Capitalism's dirty little secret

Job "creation" doesn't work the way you think it does

An unemployed man works a street corner hoping for a job.

Another monthly jobs report comes out this Friday. The last one wasn't so hot, and the economy seems to be slowing down in general. Many Americans are probably anxious to see how many jobs were created in April.

But let's stop and think about that language for a second. How is a job created, exactly? And who's doing the creating? You'd think we could just conjure jobs out of the unformed ether of our will, given the way people talk about this stuff.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.