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600,000 Jobs Lost: How Bad Does It Have to Get for Republicans to Act? |
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With today’s unemployment report showing nearly 600,000 jobs lost in January—worsening the U.S. unemployment rate from 7.2 percent to 7.6 percent—will obstructionist Republicans in Congress finally move the economic recovery bill?
From Bloomberg:
“Last month’s losses mark the first time since records began in 1939 that job cuts exceeded half a million in three consecutive months.”
While the official unemployment rate of 7.6 percent is really bad, the unofficial rate—which includes underemployed workers and those who have become too discouraged to look for work—is 13.8 percent. Some 21.5 million workers are either unemployed, working part time for economic reasons or dropping out of the labor force because they can’t find work.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that service industries, which include banks, insurance companies, restaurants and retailers, lost 279,000 jobs. Retail payrolls decreased by 45,100, after a decline of 82,700 in December. Financial firms reduced payrolls by 42,000, after a 27,000 decrease the prior month.
At bottom, the problem is simple: There are far fewer jobs than workers. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows there is one job for every four workers. That means jobs need to be created. And that means Congress has to act immediately to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will create or save 3 million jobs.
The jobs report shows the U.S. economy has shed 3.6 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007, with almost half of them lost in the last three months. EPI economist Heidi Shierholz puts that figure in perspective:
Since the start of the recession, the U.S. economy has shed more jobs than the total population of Chicago.
How bad do the job numbers have to get before many Republicans in Congress stop holding up the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? They seem to have forgotten that the America people voted them out of office—big time—because the public wants what Republicans oppose: fundamentally sound programs like job training.
No joke. The Republican mouthpiece, The National Review, is blasting the $4 billion in the recovery program for job training, calling it an “outrage.” (Other items in the recovery package the magazine highlights as “outrages” are Pell Grants for college—higher education should only be for those wealthy enough to afford it, after all—and federal child care block grants because, well, just because children don’t deserve care. Or something like that. Can’t quite get into a mindset that cuts programs for kids.)
President Obama warned this week that
a failure to act and to act now will turn crisis into catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession.
He’s right. Republicans in Congress need to stop playing games and pass the recovery act to get America back to work.
9 Comments
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Conservative Republicans and their moderate Democratic brothers and sisters run a great risk in letting down the country and the American people. The pressures on them.
You keep bashing Republicans but forget all this happened while the Dems had majorities in Congress. The Executive Branch can propose things but Congress controls the spending.
I get furious every time I see Sen. Boehner in front of the TV cameras saying that the package is too big, etc. Its time for the Democrats to start speaking up and accuse him and his fellow Republican Senators of being unpatriotic and unamerican.
These Republican Senators want to destroy the middle class.
If the Republicans had their way, they would eliminate the whole middle class. They could not care less about us. They are a phony political party. Period!
One more point: What the Republcans don’t understand is that it is economically and socially impossible to eliminate one class of people without having total anarchy. This has provern to be correct as evidenced by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the French Revolution in the late 1700’s among others.
Sorry folks, but throwing good money after bad is not going to stimulate our economy. Rushing to pass this stimulus package will result in the same sorry mess as the TARP package. That money has been squandered. Do we really want to BORROW trillions more and just throw it off the highest building and hope it lands somewhere that it will do some good? I don’t think so! And what’s going to happen if the lenders decide they want even part of their money back? It’s reckless to continue to borrow against our children’s and grandchildren’s futures. It may already be too late to stop the ’sale’ of the US. I only hope and pray it isn’t.
Why doesn’t the government do some of the things that will help the employment situation in this country? Things like cutting the number of H-1B visas rather than raising it. Things like giving companies incentives, like tax breaks, to keep jobs here rather than outsourcing them overseas? Things like making E-Verify permanent and mandatory for ALL employers? Things like immediately deporting any and all illegals as soon as they’re picked up? And how about telling companies to start their ‘cost cutting’ at the top rather than at the bottom? All of these things would help. And they just might not cost us billions!
Oh stop your whining!!! Financial assistance for college is already available…it’s called Joining the Military. I did. It sucked but I did it and got my education.
Start thinking like an entreprenuer, and not a welfare recipient. Somebody has got to do the hard work, so that the govt. has the money to give away.
Go paint number signs on people’s driveways…go do laundry for people. Go get a job at a fast food restaurant. Yea it sucks, but it’s better than being a leach off of tax payer’s money.
I really have no idea where you live, but in California and Arizone, if you go door to door selling anything, be it vacuum cleaners or services such as painting addresses on curbs, you will undoubtedly asked by the local police for your license, which will cost several hundred dollars at least. and fast food restaurants, that’s a laugh, you must be an illegal immigrant to work at one willing to pay the manager a kickback for being allowed to work at less than minimum wage.
During his presidency Ronald Reagan, the icon of conservative America made a statement to the effect, If people are hungry and homeless it is because they want to be!
Oh dear, some of you make perfect sense, some of you, however, really do not get it, and do not understand what this stimulus package is supposed to do. Wall Street got a bailout, thanks to Bush and his Republican friends. The conservative base Republicans currently in Congress still want more bailout money for their rich friends and the corporate elite, in the way of TAX BREAKS. They just want more…and more. They do not need more tax breaks. President Obama wants to create jobs with the stimulus package, similar to what FDR had done. People DO NOT want welfare or handouts. People want jobs. If the entire stimulus package was designated for jobs growth, education and social programs for the neediest Americans, the payback will be more than the actual dollars spent. Giving more tax breaks to those who really do not need it will not guarantee any dividends over the amounts given, and may actually put our country in more debt, BECAUSE…the wealthy will not spend it, unless it is to buy larger corporations, like they already did with the banks, or they will save (or should I say, hoard) it. This money will not “trickle down”. It never did; it never will (debunking Reaganomics).
Back to stimulus- What Obama and the Democrats need to do is not worry about placating the conservative Republicans, because they really don’t give a damn anyway. They should take out anything even remotely related to giveaways for the wealthy, and put everything they want back in that is necessary to help the American people - jobs, infrastructure, programs that really help people get back on their feet and help them keep their homes (You know, what the bailout was supposed to do, and didn’t).
This money is not a giveaway, nor it is “thrown down the rabbit hole”, if it really is going to be used to create jobs and give people the incentive they need to start making purchases once again. The Republicans do not want a strong government, yet they gladly take everything they can from the government in the way of exorbitant tax breaks and free money. It is they that do not get it. The bottom line is: THE ECONOMY CAN ONLY GROW FROM THE BOTTOM UP. Obama gets this. The Democrats get it. Unfortunately, the Republicans don’t. I don’t think they ever will.