Whatever Happened to the Jobs Talk in America?

• Author: Jeffrey Simmons
• Posted: 2023-11-04

Back when Donald Trump was America's President, there was not a single day that went by that the media was not speaking about jobs. Sure, they had a whole lot of other stuff they would also talk about, like Russia and racism, etc; but they always managed to fit in some jobs report to remind us that unemployed people still existed in America, therefore Donald J. Trump was a horrible American President. Since Joe Biden has taken over this year as President, that jobs talk has all but disappeared. We hear a whole lot about COVID, nothing about Russia, and no more about jobs. What happened to all of this talk about jobs that the media was so hyper-focused on for the previous four years?

A lot of people blame presidents for unemployment; that's just the way of the world. When someone is in that top position, they're going to take all of the slings and arrows from an angry populous. Though what we're learning with a Joe Biden presidency is that the populous never seems to be angry unless the media tells them to be. There are not any protests out there by people demanding jobs. Instead, protests are for free housing, suspension of rent payments, etc. It's almost like America has forgotten that employed people drive our entire economy. The mainstream news media is focused in on Critical Race Theory, policing issues, and everyone's favorite topic of all time, COVID-19. That's all our media seems to be discussing these days. Jobs talk has been completely abandoned.

The fact is that America is dealing with two very odd things right now, insofar as they exist simultaneously. For starters, adjusting for COVID business closures, America has its highest rate of unemployment in history, while also having its largest labor shortage in history. In other words, there are millions of jobs available that the millions of unemployed people are unwilling to fill. And what does our media have to say about this? What does our society in general have to say? Nothing, apparently, because no one is out there speaking about jobs.

For the previous four years, we heard every single day about how America needed more green jobs. This was especially true when Congresspeople like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were pushing the Green New Deal and claiming constantly that we needed renewable, eco-friendly jobs. African American unemployment rates were discussed daily under Trump, with the implication being that he was doing something racist because there were still some black people who did not have a job. The media would harp endlessly about companies not hiring in America, or moving their operations overseas.

Under President Joe Biden, dozens of historically American companies have either ceased to exist or have moved to Mexico or China, and it has become a taboo topic to discuss, to the point that people simply do not discuss it.

A Lot Going On

Some may argue that the reason we're no longer focused on jobs in America, to the point we don't speak about them at all, is that there's just too much going on. There's the failed Afghanistan withdraw and the resurgence of ISIS. There's a new Covid variant that they say is wreaking more havoc than the original virus. There's a huge spike in violent crime in America, reaching historic levels. So a lot of people will claim that there's no time to speak about jobs in America with everything else that's going on.

Though we all still actually live in the world and most of us remember a year ago. There were all sorts of things happening last year. COVID was here, of course, and there were nationwide protests and riots happening on a daily basis. Still, through all of that, we still found time to discuss jobs. Why did we still discuss jobs? Because the entire American economic engine is powered by people who work. Though if one were to use America's mainstream media as any sort of gauge, the entire economy is driven by the federal government printing and handing out money, and so the need to work doesn't even come up anymore.

It stands out as odd because for the past four years before President Biden, one of the main topics spoken about daily was the need for more jobs and better-paying jobs and for Americans to get to work. Suddenly, jobs are no longer important. Millions being out work and millions of jobs sitting around vacant isn't newsworthy in print or on television.