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Jobs, Anyone?
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When will the lawmakers in Washington, D.C., figure out that putting America’s unemployed workers back to work means there actually needs to be jobs available? And that means creating them. The AFL-CIO’s five-point jobs plan includes job-creating measures, such as rebuilding the nation’s roads, schools and infrastructure, and lending Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) funds directly to small and medium-sized businesses via community banks. If small businesses can get credit, they will create jobs. The U.S. House passed a good jobs bill last month, but, as usual, the Senate is sitting back in its privileged chambers and doing nothing. Time to act. Now.
- There are now 6.4 unemployed workers for every ONE job in the United States. New data out today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show there were 12.9 million more unemployed workers than job openings in November, an increase from 6.1 percent in October.
- Since the start of the recession in December 2007, an estimated 8.1 million jobs have been lost. This includes both the 7.24 million jobs lost in the payroll data as currently published and the preliminary annual benchmark revision (released Oct. 2 , 2009), which showed an additional 824,000 jobs lost from April 2008 to March 2009.
- As the Nation’s John Nichols points out, analysts had predicted that December layoffs would number around 8,000. Instead, the figure was more than 10 times higher: 85,000. Unemployment held steady at 10 percent—not because the job market is stabilizing but because tens of thousands of Americans gave up looking for work and are no longer counted among the unemployed.
- Workers’ lost wages from 2008-2012, as a result of the recession, will top $1 trillion—more than the estimated 10-year cost of health care reform. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates unemployment at more than 7 percent in 2012.
Hello? Senate? Time to act. Now.
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3 Comments
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Recently, the United States Postal Service delivered info packets about the “10-to-4 Plan” to the White House. I included a one-page list of the 17 interdependent and independent components. In my note, I offered to “connect-the-dots.” However, each of these components is more than a dot. Each component is more than a boulder.
They are the peaks of mountains. The names of these individual components were not descriptive. They should think of the names of these components as the mountain peaks a pilot flying above 20,000’ would see penetrating a band of clouds.
I am still willing to “connect-the-dots” so that they can leverage public funds to catalyze a sustainable recovery in the private sector. However, most of the people who know about this effort are now encouraging me to “turn the page” because:
• “They not listening to anyone”
• “They just wanted to get Obama elected.”
• “They are letting the foxes run the hen house.”
• “They have no integrity.”
• “They forgot who elected them.”
Their words do not fall on tin ears. I have no gatekeepers who cull messages for me. Thus, it cannot be long before I recognize that my valiant effort to help President Obama will never generate an iota of response or action. Then, I will learn the lesson that parents learn from their children. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
The hypocrisy of calling for jobs for Americans while supporting an Amnesty bill that screws them is RIDICULOUS.Let us not forget also the backroom deal to affiliate ,without membership vote,with UNI GLOBAL UNION,which while guaranteeing Union bosses a paycheck from foreign workers,once again betrays the American workers they were “elected” to represent. John Buck Regional Director American Federation of Citizen Union Workers P.A.C.
John Buck I agree, the AFLCIO is selling out Americans, they should change their name to “International Federation of Labor” or face a false advertising lawsuit.