The world is changing. Already this year, elections have switched administrations in Indonesia, Pakistan and Slovakia. Major countries with elections and possible regime change still looming include Britain, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Austria and the USA.
Voters in some countries have elected incompetent regimes and soon regretted it. Conversely, several populations have benefitted from wise democratic decisions. Of these, the USA is a good example.
Snapshots of severe slumps
One major electoral blunder was Turkey electing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as President in 2014. The jobless rate soared thereafter to peak at 14.1% in mid 2019, well before Covid. With 4.6 million Turks out of work, that was the worst pre-Covid blow-out by far in the 38-member OECD. At 8.7% in February, the jobless rate is still too high.
We are indebted here to Trading Economics for their excellent charts, which show jobless rates and other outcomes for 196 countries going back several decades. Please note that the Y-axis usually does not start at zero. We have added colour and descriptors for clarity.
In June last year, Finland changed from the reformist government led by Sanna Marin to a conservative administration under Petteri Orpo. Early signs are troubling, with the jobless rate averaging 8.37% over the last three months, the highest in several years.
Germany also appears to be experiencing a rise in the jobless since Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union was defeated in December 2021 by Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party. The jobless trajectory through Merkel’s 16-year reign was impressive. She inherited chronically high unemployment following Germany’s earlier reunification. She then presided over a steady decline, with blips during the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic. That trajectory has shifted upwards following the change of government.
New Zealand has also experienced increased unemployment since the beginning of 2022. Its graph, below, shows favourable outcomes under prime ministers John Key, Bill English and Jacinda Ardern. The surge began under Chris Hipkins, and seems to be accelerating under Christopher Luxon, though it’s still early days.
Unemployment in the USA had been in a long-term decline since the 2008 global financial crisis until the 2020 Covid downturn. The gross mismanagement of the pandemic led to the worst jobless surge of all OECD members. By April 2020, more than 23 million Americans were jobless.
Since the Biden administration took charge in 2021, the recovery has been impressive. No sign yet of the jobless rise seen in Germany, New Zealand and elsewhere. See chart at the top of this page.
Italians also appear to have benefitted from the change of government in October 2022, confirming – so far at least – this optimistic outlook at the time.
The last three French presidents have presided over contrasting jobless trajectories. Employment wasn’t a high priority for Nicolas Sarkozy. François Hollande had even less success until midway through his five-year term, when the tide turned.
In August 2014, Hollande appointed an unknown 37-year old philosophy graduate working in the banking sector as minister for the economy. Whether or not it was Emmanuel Macron’s deft touch, the economy rapidly improved.
Partly on the basis of his brief ministerial success Macron won the top job in 2017. He is now two years into his second term with the economy continuing to improve.
Australia again leads the world
Australian voters in May 2022 tossed out the worst economic managers in Australia’s history – based on actual outcomes. Since then the jobless rate has remained below 4.0% every month bar one. That contrasts with an average rate of 5.61% through the previous regime.
The same pattern of immediate dramatic improvement is evident with other key outcomes charted recently, including construction, budget surpluses, full-time jobs, taxes collected, income distribution and distribution of wealth. These all show that over the last 22 months Australia has had the strongest improvement in published economic measures of all developed nations.
Electing a competent administration actually helps people. Who knew?
Let’s see if Americans remember that in November.
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This is an edited version of an article published today in Independent Australia, available in full here for free:
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/australia-and-others-proving-again-that-elections-do-lead-to-profound-change,18573