By in
RIFuture.org
Before 1986, did you use office
supplies? Did you buy ribbons for your typewriter, pencils, carbon paper,
and blotter paper? Did you buy floppy disks, plotter pens, and printer
paper? Or did you just find them on the street?
I ask because I keep reading
that Mitt Romney created 90,000 jobs by helping Tom Stemberg found Staples, the
office supply giant. But it seems that only 90,000 people work at Staples now,
so how does that make sense that they created 90,000 jobs?
Maybe I’m not being clear. I
very clearly remember the delightful E.L. Freeman, Stationer’s, on Weybosset Street in
Providence .
I loved the bins of pens, the
shelves that went up to the ceiling, and the way the guys who worked there knew
pretty much everything I wanted to know about what was available and what it
was good for.
When I didn’t have time to go
all the way downtown, there was a smaller stationer’s on Thayer Street , at the lower end, and
another up on Hope.
These places are all gone
now, gone the way of the carbon paper they sold, casualties in the price war
that Staples won.
Staples was a stupendously
successful investment for Bain Capital, but it was successful precisely because
it upended the status quo of stationery retail.
The jobs those little stores
provided for the people who ran them and worked in them are also gone with that
carbon paper.
So shouldn’t the number of
jobs Staples “created” be the net, not the gross? Certainly Staples
created jobs for itself, but didn’t it also cause some jobs to be lost?
The Census Bureau has an
answer. In 1987, retail and wholesale merchants of stationery and office
furniture employed 175,055 people. In 2007, they employed 213,653. So
apparently the industry added only 38,598 jobs between Staples being founded
and 2007.
And, of course, the nation’s
population grew during that time. If we account for that, it appears that we
might have about 4,000 more jobs
now if Staples had never been invented. And the jobs that remain aren’t as
good.
Payrolls in these trade
sectors ran about $19,700 per employee in 1987. As of 2007, the number is
$26,500, about one-third less after correcting for inflation. In other words,
Census data implies that the introduction of big-box retail in the stationery
sector cost us jobs and made the remaining jobs worse. No wonder Republicans in
Congress are attempting to slash the Census Bureau’s budget.
This is, of course, the way
our economy works, the “creative destruction” Joseph Schumpeter was so fond of.
I liked Freeman’s, but Staples is certainly less expensive.
You can think that’s a
tragedy for workers or you can think it a boon to consumers. I don’t have to
express an opinion about that to know that it’s dishonest to ignore what really
happened to the stationery market when I’m counting jobs.
And here’s the real conflict
between being successful at business and being successful at government.
In business, you’re only
responsible for your team, while in government you’re responsible for everyone.
Staples doesn’t have to
account for the Freeman employees who lost their jobs. To them, 90,000 new jobs
is a clear win, and they are free to ignore the losers. But those people who
lost their jobs don’t disappear.
The accounting for the nation
as a whole is a very different thing and has to account for both the winners
and losers.
I don’t know about you, but I
am mightily tired of hearing people who became rich in business touting their
experience as if it’s relevant to running a nation or a state.
I don’t want a president or a
governor who measures jobs gained and ignores jobs lost.
I don’t want someone who
focuses on job “creators” and ignores the workers and consumers who make their
businesses go.
I don’t want someone looking
for profit for a small minority of the population, and I don’t want a
deal-maker if that excludes the rest of us from consideration.
I want a government that sees
the whole picture and acts with the greater good in mind.