And it takes a lot to do that. Our role has been to try to influence the government the way that we can. Are there ways of putting together projects, Infrastructure Projects in countries like africa in which even private sector investors would feel comfortable . Would we think that is definitely possible . You would take on the risk . A good chunk of the risk. We would provide information, ontheground insight about the risks. The other part of the question is the judicial reform you do not need to be there anymore because the private sector would go there instead. There is the potential to make money, but if you are fearful you are going to get ripped off, you do not go. There are many countries in the world that have a lot of work to do in terms of rule of law, there is no question on that. Do you play a role in on trying to influence that . Not specifically, but we on otherher hand can help countries and we have done it over and over in many Different Countries be more fair in deals with private sector companies. We have are doing business report. We have been working on this for a long time. Look, in countries all over africa, the leaders are telling me the same thing. Understand. Ing we we will not develop the country based on aid. We need the private sector. Every african country i go to knows this and they know there are things they need to do. Again, i would say you could not generalize across africa. There are places where governance is very strong, places where it is very weak, even within specific countries where there are regions. That is the kind of information we can bring to the table to bring in private investors at the end of the day. Dr. King, will dr. Kim, what should i have asked you, or what did you expect someone to be asking you . Nobody asked me about ukraine. [laughter] you have a minute to talk about the ukraine. [laughter] we met with the prime minister, and it is a difficult situation. Directed directing the government could you are not advising them on governance. What they need his help in terms of implementing reform. This government passed through parliament and ambitious set of reforms. It even tackle jewel theft. Lessen thehelp them blow on the poorest of some of these reforms that we know they have to take. We are in active negotiations with them to figure out what we can do to provide some sort of funding so that, for example, when and if they remove their fuel subsidies raised subsidies prices on consumers, 44 . When they do that, they have and weect the poorest, are working to see how quickly we can move the money. Two are so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] and tomorrow here on cspan, jason furman will be our guest on newsmakers, the chair of the White House Council on economic advisers and he will talk about the minimum wage, income inequality, the Health Care Law, and restoring Unemployment Benefits. Let me tell you why i think extending Unemployment Insurance is a job creator. About just because providing relief for millions of people that are working really hard to try to find a job, but it has two real economic benefits. One is you cannot get Unemployment Insurance unless you are looking for a job, and looking for a job means you are in the labor force. In the labor force means you are keeping those people connected so that as the economy continues to recover, they will be there to get the job that is good for our economy overall, and in addition the purchasing power itself will boost the economy. Economists at cbo, jpmorgan, and our own estimates from the council of economic advisers have all said extending Unemployment Insurance would add to growth and create jobs. What happens if the house fails to act on the senate bill . I do not want to speculate. Two weeks ago, most people would have told you it will not pass the senate, and now it looks set to pass the senate with a real bipartisan vote. Thingot want the the that we should be doing next is the house passing the bill. Jason, knowing the new unemployment numbers, the longterm unemployed is coming down, which we would think this is a good time, but is this because the people losing their benefits or is this Something Else happening . I have been looking at the numbers to see if we have seen an effect of the expiration, and i personally have not seen it there. Were generally seen pretty small moves in the Household Survey in the last couple of months. I think what that tells you is are ate bigger forces work in the economy, and theyre lowering the Unemployment Rate. The Participation Rate has stabilized over the past year. Were creating about 200,000 nearly 200,000 jobs a month. Theou can watch more with chair of the White House Council of economic advisers tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. And 6 00 p. M. Eastern right here on cspan. Lets take a case like hsbc, which got a 1. 9 billion dollars settlement, sort of levied at them, i guess it would be one year ago. Part of the deferred prosecution agreement was they admitted they had laundered as much as 850 million for a pair of central and south American Drug cartels. We are talking about, not only did they commit minor financial infractions, technical infractions, but an organization that was operating at the top of the illegal narcotics air amid. This is a major criminal enterprise, they admitted it, and if they did not find the evidence to put those people in jail, that is on them. That is a failure of the regulatory system. That youve someone know is guilty, who has admitted they are guilty, who are in league with truly dangerous and violent people, and helping them out with the worst kind of behavior that a bank could be involved with and nobody does a single day in jail, that is outrageous. It is even more outrageous when you look at it in comparison with who does go to jail in america, and that is people who are at the very bottom of the , peopledrug pyramid call with illegal possession, selling dime bags on the corner. Those people go to jail for realtime, five years, 10 years, and at the same time they were letting hsbc off with a total walk. Nobody pays any individual penalty in that case. Matt taibbi. His latest, the divide sunday on q a. According to new numbers, employers added 192,000 jobs in march and the Unemployment Rate remained at 6. 7 . The joint Economic Committee heard testimony from the bureau of labor statistics about the report. This is 45 minutes. We will call the joint Economic Committee to order. The vicechairman is not here yet. Chairman brady went to dallas to attend a funeral of ray hutchinson, his friend and also husband of the former senator kay bailey hutchinson. In his absence, he asked me to preside this morning. I was hoping we would have a bit of the minnesota mafia starting off the hearing. Senator club which are will be here shortly. The recovery that began in june 2009 is now nearly five years old, yet and nbc news poll found 57 of Americans Still think the economy is in a recession. This is likely due to persistent weakness in our labor market. The fact that nonfarm payrolls increased by 192,000 and the official Unemployment Rate remained unchanged at 6. 7 last month is positive news, but it is simply not enough. I agree with Janet Yellens recent assessment of our economy. In a speech on monday she said, theres been steady progress, but there is no doubt that the economy and the job market are not back to normal health. By several measures, the recovery from the most recent recession is far below the average over the last 50 years. Here at the joint Economic Committee, we refer to that as the growth cap. Since the recession ended in june 2009, real gdp growth has 9 Percentage Points below the average recovery. Private Payroll Employment growth is more than 5 Percentage Points below recovery. Real disposable income of a family of four grew by 13,000 less than it did in average recovery. Clearly, our economy is underperforming. We should be doing better than five consecutive years of below average. In her speech, chair yellen cited a number of statistics indicating that our labor market is weaker than the official Unemployment Rate would suggest. More than 7 Million People are working parttime, even though they would prefer fulltime jobs. The falling Unemployment Rate has not sparked a significant increase in real wages. Real average earnings are up by less than one percent since the recession ended. Nearly 36 of the unemployed have been unemployed six months or longer. I will say that again, more than one third of the unemployed in this country have been unemployed for six months or more. The labor force Participation Rate has fallen to 63. 2 . Only half of this decline can be attributable to democratic factors. Some may blame the housing bubble for this persistent weakness. While the collapse of the housing bubble has some lingering effects, it is not the main factor, let alone the only factor. What is unique about this recovery is the combination of the economic policies the president pursued. From 1992 to 2000, federal spending declined as a percent of gdp and the private sector created more than 37 million jobs. Under president obama, federal spending reached a high of funny 4. 4 of gdp, and remains above its postwar average. President kennedy and president reagan passed tax cuts. They encourage new Business Investment. This committee has shown a correlation between new Business Investment and the creation of new private sector. In contrast, president obama increase taxes on successful small businesses, capital gains, and dividends. Reagan and clinton took a balanced approach toward environmental, health, and safety regulations. The Obama Administration has pursued an aggressive agenda of Regulation Without weighing costs and benefits. President s reagan, kennedy, and clinton have pursued International Trade agreements. There are several trade opportunities on the rise and are proven job creators, but the administration has not fully engaged in this issue. There has been bipartisan support in the past. I am confident there is bipartisan support in congress for trade agreements today. President s kennedy, reagan, and clinton did not burden people with the cost of retirement programs. In contrast, president obama has pushed forward the Affordable Care act on partyline votes. The Health Care Law has increased uncertainty, raised taxes by nearly half 1 trillion, undermines the medical Device Industry that is so important to our home state of minnesota, and is causing millions of americans to lose access to some of the Health Insurance plans they like. The policies America Needs now are well known. Stable prices, a gradual decline in federal spending, tax reform that encourages new Business Investment, balance regulation, and trade liberalization. It is the best way to strengthen our economy. It is time the Administration Work together with republicans and democrats. With that, i look forward to your testimony. Senator klobuchar. Thank you very much. Sorry i was a few minutes late. I was in a dentists chair. How much more fun to be here with all of you. It is great to be here. Representative paulson is chairing the meeting. As well as the commissioner. Good to see you again. I would like to welcome the assistant commissioner for the office of Current Employment analysis. I am pleased we are having this hearing on the Monthly Employment situation. I think we know that these hearings give us an opportunity to dig deeper into the numbers. March, as we discussed, saw a gain of 192,000 nonfarm gains. All of the job gains in the private sector. Something we like to hear. Recent Economic News has been encouraging. The economy has grown for 11 straight quarters. The 2. 6 growth over the course of 2013 exceeds the gains of 2011 and 2012. Manufacturing, the engine of innovation, it generates 90 of all patents. It has rebounded. Adding more than 600,000 jobs since february 2010. Exporting has been another bright spot. Exports are growing, exceeding the prerecession peak. All of this is good news. We have a lot of room to go. We also have accomplished much in terms of the private sector adding jobs. I think back to the first half of 2009, when we shed more jobs in this country. We were losing jobs at a rate of 700,000 per month. We shed more jobs in one month than people in vermont. Five years later, we are adding jobs. We have recorded 49 straight months of private sector job growth. With this months gain of 192,000 private sector jobs, we have regained all of the 8. 8 million private sector jobs lost during the recession. This is the month that we finally got to where we were. Now i hope we are going to expand from there. The number of unemployed workers per job opening has decreased from seven in july 2009 to 2. 46 in january 2014, approaching the prerecession level of roughly two unemployed workers for every job opening. The Unemployment Rate at 6. 7 is down nearly a full 1 . The Unemployment Rate is better. 4. 8 in the state of minnesota. For most workers, the job market is better today than it has been in years, but we all know the recovery has not reached everyone, particularly the longterm unemployed, those who have been out of work for more than six months. Nearly 4 million americans have been out of work. This committee has discussed long periods of joblessness to significant damage to our nations productivity, and we are pleased the senate is moving forward to pass an extension of Unemployment Insurance. I hope the house will as well. It will help people like linda her husband from little falls, minnesota, who lost their jobs and are both over 55. They need some support if they continue to look for work. Linda wrote me, Encouraging Congress to extend unemployment. She wrote, i feel it be people who are jobless are being forgotten. We have to approach this issue from all sides. Obviously there are openings in some parts of the country and certain industries, and we need to make sure the workers are trained to do those jobs. That is a major part of this. Skills training. The second part of it is to continually increase our exports. The third part is to get more kids to go into math and science and engineering and technology. The next is Immigration Reform. It would be very helpful to the economy. Decreasing the debt by 160 billion in 10 years, 70 billion in 10 years according to the cbo. One of the things i will ask you is about the unemployment with veterans. With young people, where we are as we move forward. We have made some improvement. With more to go. Our focus is on longterm policies that create jobs in the short term. While laying the groundwork for prosperity in the longterm. I am very much looking forward to hearing about the numbers today. I want to get some analysis from all of you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. With that, Erica Groshen is the 14th commissioner of the bureau of labor statistics. She was Vice President of the Statistics Group at the Federal Reserve bank of new york, and has been a visiting assistant professor of economics at columbia university. She earned a phd in economics from harvard university. She earned a bachelors degree in economics and mathematics from the university of wisconsin madison. I was a mathematics major as well. Welcome back to the committee. You are recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and numbers of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the data we released this morning. Nonfarm Payroll Employment rose by 192,000 in march, and the Unemployment Rate was unchanged at 6. 7 . Employment increased in professional and Business Services, health care, and mining and logging. Incorporating the revisions for january and february, we can increase employment by 37,000, monthly job gains have averaged 178,000. Prior to march, employment growth averaged 183,000. All of the growth occurred in the private sector. Which has now exceeded its Employment Level in december 2007. That is when the most recent recession began. This is a milestone. The private sector lost 8. 8 million jobs due to downturn. It has now gained 8. 9 million jobs since the Employment Level of february 2010. However, Government Employment is down since the recession began. Therefore, total nonfarm employment remains below