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Unemployment and Stimulus
Clearly, the chart shows that more government spending does not create jobs. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. More government spending is correlated with higher levels of unemployment. In 1965, federal government spending was 17.2% of GDP and the unemployment rate was 4%. By 1982, spending had increased to 23.1% of GDP and unemployment had climbed to almost 11%.
Government spending then fell from its early-1980s peak back to a new low of 18.4% of GDP in 2000, and the unemployment rate fell back to a low of 3.8% in 2000. Lately, due mostly to the profligate spending of the Bush Administration, government spending has increased to 20.7% of GDP. And guess what, the unemployment rate is up, not down. In fact, for the first time in over 25 years, the unemployment rate is higher today than it was at its peak during the last recession.
And this is a very interesting development. During the quarter-century after 1982, when government spending was shrinking as a share of GDP and tax rates were cut, the unemployment rate experienced lower peaks and lower troughs during each business cycle. This was the opposite of the 1960s and 1970s, when government was growing and tax rates were rising. Then, each peak and each trough in the unemployment rate was higher in each successive business cycle.