November 28, 2011
Economists and people who believe in gravity think that firms hire when they see an increase in demand. The alternative is to turn away customers because a business does not have the necessary staff. Companies trying to make profits generally do not like to turn away customers.
Nonetheless, Republican Senator Jon Kyl said that the payroll tax cut did not lead businesses to hire workers. It is clear that workers did spend much of this tax cut. The savings rate in the last quarter was under 4.0 percent. If workers did not spend much of the tax cut, the implication is that the saving rate would have been under 3.0 percent in the absence of the tax cut. While this is higher than the near zero rate when the housing equity created by the bubble was driving consumption, it is far below the 8.0 percent pre-bubble average.
The NYT should have pointed out that Kyl was wrong; that he either doesn’t understand basic economics or was deliberately making assertions that he knew not to be true. Instead it just presented Kyl’s statements and responses by Democrats in he said/she said context. NYT reporters have the time to find the truth of such statements, most NYT readers do not.
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