy added 74,000 jobs. analyst had anticipated higher job growth. jay carney was asked about it as his daily briefing. >> back to the job numbers, jay, i remember you showing us charts of job growth over the past couple years and the implication

of the rate. you are down at a low for almost 40 years. >> that is where it has been since 2009. >> does the whitehouse and the president's policies to blame for the job report? >> john, as i think you note why when we talk about the monthly job report, we begin with the fact that whether it exceeds expectations or comes in below, that there is more work to do. this report is no different. it represents 46 consecutive months of private-sector job creation. 8.2 million jobs. >> that is barely anything in the economy. >> we need to continue to have

job growth, economic security, economic mobility of the priorities and continues the recovery and expands the opportunities that economic growth affords. so there is no question when you have periods of the numbers coming in above and below. we have seen consistent private-sector job creation and labor participation rate not withstanding is a fall in the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent which is too high. that is why we need to -- despite the drop it is too high.

we have to have this as the focus. and not get hung up over ideals. we need to come together to spur economic growth. >> you see this as an ominous job report? >> our economist were saying this is positive data. this isn't anything beyond the latest report, but i would point you to economist to give you a broader picture. we have work to do. we are continuing to grow and create jobs but we have to grow faster and create more jobs. that should be the priority here in washington. that is what folks expect us to

do. they don't want us veering off to have debates about issues that don't seem to effect their lives directly. so, president is very focused on these matters. you have heard him talk about them lately and you will hear it in the next couple weeks >> this hearing is about jobs at the economic joint committee. this is an hour.

>> good morning and welcome to the new wreyear. this is commissioner's gross first appearance. we hope you can bring us better news for the future.

i would like to recognize tom nordel who is retiring after 37 years of service. he has been mr. numbers. we thank you for your dedicated service and wish you the best in your future endeavors. the job growth was weak last month. december saw only 87,000 private sector. the unemployment rate did fall to 6.7 percent but it was due to labor force participation. the precipitation rate is down to 62.8% tying a 36-year low. it sounds impressive 8.2 million private sector jobs over the last 46 months but economic

growth during the last half century has been 50% larger than the obama administration. 4.5 million jobs are missing along main street. the best private report of the obama recovery is lower than the regan recovery. not a single month matches even the equivalent of the regan recovery. and we all know we have to do better. the unemployment rate has decreased and we should be encouraged, but it is nowhere near the 5 percent level the whitehouse promised in the $800 billion stimulus was rushed

through congress. the unemployment rate is due to falling labor force precipitation. if the rate had not declined since the president took office it would be nearly 11 percent. a smaller percentage of americans are employed today than when the recession ended. the american people are deeply dissatisfied with the president's solution for the economy. we need solutions so mainstream businesses can hire again. increasing the minimum wage and washington mandating income, extending unemployment benefits will not increase the outlook.

emergency unemployment program is to be used when the unemployment rate is going high. it is the lowest since 2008. so you ask why are the president and senate turning their back on job creation? why doesn't the senate pick up and pass any of the dozens of jobs bills the house has already approved? including the keystone xl pipeline which would create thousands of middle class jobs. they continue to deny bipartisan reforms that make it easier for states to match local workers with local drugs and to conduct the drug tests for those.

we know it is an election year and i hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle remember the measure of american's compassion isn't hoe long we provide unemployment benefits but that we can get them job. i recognize the vice chair. >> thank you chairman brady and thank you for holding this hearing today. i want to thank the member for the 37 years of crunching numbers for us. and welcome our guest. i am pleased for having the hearing. the monthly employment situation and i look forward to hearing from you on the past months and past years. this is an opportunity to dig deeper into the numbers and get

a complete understanding of the employment data. i want to make a couple comments about the economy. as we know the economy has grown for ten-straight quarters with gdp growing at 4.1 percent annual rate. 182,000 jobs were added last month on average. consumer spending accounts for 70% of economic activity was the strongest it has been in nearly two years. as the home state for target and best buy in minnesota we like that consumers are getting more confidence. housing is recovering. housing prices were up 23 percent. home prices in 20 leading cities have increased by 14%.

manufacture, the engine of innovation, added 568,000 jobs. exporting is another bright spot and that is growing in each of the past four years exceeding the pre-recession peek. this is good news and shows the economy has improved from january of 2009 when we lost more jobs in a month than the people in the state of vermont. there is still more work to do as pointed out. five years later, we are still adding jobs. you look at the chart showing 46 consecutive months of private sector job growth. it isn't exactly where we want to be, but we have seen 46 straight months of private sector growth.

8.2 million private-sector jobs have been created. the number of unployed working has decreased from 7 in 2009 to less than three, approaching the pre-recession level of 2 for every job opening. the labor market strengthened over the year. because of the drop in government total non-farm payrolls increased by 74,000. the unemployment rate is 6.7 percent is down more than a percentage point from last december which it was 7.9%. in my state it is at 4.6 percent. the truth is that for most workers the job market is better today than it has been for a

number of years. i look forward to your assessment of the labor market in 2013. despite the progress and the drop in the national unemployment rate, long term unemployment is still a very real problem. 4 million americans, 1/3 of unemployed workers have been out of work for six months. this does significant damage to the productivity. in fact, looking back yesterday, we talked about that fact there has been progress, but the challenges ahead are the productivity and income disparity. we are making progress providing

benefits for people who have been out of work for more than six months. that is sponsored by reed and hel heller. it will make sure people will be allowed to pay rent and fill the gas tank. earlier, i released a jec report laying out the economic case for continuing federal unemployment insurance. the long-term unemployment rate is nearly twice what it was after congress let the federal insurance expire from 1991. you can see the chart where he had the unemployment level in past cases that was allowed to expire. i would like to hear about the

data on long-term unemployment. and in several states high long-term unemployment is masked by a lower overall unemployment rate. florida has an unemployment rate below the national employment rate but 46% of the unemployed have been jobless for six months. 60% of manufacture in my state have openings for jobs put they can not find workers with the right skills. this is a bipartisan issue. we have a bill about investing in affective workforce training. so overall, we still have recovery in the labor market. the economy is proving resilient in 2013. the numbers are not where we want to have them, but when you look at the average year, 182,

000 jobs a month shows we are going into the direction that doesn't just turn money but invent things for the rest of the world and a strong private-sector economy. >> i would like to welcome the 14th commissioner erica groshen. she is the vice president of research and statistics group at the federal bank in new york. and served on advisory boards. she is a visit professor at barnard college, columbia university and a visiting economist in switzerland. she went to harvard and from the university of wisconsin.

welcome and we look forward to your testimony. >> thank you. mr., chairman and members of the committee, thank you for recognizing tom's public service and retirement and the opportunity to discuss the unemployment data we released this morning. you had very good timing in choosing a very interesting report for me to discuss. so, the unemployment rate declined from 7 to 6.7 percent in december. and non-farm payroll payment went up by 74,000 jobs. 182,000 jobs in 2013, about the same as 2012. in december, employment rose in

retail and wholesale trade but fell in the information industry. monthly job gains average 172,000. retail trade added 75,000. food and beverage stores, 12,000. food and clothing, 12,000. general stores, 8,000. and motor vehicles and parts dealers, 7,000 jobs. retail trade employment increased by 32, 000. wholesale trade over the past year added 8,000 jobs per month. employment and professional and

businesses services added 19,000. this industry added 637,000 jobs over the last 12 months. temporary help services added 40,000. accounting for book services lost 25,000 jobs over the month. manufacture employment continued to trend up adding 9,000. they added 77,000 compared to 154,000 in 2012. unemployment and information decreased by 12,000. this reflected a decline in motion picture and sound recording of 14,000 jobs. employment can be volatile from

month to month in the movie industry. over the year little net change has shown. construction employment went down and loosing 16,000 jobs. but in 2013, they added 10,000 jobs per month. employment in specialty trades contractors declined by 13,000 in december. possibly reflecting unusually cold weather in parts of the country. health care employment changed little in december with a decrease of 6,000 jobs. over the past year, job growth has slowed to 17,000 per month compared with the average monthly gain of 27,000 in 2012. in december, employment in most other industries changed little. average hourly earnings of all employees on private non-farm

payrolls went up by 2 cents. average earns have gone up by 1.8% over the year. the consumer price index for all urban consumers rose by 1.2%. turning to our survey of households. 6.7% unemployment rate. over the year it declined by 1.2 percent and 1.9 million less unemployed people. in december, 3.9 unemployed persons had been jobless for 27 weeks or so. this was little changed over the month.

but down by 894,000 over the past year. the labor force participation rate was down to 8% and over the year it has declined by 8/10ths of a percentage point. the employment to population ratio at 58.6 percent was unchanged in december and over the past 12 months. in fact, this measure has been at this level since late 2009. among those working or look for work in december, 2.4 million were marginally attached to the labor force and this changed little from the year earlier. these individuals wanted a job, were available for work and looked within the past 12 months. the number of discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached who believed

no job was down. >> as youp you know -- you know -- the unemployment rate fell, is this an encouraging sign of a sustainable recovery? >> this is one month's number. of course you don't want to get too hung up on one particular number. but most of the change in the unemployment rate, about 2/3rds was due to falling labor force

participation. >> which is people giving up on the market. >> the interesting thing is most of the flows were from employment rather from unemployment. but generally speaking it is not as robust a sign as if the fall in unemployment came from creation of jobs. >> do you think this is that drop and the reasons for it is as a troubling or concerning indicator? >> well, i guess it depends on the question you are asking. it is certainly not a sign of strength. >> we look at, in your report you make the case that here we are 4.5 years after the recession ended and there are fewer payroll jobs than when the

recession began and that is creating a gap in jobs in america, so at the rate of the 180,000 jobs a month that is occurring over the last two years, how long will it take before america is simply back to even in payroll jobs? >> it would take about 7 months into july f. for private sector till april. >> so midyear before we break even on the pre-recession payroll amounts. >> that is right. >> the number of private sector jobs were disappointing for moemost of us who want to see better recovery. the concensus for the report i am told that numbers are

statistical insignificant in the sense of what you read. i think you mentioned retail, information and wholesale, what areas were statistically significant? >> the 58,000 jobs created in retail trade were significant. >> and that was in food and clothing? >> widespread in retail trade. so quite a few of the subfactors. wholesale trade increase of 15,000 was statistically significant. >> was there insight into that? >> a lot of that was in electronic trading. so services provided to firms that are buying inputs and do it electronically. they don't take possession of the inputs they purchase on

behalf of the other firms but they facilitate the input of the firms. the other sector that had growth and i want to call your attention is the temporary health service. that added 40,000 jobs. >> thank you. vice chair? >> thank you very much. thank you, commissioner. this morning's report shows job growth not exactly where it was expected but i think we do know december marks the 46 month of growth. what employment trends did you see in 2013 as a whole in the last year and how would you characterize the state of the labor market this year?

>> okay. well, yeah, well overall, today's report isn't strongly encouraging. there was growth. and month-to-month variation is normal. >> so are you basing it on december? i was asking about the entire year. >> so over the year what we have seen is steady, modest growth mostly in the services. we have a ways to go before we return to pre-recession conditions. but we have seen growth in the industries primarily in professional and businesses services, in health care, in leisure and hospitality.

>> one number was you made reference to construction and you talked about the severe cold and i am aware of this since people keep sighting that northern minnesota was colder than mars for a while. >> i re-tweeted that a lot. >> could you talk about that construction number and how the cold could have affected it? >> we have added 122,000 jobs in construction over the year and the average -- let me take a look here -- okay. and let's see, this particular

month most of the decline was in non-residential specialty trade and most of these were in the northeast and midwest and those were the areas that had lower temperatures than normal. >> but overall, 122,000 added. i remember in the past we talked about regional trends, do you see any of those? not just in construction. you can get back to that in writing. ...

rhode island at 9%. michigan at 8.89%. illinois at 8.7%. and the other ones were kind of district of columbia, california, mississippi, kentucky, tennessee, arizona, new jersey. they topped out the top group at 7.8%. the states with the lowest unemployment rates are north and south dakota 2.6% and 3.6% respectively. nebraska a 3.7%. utah at 4.3%. hawaii, --

iowa, vermont, wyoming, all at 4.4%. here comes minnesota at 4.6 percent, and kansas and new hampshire at 5.19%. >> all right. i'm not going to go in to it now. it doesn't seem to be in a particular region. i think it has something to do what industries are in those straits or what type of employment are in those states. i have seen dramatically dramatic improvements in the last year. >> thank you. thank you for being here. commissioner, the labor participation rate is pretty well at the historic low, and if we took that in to consideration based on the bureau of labor statistics, the actual unemployment rate would be

someplace between 10 and 11 closer to 11%. i want to talk about that in the context of the jobs that you have said have been created. food, mernl diaz, retail, wholesale, service oriented jobs, and relate that back to what senator klobuchar talked about, which is something that is generally referred to as a skills gap. do you have an idea what that looks like in the real world? we talk about our lack of capacity to provide people more technologically oriented jobs. and what that means, and what we should be doing differently than we are. if you can hit the microphone,

please. >> sorry. you are getting really in to the realm of policy right here, and here i want to remind you that the bls and other statistical agencies don't engage policy analysis. with all due respect, that's your job. >> right. >> we -- in particular we don't study and make determinations about whether policies are achieving their goals or proposed policies to achieve those goals. such work could raise question about our neutrality. >> i may have missed the question. i think it was how is the growth seeing in certain significant industries tie to the labor participation rate, which is we all agreed at the low rate. >> it's not obvious what a connection there is between labor force participation and where growth is occurring. i don't think i have an answer

for that. >> sir, you -- the clearly there's an increasing number of people dropping out of the work force. i accept your notion that it's not necessarily where you're going with the bureau of labor statistics. as an economist you must have an opinion about that. would you like to talk about that? maybe not? >> well, so i have to, you know, write now my job is as commissioner. i think it's most important uphold the principles and practices of statistical agencies. i can't talk about where growth has been occurring. and what we've seen in terms of industry wage growth, is that much of the growth in when you divide it up by broad industries. much of the wage growth has been in the lower wage industries.

when you divide it up by occupations, which is a different kind of way to divide up job growth, there you see growth in highway -- more growth in high wage occupations and low wage occupations than you see in the middle of the distribution. >> thank you. i yield back. >> can i ask one question. in your testimony, you said that the employment rate -- or labor participation rate was principally due not to people dropping out but leaving jobs. and his question was, you know, in the growth industries, clearly there probably is relationship between which industries you're seeing contributing to the labor participation -- i think that's what he's trying. not a policy more of an inside. >> yeah chemical weapon look in to that for you. that's something we see. we do track flows.

what trend we've observed in the last year and perhaps in the last several years with respect to those categories? >> all right. let's see. take a quick look. i want to look at -- we're taking look -- >> sure . >> what is happening to unemployment rates by

education. >> uh-uh. >> we've seen declines in unemployment rates by education for all of the categoryies for less than high school for high school graduates, for some college and associate degrees. they've all declined. the largest decline has been for less than high school diploma. that's partly a factor because it increased also the most during the recession. >> but that's getting in to employment and -- based on the correlation. i'm more getting at the growth in jobs based on the skill profile of the jobs. >> uh-huh. >> so you made the observation that we've seen growth in high skilled jobs and dwrowt in low skilled jobs. >> yes. >> and a lack of growth in the middle skill jobs which imply a barbelling of our economy. which is something i've been

trying to be focused on. ting reflects a broader trend how highly specialized our economy is becoming. and the implications of that. do you have any data to show the materiality of the growth high versus low as opposed to middle jobs? >> i don't have a single measure of skill. >> i can tell you which had the most wage growth. most employment growth. in the 2012 to 2013 time frame we added 669,000 jobs in management, professional, and related occupations. >> that's the number rater. what is the denominator of jobs in those areas? >> this is not -- i'm sorry. so that was -- that was a 1.2% -- >> growth. >> growth. >> okay. got it. >> in natural resource construction maintenance occupation there was 1.8% growth.

sales and office occupations three tebts of a percent growth. production, transportation, and material moving occupations decrease of a tenth of a percent. and in service occupations and increase of 1.8%. >> got it. does your -- do you broadly categorize jobs in these categories of high, middle, or low-skilled or not dissing a regait the data. >> generally we do not. >> got. it i understand. that's somewhat of a subjective or qualititive. it may be part of the bottom or the top part. the rate of growth of health care has slowed significantly over the last several years. that is -- does that correlate to growth of jobs in the health care sector? >> we're still adding -- not in this past month, but

generally we've been adding jobs in the health care sector. it has been the pace has low -- slowed over the past year. >> you do see correlations between health care expenditure and growth in the health care sector? >> i haven't done that correlation. >> got it. >> got it. okay. thank you. >> yeah. >> thank you. representative paulson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, also, for being here today to testify. it goes without saying that today's employment report has some disappointing news, as you mentioned it's not strongly encouraging. the numbers are well below what the country needs do to add on a monthly basis. 130,000 jobs need to be added per month just to keep up with population growth. some i'm sure you agree to we have a long road to go. we are well over a million jobs short at the start of the last recession. in the labor participation rate, in staggering numbers is really low almost dropping 350,000 last

month alone. let me turn to something as many of us refer to the jobs gap. the difference between the average employment growth following a recession and more anemiaic that followed the most recent. four and a half years a of the the recession ended there are still fewer payroll jobs than prerecession. by various measures, there's a huge jobs gap. the brookingses, institution, estimate as high as eight million jobs. has the bls done an estimate at all of that jobs gap of those types of numbers? >> we've made a comparison to where we were when recession started. but we generally don't do the kind of forecasting that would be required about what job growth would have been in the absence of the recession. chairman brady mentioned in his opening statement when the

stimulus bill was passed. it was controversial for many reasons. they said it would be a 5% unemployment rate. which we're not anywhere near. at the average rate of job creation right now during 2013 last year, how much longer would it take for unemployment for the rate to reach 5%? i haven't done that calculation. i know, it will take seven months for us to get back to the total payroll where we were total payroll where we were before. >> there would be a longer period of time to get to that 5%. >> ymedz we can estimate that. we can streamline that for you. >> and let me turn a little bit to i'm. because part-time and full-time has been discussed discussed with concerns. i would like to ask some questions about that. part-time employment for economic reasons is a measure some would say weakness in the

labor market. as an economist, would you agree that part time employment could be viewed as a weakness in the labor market? >> generally speaking, during recession you see an increase in the number of people who are part time for economic reasons. not getting as many hours as they would like, or they would prefer to work full-time. that's why they're in that category. so either they're not getting as many hours or they've taken a part-time job because they haven't found full-time job. >> we've been post recession now for awhile, technically; right? on the technical side. a lot of employers are unsure they need workers long-term or they're a regulatory disincentive for employers to hire full-time workers. is it both of those factors, would you say? are there other factors as well that would contribute to that measure? >> well, so let me take a distinction, actually, the number of part time workers that is a percent of the total employed hasn't changed very

much of late. that is been fairly constant. >> okay. so -- we've had a decline in the part time for economic reasons. altogether it's still historically high. >> one of the things that is going to be interesting to watch in the near future the implementation of the affordable care act. the president's new health care law. i have spoken with several employers, in minnesota, for example, that are now concerned about being forced to scale back full-time workers in to part time jobs now because of the affordable care act. one restaurant tour -- restaurants normally have part time workers; right. there's one restaurant that has 530. 41% are full-time. now he's essentially looked at moving all the full-time workers to 21 hours part-time status. there's consequences of moving good full-time jobs to part-time jobs. along those lines, what role do

mandated employer benefits play in employer decisions? you know, the hire workers part time as opposed to full-time. >> our data wouldn't allow us to answer that question. it would be a policy research question. >> okay. good. ic we're going hearing more about that, mr. chairman. i was curious. >> thank you, sir. representative sanchez. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to say something before i ask our panel a question. thank you, mr. chairman, for this morning actually trying to delve in these numbers instead of, you know, doing real partisan pickering and everything. we're all at the point we want to try to understand what is going on. so i appreciate that. the majority of the members who have been talking this morning have been really trying to stick to what the picture looks like.

-- in hopes to move and to try to go the policy, as she said, we're supposed to do. i want to go something that mr. delay knee asked about and the issue of barbelling. the fact you said employment has occurred at the higher -- at higher educational level, and lower educational level. and the middle portion. what type of jobs that aren't growing. not necessarily skill set, which, of course, when we're looking at trying to figure out skill set. my question to you is, when we see these young people coming out of university and they have a college degree, but they may

not have a set skill set because they maybe don't have the work experience. would the students fall in to that barbell middle portion where hiring is not happening. do you have any statistics on that? >> let me see. the middle -- the middle area of these very large occupational groups i'm talk abouting are sales and office occupations. we added only 94,000 jobs. >> twhiewld be like entry salesperson, entry dc -- like, you know, entry receptionist. that type of thing. >> administrative work, it could be, sure. then the other area is production transportation and

material moving occupations. it's usually you wouldn't associate with a college degree, but actually i'm sure, you know, some of them probably -- >> well, logistics maybe or something the sort. when you get your foot in when you don't have a lot of work experience. you probably start at the bottom of the rung. my next question for you is; as you have seen over the last month or two, i'm trying to feel -- i'm trying to figure out if companies. i look at company balance sheets. the ones we can see, and we see two things happening. we've seen them for awhile now. years from now, capital accumulation cash on hand growth. as well as buy back of stock. this is where at least the public companies, those that i can see, are using their cash.

so, do you think that the shutdown we had is reflective of these numbers? i know these are policy issues, but did that have -- do you think that had anything? i'm trying to figure out how we get companies to begin to spend cash, i mean, it's a risk. i'm orange county registered, my hometown newspaper for the county orange where i represent. they are creating journalist jobs, they've hired over 400 new people in the paper -- newspaper business, which supposedly is totally con trairn to what we've seen in the news business these day. do you they when we do uncertain things that is what may beholding companies back? >> let me answer something a little related, which is that a characteristic of the market where we are now, we've seen -- excuse me, [coughing]

>> sorry. we've seen a decline in job destruction rates back down to essentially prerecession levels. one area in which our labor market has improved is that our job destruction rates are more typical of with a you see in an expansion. so what is lagged for us has been job creation; right. and you can see this in new firms. both in the number of new firms and the number of jobs created by new firms. then you can see it also in an expansions by firms inspect is from our business employment dynamic data. so that corroborates some of perhaps what you're pick up. we did look at the effect -- we have looked at the effect of the shut down in a direct way. we saw an increase in temporary layoff associated with the shut down and a decrease after that.

so we did not see a numbers that were suggestive of a lot of very quick multiplier effects in the payroll data from the shut down. we think maybe there was some displacement rather than actual multiplier. >> thank you, commission per. >> thank you. representative duff ify. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and commissioner thank you for being here today. i want to go back to, i think, some things mr. paulson brought up. you would agree with population growth we have to see about 120,000 new jobs created every month just to maintain the status quo; is that right? >> you know, it's not a very precise number, but, you know, there are numbers along those lines, yes. >> am i mitting the -- hitting the middle point. am i off? >> yeah. it's true. >> thank you. [laughter] >> and this month we created

only 74,000 new jobs; right. so if you look at just to maintain our employment rate, you have to be 130,000, but this month we're at 74,000. and i think oftentimes america will hear the unemployment rate going from 7% down to 6.7%. and they would view that as the country going in the right direction in regard to job creation and economic growth. but what would you agree actually the reduction in the unemployment rate is not an indicater of strong job growth like many american may think? so there are -- i'm going unpack things a little bit. the decline in the unemployment rate certainly this month we think of somewhere around two-thirds due to the decline in labor participation and about a

third to job creation. on generally speaking, in the employment population ratio has essentially stayed about the same since late 2009. so that is problematic. we have two different forces acting on employment population. one is demographic change that would tend to depress participating just as baby boomers like myself age. population generally getting older and getting in to times more heavily weighted toward part of the population that participate less. we have to increase employment to to population. we need to compensate for this downward pressure. that's one effect. the other from the recession.

that would require creation of many more jobs. >> going back to the question for tom earlier. so since pre'09 traditionally we needed 130,000 jobs per month to maintain employment with population growth. are saying had this year and the year before it's not true. so if we actually have a 74,000 job gain that's actually 74,000 -- we're moving in the right direction. are you saying we're -- yes. >> our population growth is taking place at 130,000 roughly per month right now? >> yeah. our average has been over this past year has been 182,000. but tom is going take a stab at this. >> in general. the employment population ratio, that being steady would indicate

job growth is basically enough to keep track with population growth. growth of the population 16 and over. you're not -- but it's obviously lower than it was at the start of the recession, so we're not gaining ground in terms of increasing the proportion of the population that is employed. getting it back to the prerecession leafletting. -- levels. we are basically keeping track of the population growth. >> okay. i want to quickly switch gears. age lot of the disagreement we've find on bound sides of the aisle other the last several years comes to the economy and job growth. raising the money him waning will create more jobs. >> this is very much a policy question. >> i'm asking statistically do you look at analyze on the

statistics side? >> we do not have any statistics that allow us to answer that question. >> okay. i yield back. >> thank you. vote has been called in the house. the former chairman of the joint economic committee representative maloney will be our final questioner. >> thank you. first of all, i want to congratulate you on your appoint want. you're the fourth woman to head the important panel. building on the fine work of katherine. woo is on the counsel of economic advisers. thank you. >> you're welcome. >> she actually stepped down in april. but, you know, -- >> this the statistics of the women movement they say more important than the first woman appointed is the consistent fine performance of women where it's no longer something unexpected but i believe you are going to be adding to that very important statistic. i think the statistics today are very, very encouraging. with the employment increased by 74,000, unemployment themselves is 6.7%. if you put it in the context of

the overall economy, private sector jobs have grown for 46 consecutive months, and a total of 8.2 million private sector jobs have been created over that period. and i believe that in 2013, private sector employment increased by 2.12 million jobs. largely unchanged from the 2.3 million private sector jobs added in 2012. so i believe this shows that the economy is steady. it's durable, it's improving, and i would also like to note that the private sector job growth has been revised upward generally. in october, from 217,000 in toct 226,000 for an average of 177,000 new jobs per month being creating. and could you elaborate how these numbers fit in to the overall economy and comment on

the trend. it looks to me like we are trending in the right direction. we are trending with an improved economy not as good as we would like. but could you comment in the overall context of the economy and trends in the economy. all right. well, i would say generally speaking what we've been seeing over the past year is very steady, modest job growth. that's been primarily in the services. all right. this has led to improvement by many measures. there's a long ways to go to return to prerecession conditions. in the report you say retail, temporary health services. and added jobs. last night there were disturbing

numbers out of new york city. had the privilege of representing one of our great retail stores, macy's laid off people. it's not the trend new york state where we have added more than 140,000 private sector jobs. my question is new york city's experience how does it fit in the broader perspective or the broader national picture? are other urban areas experiencing higher rates of unemployment than the nation as a whole? >> the nation is a combination of many different regions and many different cities within those regions. so there's always quite a variety of experiences because cities are affected both by

their long-term secular trends as well as by the cycle that they're under. i want to publicly congratulate senator klobuchar on the report she did. i think your report shows there's a need for this type of support because of the drop. you said in your testimony the decline was driven primarily bay drop in the labor force participation rate. it seems that keeping people hoping to find a job -- and also you noted in your

report that this is a past group. anyone who is unemployed is going to put the money back to the economy and help to create other jobs and help the hope of the country in this very difficult time moving forward. ..

with. >> this is a very important question. we have run at a time but can you provide a written response? >> we certainly can't. we have found there is a strong pattern of job growth concentrated male or female dominated industries. so would is a and industry becks story. >> thank you for your professional presentation we

look forward to having you back the hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

>> what is it be opting consider as we look at this stage of governance in our capacity here in and washington in the year 2014? there are a number of things that we could and probably should do. i would argue they are in part a measure of how difficult they are coming to find this in simple terms there are big things and little things done to a drip sugh the cause of bipartisanship if we really wanted to achieve it to. some don't but the vast majority want to see congress acts more productively. they want to see more comedy and desperation --

inspiration to the national policy agenda. so the big things in the of -- and the little things. but if the things that would take effort and heavy lifting number one the way we select our candidates. increasingly in this country today, our elected officials choose their voters. and they do that of coursers gerrymandering in particular , moving districts are rounded to make sure you have a very defined group of people that are in your congressional district. that is happening more and more and i think as a result democracy has suffered. we also have primaries better scute and in many cases is dominated by a very

small faction. the tea party had the enormous success with a primary because they are so well organized recognizing voter turnout in the primary process is quite low. that is number one. we have to look at the way we select there candidates for public office. number two, one of the biggest challenges we have, believe it or not is the airplane. the airplane has made it easy for people to leave washington and so now they've leaf and they come back on tuesday and govern on wednesday. one cannot run a country as sophisticated as this one day per week. we have to recognize we have to spend more time in washington dealing with the nation's business. i will come back to that. but the airplane has a

profound effect how congress works with each other and don't socialize it used to that of both their families to washington anymore, all of that has contributed to this time in this city doing what they were elected to do. the media has changed dramatically when i entered we had three networks. walter cronkite was the referee. [laughter] now media is the referee you whether rush limbaugh, rachel the dow or anybody on the political spectrum there is philosophical and political inclination as the media celebrities are able to influence the perception of and ultimately the actions of many members of congress.

the last big issue is money. with the last cycle there were two races where the amount of monday exceeded $80 billion. a typical congressman or senator has to raise about $10,000 every single day he or she is an office to accommodate the average cost of the senate campaign today. monday it is driving a big part of the agenda. that is something we have to be concerned about.

>> to my young friends out there life is great but not when you cannot see it. open your eyes to life and see it in the vivid colors that god gave us as a precious gift to his children to enjoy life to the fullest and make it count. for the rest of your life when it comes to drugs and alcohol, just say no.

a. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon. welcome to the cato institute i am director of the decade of center for constitutional studies and your host this afternoon. i am pleased to note cosponsoring our debate today on behalf of the federalist society flinty extend a welcome also to

those watching us streusel live streaming and through the offices of c-span tv as well. on monday, january 13, the supreme court will hear an argument called the nlrb defers is standing with the most important constitutional cases is expected to decide this term at issue is the recess appointments power to make recess appointments to federal office is that otherwise requires confirmation and it has never decided said nature or scope but for today's debate it is worth it to begin to'' the constitutional text at issue if you pull out your handy kato pocket

constitution article ii of sexual back to you can see that it says the presidential have power to tell all vacancies that could happen through the recess of the senate by granting commissions that expire at the end of the next session the purpose of that plea in the is to allow the president to fill offices that should become vacant when the senate is not in session so could not give the advice or consent that would be required for confirmation. separation of powers and the conqueror power of this and it is at issue in this case. that is not how the power has been used for years and no where is that more clear than when president obama on january 4th, 2010 put

people on the nlrb without confirmation when the senate was in session. not surprisingly litigation followed on jittery 25th last year the u.s. court of appeals in the case now before the supreme court held that mr. obama is appointments were unconstitutional both because they fill vacancies when the senate was not in true recess and they actually did not vacate during the recess. it was an opinion written by the chief judge and followed by two other appellate court decisions both the third and fourth circuit found the obama appointments unconstitutional. so we take up the discussion today what it's the supreme court on monday.

the proposition is straight forward. with the purported recent appointments were unconstitutional. professor nicholas rosenkranz will argue in the affirmative and professor victor williams argues in the negative. each will make the opening arguments of no more than 80 minutes followed by a five minute response after which we open to questions from you in the audience followed by a lunch upstairs in the conference center. let me introduce our speakers. nicholas rosenkranz a professor of law at georgetown where he teaches constitutional law. also a senior fellow at constitutional studies here at a cato. also attending yale university his articles have appeared in stanford law

review. professor nicholas rosenkranz has advised the government in a variety of capacities for the seventh sec get on dash circuit also kennedy of the supreme court also as the attorney adviser at the u.s. department of justice as well. he often testifies before congress as a constitutional expert and has filed briefs in presented oral argument before the u.s. supreme court the most recent brief was on behalf of. [inaudible] victor williams is a professor that teaches law and economics and lawyering skills. he holds a master's degree of education and public policy from harvard three law degrees from the

hastings college of law where he was the article said eckert -- editor and also from columbia university school of law where he was editor of the american review to international arbitration specializing in economics from the school of law. articles have appeared at george mason and elsewhere in most recently the huffington post has held a series of his commentaries on the federal appointment process he has served as the official clerk with judge she and also as a picture for the u.s. court of appeals judge and the 11th circuit through the ninth circuit. and the intern to on

enforcement issues that the sec regional offices is a most angeles. again, we will have each speaker speak about 80 minutes than respond five minutes each did we will begin with professor nicholas rosenkranz. please give them a warm welcome. [inaudible [applause] >>. >> i am happy to be here. i will spend one minute or two to put the issue in context before getting to the arguments. roger davies the text of the recess appointments clause i think i should give you the text of the appointments clause for comparison. a president shall nominate and by the end with the advice and consent of the senate shall appoint

ambassadors and judges to the supreme court and all other officers of the united states that whose avoidance are not otherwise provided for which shall be established by law. that is a general rule. as a general matter, is the senior appointments are to be made by the president with the advice and consent of the senate. then there is the exception to the rule what we're talking about is the exception is the vacancies claus. the president shall have power to fill all vacancies that may happen during the recess by granting commissions that shall expire by the end of the next session. it is not hard to imagine the paradigm case why do we need the exception to the rule? the paradigm cases along the lines of the senate is not

around so the general is killed on the battlefield and the president needs to appoint somebody to fill his shoes there has to be a mechanism under circumstances like those in that is what they were imagining. that was the paradigm. not the only case but surely that was the paradigm case that motivated this clause. this is a case that constitutional law professors love because there is almost no doctrine about this. and that leaves us going back to first principles. we don't have supreme court opinions we have to go back to constitutional text and history and structure to figure out what this document means.

so we dig into this tax to figure out what it means. as writer explained obama and made appointments and early january to use this recess appointments clause whether the clause was properly invoked there. and it actually raises three distinct issues. not really a original analysis about this which is the respondents arguments excellent brief in this case. there are three issues but the point i want to make but francisco before the court and i only have to be right

about one of them in order to wind. to be wrong about all three in order to lose. bear that in mind as i go through these three points. the first thing to figure out the vacancies that to happen during the recess of the senate. what does the recess mean? to possibilities immediately present themselves. one possibility is the recess between the formal sessions of congress, the number of sessions of congress of which there are typically two or three like the recess between the number recessions. this is the intercession very.

there is no such thing as the intra session. that would have another name something like the adjournment rather than a recess. the constitution uses the word adjournment so that is one possible theory that it is only triggered during the recess during those numbered sessions of congress. that is franciscos view a.m. to the view i will take today. there is another possibility the government q is there could be interesting recess on the government a few it is the break that the congress or the senate takes

the government though, representing that position has to analytical problems. one problem with that position is can it really mean however short the break ted minute or a lunch break? can get relieve meet any breakout weber short? was of the crazy if that is true with the exception follow their ruled the president would just wait for lunch than just a point the person not go through senate consent. so the government is left by drawing the archer relying there is a time of tendinitis exception of a substantial amount of time and the government says we

think it is about three days and if it is lager then it counts as a recess. they could have taken that sought through the adjournments clause of the constitution without the consent of more than the adjourned for more than three days that in which the two houses shall be sitting but the government does not seem to want to derive the three days from the clause in the fact they have parted from that they want to leave open the door that maybe tomorrow thereby to argue it is only today's. so they do see the problem so with the arbitrary line there is the second to analytical problem. if you listen to the

language of the recess appointments clause it seems to set up a dichotomy between the recess and the session. so the president shall have power to fill up all vacancies that will happen during the recess of this and a by granting commissions that shall expire at the end of their next session. it sounds like a recess and it session alternate. when you are not in recess you are in session that these ideas alternate but look at the government's problem if they are right about the many little recess is, they would be forced to adopt a view of many little sessions spread out among very little recesses' a four day recess then attend a session that afford a recess

then 10 days is the session so with that theory you have an appointment during that four day gap predicted only last for the next 10 days session and at the end of the next session it would end. the government doesn't like that. so they don't take that view. they want to say is recess means colloquial like a little break like a school that is very short, three days or more, but a session is formal and long and that is the full number of years. so they don't sign on to the idea of recess purses session they are forced to believe you can have both at the same time.

any given moment you may be short recess but you're also in the session. so they have a formal view of session that seems to analytically a awkward to use say the least and also creates the odd anomaly. saw now imagine a formal session it starts on january 3rd or 4th then there is a short little recess for the president can appoint somebody if that commission last at the end of their next session that is not the session we are id now but just short of two

years which is the length of the congressional term. it is plenty of time but this recess appointment will account for almost two years of the government's view it is required to believe the recesses short and formal sessions for the beginning of the intercession recess to last for two full sessions. this is the first point intercession and intra session. listen to this language again. the president shall fill all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the

senate with the played reading you would think happened that means comes into existence or begins. with the paradigm case the general who is killed during the recess it happens during the recess president obama is recess did not happen in during the recess. so what happened here is the vacancies existed, they came into existence then this senate went into what the president says is a recess, that's debatable but then the vacancies exist so there are two different possible readings