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Economy Loses 125,000 Jobs in June
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For the first time in six months, the economy lost jobs in June. The 125,000 job loss was due in part to a drop in the number of temporary employees working on Census 2010. Private-sector job growth remained anemic, with only 83,000 jobs added last month, according to a report released this morning by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Overall, the unemployment rate dropped to 9.5 percent, down from 9.7 percent in May. That was mainly because some 652,000 people gave up looking for work. Altogether, some 14.6 million Americans were jobless.
The number of people who are underemployed, which includes those who are too discouraged to look for work or are working part time out of economic necessity, dropped slightly to 16.5 percent in June, down from 16.6 percent in May, and some 26 million U.S. workers are without jobs or full-time work.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the June figures should be a wake-up call to Republicans in Congress “who have refused to act to create jobs, stop layoffs and help the jobless.”
Republicans stubbornly refuse to recognize that the private sector’s job-creating machine is dead in the water, creating only 83,000 jobs last month.
Every effort to dig us out of our 10.5 million jobs hole is being stymied by nothing more than excuses about the deficit. This is not to say the federal budget doesn’t need attention—it does, but over the long -term. Right now we have an immediate jobs crisis that must be addressed immediately. And unless we do address it soon, we’ll only make the nation’s economic conditions worse.
Writing today on Huffington Post, Trumka adds:
…we need a job-centered approach to stabilizing the national debt and strengthening the economy.
That means providing the economic stimulus needed to erase our jobs deficit and prevent deeper recession. It means investing in the 21st century infrastructure necessary to support stronger economic growth in the long term. And it means insisting that Wall Street and the small minority of Americans who benefited most from the economic policies of the past 30 years pay their fair share for rebuilding the new economy.
Click here to read the Huffington Post column “Jobs Should Come First.”
In the private sector, manufacturing added 9,000 jobs; temporary service jobs, 21,000; and mining, 6,000. Construction jobs declined by 22,000. The June unemployment rate for black workers improved slightly to 15.4 percent and was 8.6 percent for white workers.
Scott Paul, director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), says at this rate it will take decades to regain the losses in manufacturing since the recession began.
Unless Congress and the administration take aggressive steps to spur job creation, particularly in manufacturing, the recession will linger in communities all over the nation. And that’s bad news for lawmakers who are facing the voters in November. It’s clear what Congress should do next: focus on a national manufacturing strategy and provide a level playing field for our workers and businesses by ending China’s mercantilism, including its ongoing currency manipulation.
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13 Comments
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So we’re still losing jobs, millions are unemployed, and Obama and the unions want to add 12-20 million (currently) illegal aliens to the legal work force.
Will someone please explain how flooding the workplace with this huge number of workers is going to help improve working conditions?
Common sense says that we should deport the illegals, opening up 8 million jobs (not including farm jobs) to AMERICAN CITIZENS and LEGAL immigrants. Aparently, our “leaders” don’t see it this way. Please explain!
Vdunsworth, why does this seem like a simple solution, when growing the economy to accommodate everyone does not?
In fact, displacing people who are already employed is anything but simple- in fact, it would be another kick in the nuts (if you’ll pardon the expression) to an already-struggling economy.
Look at it this way- a business that already hires illegals may not be able to adjust to a different labor force and may simply go out of business. This is the case of many of the informal-sector jobs held by illegals.
followingsylvis.blogspot.com
Grow the economy? Yeah, that is going very well thank you….
Displacing illegal aliens that have displaced Americans is common sense. 8 million illegals have non-farm jobs that Americans WILL do. Americans have lost jobs and had their wages depressed because of illegal employment. This must stop!
Have you noticed that the same people who pushed the 1986 amnesty are preventing enforcement of our laws as promised in 1986? Why would anyone believe that they will allow enforcement after this proposed amnesty? We will just have another wave of illegals head this way waiting for, then demanding, their amnesty. The cycle will repeat.
If businesses who hire illegals go under without them, so be it. What businesses are these anyways? Who do they serve? Who do they hire? How do you imagine that they will magically be able to survive while paying legal wages after the amnesty? Or do you think they will just fine more illegals to hire. See above. It is amazing that anyone would defend the illegal employer/exploiter of illegal aliens, especially on a union blog…
What do you think adding another 20/50/100millon people will do to the enviornment? Our energy needs? Hint: DISASTER! Where do those numbers come from? Well, first we amnesty in 20 million, they bring in their families: 50M, in a generation they become 100M or more.
Please tell Mexico to grow it’s economy to accomodate everyone and stop exporting it’s excess population to us illegally. (By the way, we already admit ~400,000 Mexicans to the US LEGALLY every year, more than from any other country. And they complain that there is no “path to citizenship”… BULL!)
I don’t think illegal’s are the problem. The real problem is NAFTA along with unfair trade laws imposed by foreign countries.
I wonder what would happin if we imposed the same restrictions on other countries as they impose on us.
Its CRAZY! The Republicans have forgotten that they are Americans. If there was a train barreling for them and The President warned them to get outta the way for safety reasons,They would jump right in front of the danger just for spite. Many Democrats are fighting but some are scared to move. Come on ! No brainer here! JOBS HELP! WORK TOGETHER! We are at war,economically.LETS GO!!!
When does Trumka and the AFL-CIO leadership stop covering for Obama and the current crop of Democratic Party Congressional Chicken… When the Republicans ran the House and Senate they had no problem ramming through their agenda. The only thing they didn’t get was Social Security Privatization, which we now might get anyway. When pro-labor Democrats like Senator Russ Fiengold says that: “The Dodd Financial Reform Bill has Wall Streets paws all over it.” , we should be kicking some Democratic butt. When this administration wanted the so-called Health Care legislation it was rammed through. When they wanted the Dodd Bill it was rammed through. When they wanted more war in Afghanistan it was rammed through.
When Roosevelt was elected in 1933 he was faced with the same choice as European leaders. Who would suffer most during the Depression: the banks or working people. In Europed they chose facist dicatorship. Roosevelt chose to dictate to the banks. He passed the Glass Steagall legislation, which was repealled in 1999 by a Republcian Congress under the direction of Greenspan, so this should be clear, I’m not a Republican.
Roosevelt created 4,000,000 jobs within the first year of his administration. So stop covering for Democrats that are selling our working people to Wall Street. Let me end with a clear message. When the New York Democratic Congressional delegation sent a letter to Bailout Barney Frank endorsing the Dodd Finanical reform bill they ended it by saying: “We from the New York Delegation do not just represent Main Street, we also represent Wall Street. ” You know, you really can’t do both.
HEAR!! HEAR!!!
Stop the stupid blame game cover-up. Here is your real problem:
Jul-01-2010 05:07pm — poder360-.com
Big Investment by BMW
The German automaker will invest 2 billion euros in Mexico to manufacture autoparts and lower costs
The German firm Bayerische Motoren Werke Ag, BMW, announced the investment of $2 billion in the Mexico to fabricate autoparts for his luxury automobiles beginning in 2012. With that measure the automotive firm hopes to cover the North American market and advance its cost reduction plan by over 4 billion euros this year.
Our crazy politicians and regulators are driving jobs overseas!
So, if Republicans who back regressive, job-killing, tax-cutting, unemployment-cutting bills are the problem, why have AFL-CIO affiliates given over $40,000 to re-elect Thad McCotter in the 11th District of Michigan? There is a progressive Democrat, Natalie Mosher, running in what is an increasingly Democratic district, and the union PACs are acting like idiots and rewarding the Republican scumbag for a few paltry pro-union votes, when they could be backing someone who would be with them 100% if she won. As long as unions are going to play the percentages like that, they are going to get stabbed in the back when the chips are down.
I’m self-employed and thus no longer in the MEA (which is backing Mosher), but I wish the Ironworkers, BEW, et al members would call their PAC bosses and demand that the money be returned. Which side are you on boys (and girls)?
I find it very odd that in all this talk about job losses, no one brings up over population. It’s a numbers game at this point. I’m one of the unemployed, so I’m directly affected. I’m not at all happy with the situation. Job loss is not the only problem with over population. Other issues are increased crime and worsening environment. The day we come to this truth will be the day. Reality, what a concept! Less people equals more jobs. How long do we have to suffer with no jobs, no health insurance, no prospects. Where is this going with this? Switzerland takes care of it’s unemployed. They get health insurance even when they’re unemployed, and 80% of their prior pay as opposed to our 50%. We’re so called the number one country, but we can’t even take care of our people. What’s wrong with this picture?
Let’s see 26 million unemployed AMERICAN WORKERS many of the UNION MEMBERS,12 million illegal aliens or as Richard Trumka would call them un-documented workers.Seems to me about half our unemployed might have a chance at a job if they were not here.It also seems that the AFL-CIO is only interested in some kind of a GLOBAL UNION,with little or no interest in the people( American union members) that have supported their very good paying jobs.Every high ranking person in the AFL-CIO needs to get their hands dirty again because none of them know what it’s like to work for a living.You do your best to compete with non-union,political parties that hate you the chamber of commerce,illegal aliens and now it seems the the people of the AFL-CIO that are elected to serve you.All we ask is for a fair shake and to live the AMERICAN DREAM.I’m tried of being $%#@* on especially by my UNION REPS.
Economy and Jobs at Heart of Working Class Anger
I have a few things to say about the economic mess we are in. First, we need to start taxing the rich, serious taxes on anyone making over twenty million a year, at a rate of 65% to 85%. At 85% on a one million dollar income, that still leaves them $150,000 a year to live on. How many people do you know that would feel they were doing quite well on that amount? I believe a majority of those in Union’s have incomes more between $25,000 and say, $150,000. The last figure I believe is applicable to only a few Union workers. CEO’s making two million and over would still have $ 300,000 a year to live on. Now I look at the figures and more average workers, let us say $45,000 a year with an income tax of 15% that is $6,750 in taxes leaving $38,000 a year to live on. That is quite a difference, no? When the individual makes two million a year and pays a fifteen percent tax he is paying $ 300,000 in taxes but is left with One Million Seven hundred thousand dollars a year to live on; does this seem to you a fair distribution of wealth? Yet this is the sort of disparity we are living under and often worse for many have accountants who find every loophole here and abroad to keep the taxes of the rich as far down as possible. Money is power. Working people, without whom none of their wealth could exist, do not have access to that kind of money. We cannot buy government officials and people working in agencies meant to protect the American people as a whole. We cannot send them on vacations; offer them high paying, cushy jobs and other less savory inducements to betray their oaths.
Is this Socialism? I do not see it as such, my feeling is that as a people and culture based to a fair extent on Judeo-Christian ethics caring for, loving one another, is what society is supposed to be about. Is one person really worth so much money? If so, would we not believe paying doctor’s, scientists working on ways to cure and prevent diseases, develop crops to provide food where it has not been able to grow before and any number of other things essential to humanity as a whole worth more. Yet, we seem to forget this. I am not suggesting we begin paying these people millions but surely they are worth more than a single CEO to the general good. You put your life itself, the quality of life you can have and that of your children, parents and partners in the hands of doctors, teachers and scientists, not in the hands of CEO’s.
We need to hold big business leaders to account for their lies, their wrong-doing, the short cuts they take that cost human lives and force the average worker, (is there such a thing as an average worker?) to struggle daily to survive, work two jobs and not even be able to afford the comforts the rich take for granted. Would we be unreasonable to demand that our government leader’s at all levels start righting the wrong by placing the tax system on a reasonable footing? Of course, the other alternative is to put a cap on wages, including all the goodies, (cars, boats, planes, trips, stocks, vacations, etc.) and stop the process before it starts. Then we would not need to tax them to get back what they ought not to have gotten in the first place. Is one person, however wonderful, really worth so much more than the rest of the human beings on this planet? That is the question I leave you with.
Don’t ignore the drastic reduction of weapon systems expenditures.
The American defense industry was one of the major sources of well paying union jobs. Recent cuts and deferments are eliminating real, long term employment.
Defense spending spurs security, innovation and weapons sales to our allies. It is a testing ground for future vehicles, planes and communications systems. It spurs research, development and manufacturing. It is a sure path to security and job growth.
We need modern weapon systems and real jobs. Democrats and Republicans are eliminating both!