Politicians Really Can't Create Jobs

Americans head into the midterm elections on Nov. 4 with two perennial issues as their top concerns: jobs and the economy. In this respect, the U.S. is pretty much like everyone else in the world. In country after country, jobs and the economy regularly come out ahead in polls asking voters to rank the important issues. What’s frustrating, however, is that politicians appear to have remarkably little control over what actually happens to unemployment and the economy. All of which means public disenchantment with Washington is likely to run through the next session of Congress—and doubtless the one after that.

The latest Gallup polls suggest that Americans continue to rank the economy as the “most important problem facing this country today,” with unemployment third (after general dissatisfaction with government). The same is true across much of the world. In the European Union, unemployment is first with the economy second as the most important issues facing member countries, according to surveys (PDF). The 2011 Latinobarometro poll of Argentina and Mexico found that unemployment was the second most commonly cited problem in the two countries (after crime). The Afrobarometer survey across 33 African countries between 2011 and 2013 found that unemployment was ranked as the top problem that governments should address, with poverty second and the economy third.