we are joined by harry holzer of georgetown university. give us your 30,000 foot view of the job situation now. guest: it is getting a little better and the improvement is starting to gain some steam. we have had six months in a row of job growth over 200,000. that is still not spectacular, but a lot better than we have experienced in this slow recovery. in speed.ome increase the uptick in the unemployment rate might happen because so many people dropped out of the labor force. they got discouraged and were not finding anything of those people might start to come back. when you're out of the labor force, you don't count as being unemployed. when you come back in, you do count. even as the labor market gets steam, we might see the on employment rate tick up a bit, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. host: where the problem areas in your view? guest: people are starting to worry about the overall pace and will we continue to stay in that range per month. will we pick up speed or will we have another stumble? we have had false hopes sever

ofare joined by harry holzer georgetown university.computer system is designed to help manage social security disability programs does not work and we will talk about that program later. first, news update from c-span radio. the head of iraq's national shiite alliance in a statement today says it has chosen an alternate -- an alternate nominee for prime minister in stead of incumbent nouri al-maliki. aljafari says they have a new nominee to unify the country against the growing threat of radical militants. al-maliki has -- is insisting that his party, state of law which is part of the alliance, should select a nominee. senior u.s. officials say the obama administration has begun -- providing forces directly to kurdish forces. the u.s. previously had insisted on only selling arms to the iraqi government. the officials would not say which u.s. agency is providing the arms but the cia has a starkly done similar arming operations. turning to u.s. politics, the koch brothers are looking to make inroads with hispanics by joining in an effort

we're talking with harry holzer, former chief economist at the u.s. labor department.he's with us for about the next 20 minutes or so taking your calls. we have a special line in this segment for those unemployed american, 202-585-3883 is that number. let's go to jeff in warren, arkansas, on our line for independents. jeff, good morning. >> caller: good morning. i had a question for your guest. i was wanting the know what percentage of the population is directly dependent on the government, dependent on government spending either directly or indirectly for their livelihood? first category people being directly employed by the government; two, people working in a heavily government, industry dependent on government spending such as health care or defense, and three, some form of assistance, disability or etc. that's my question, thank you. >> guest: well, i don't have the exact numbers at my fingertips. the answer to that's probably -- just the number of people who get some kind of government with benefit, you know, mitt romney talked about the 47%. the number's probabl

. >> host: just a few minutes left with harry holzer, professor at georgetown university. we'll go to mike in oklahoma op our line for independents. good morning, mike. >> caller: good morning, gentlemen. first of all, your speaker's totally out of touch with what's going on in america as far as obamacare. it's evident, certainly down in oklahoma, that employers are hiring people 29 hours per week or less. period. take a look over the last four years the number of total part-time jobs versus full-time jobs created, and i think maybe you'll wake up and figure out what obamacare has done to the labor market. you're just totally out of tune. you sound silly out there. >> host: mike, we talked about some of those numbers, but if you want to respond. >> guest: well, mike, frankly, i think you're overstating your case. it might well be that obamacare is leading some full-time jobs to become part-time jobs. i'm not saying that's a zero effect. what i'm trying to tell you, and maybe you should be better in touch with the ten million people who are now insured. why is america the o

en harry holzer. and then a reporter with the associated press. your phone calls, facebook comments, and tweets. washington journal is live every morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span. tonight, retired professor and activists-vietnam war d'souza.inesh >> we started out as a outlutionary -- you started in bin laden mode. you sounded totally different today. he talked about teaching, you talked about socratic doubt. what happened to that old revolutionary? >> i feel i still a revolutionary if you mean -- if what you mean by revolutionary is having a fully worked out program in which we can overthrow government and move forward, no, i am not that. but if you mean someone who is willing to dive into contradictions and fight for more stability and balance. i see the need for a fundamental change. to me, the struggle against white supremacy is a struggle that still goes on. it is not over. it is a struggle that still goes on and takes different forms. it is not slavery and it is not jim crow. debate covers were, civil rights, economics, and other topics. yo