10 Republican Steps to Killing Economic Recovery
It’s no secret that when Republicans take over control of the U.S. House next week, they will be eager to flex their newly found muscle. But as Isaiah Poole at Campaign for America’s Future points out, the Republican/tea party agenda
will hurt your ability to get or keep a job, your neighborhood’s ability to recover from the recession and this country’s ability to regain its footing in the global economy.
Poole goes through the “Top 10 Economy Killers” that are the heart and soul of the Republican agenda, including repeal of health care and Wall Street reform, slashing infrastructure spending, strangling government’s ability to create jobs, killing green jobs initiatives and more.
Among the many devastating consequences of health care reform repeal, Poole writes (click here for more), are
a $143 billion increase in the deficit by losing the savings the reforms created, an increase in the number of uninsured by 30 million people, an end to free preventative care services and the loss of the requirement that insurance companies devote the bulk of premium payments to health care costs rather than expensive advertising and executive perks… We’ll be back to uncontrolled cost increases in private insurance. Read the rest of this entry »
G-20 Labor Leaders Meet at AFL-CIO for Labor Summit
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When the world’s banks were going under, governments jumped to their aid. Now with record numbers of people out of work, it’s past time for governments to put working people first, or the fledgling economic recovery could fall apart. Leaders from the G-20 nations issued this warning while in Washington, D.C., this week for the first-ever meeting of G-20 labor ministers and employment ministers with labor and business leaders April 20-21.
The global union movement has been working to create a G-20 working group on employment and social protection since the global economic crisis erupted in 2008. Beginning at the summit in Pittsburgh last September, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has taken a leading role in the effort to make good jobs the central element in any global economic recovery. The federation hosted a meeting of G-20 labor economists in March to draft policy proposals for the labor ministers’ meeting. Trumka was a lead speaker from the global unions at the ministers’ meeting as well.
The G-20, which is now the main body for global economic policy, includes the leaders of the world’s major economies, together constituting 85 percent of world output and 60 percent of global employment.
More Jobs but Workers Spend More Time Jobless
Here are a few items worth noting today.
* Kudos to union members in West Virginia who successfully pushed the state’s legislature to adopt a resolution creating Labor History week following Labor Day. Just last month, Wisconsin union activists succeeded in their years-long effort to get the state legislature to make labor history part of the state’s public education standards.
* From the Campaign for America’s Future: Huffington Post’s Art Delaney highlights expiring stimulus program that could cost 100,00 jobs: “…more than 100,000 people…will lose their jobs by September unless Congress extends a stimulus bill provision that gives states funding to create jobs programs for low-income parents and young adults….”
* A laid-off worker now spends nearly five months unemployed, longer than any other time on record, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
* In the “here’s how hard up we are for good news about jobs” category: The ratio of job seekers per job opening dropped from six to one in December to 5.4 in January. How sad is it that this is good news?
One Year Later, the Recovery Act Is Working
If there’s one thing Americans agree on, it’s that we need more jobs now. That reality is often twisted by conservatives, who say the one-year-old economic recovery plan has failed. But they are just wrong.
The AFL-CIO is pushing for much greater investment to create the millions more jobs we need to get us out of our current hole. Check out the federation’s five-point plan to put America back to work here.
The fact is that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is still working, generating more than 2 million jobs and laying the foundation for future economic growth.
Study: Extending Benefits for Jobless Helps Us All
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With 26 million people either unemployed or without fulltime work, labor commissioners and officials from eight states joined with workers and union and civil rights leaders in calling for Congress to extend unemployment insurance and health care assistance for jobless workers, benefits that will expire for many in a few weeks.
A new study, “Keeping a First Line of Defense for the Jobless,” released today, predicts that 1 million workers will become ineligible for unemployment benefits in January 2010 unless Congress reauthorizes key provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The report also shows that by March that number will swell to more than 3.2 million workers. Click here to read the study.
State, Local Budgets Tanking, Need Help Fast
With official unemployment at 10.2 percent, creating new jobs is a critical part of any economic recovery. But huge state and local budget shortfalls caused by the nation’s economic crisis will make joblessness worse unless state governments receive massive amounts of aid, according to a new report.
The report by Ethan Pollack, an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) policy analyst, says the recession has led to much lower tax revenues for state and local governments. Unlike the federal government, state and local governments must balance their budgets by law. So state and local policymakers are cutting spending and raising taxes, steps that will lead to lower consumer demand and more unemployment.
At an EPI forum yesterday to release the report, Trenton [N.J.] Mayor Douglas Palmer said mayors and governors could use additional federal stimulus money to create jobs now, improve the nation’s infrastructure and help small businesses—all of which would have lasting economic and environmental benefits.
Join Biden in Live Webcast on the Economy and the Middle Class Today
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Click here at 10:30 a.m. EST to join Vice President Joe Biden as he hosts a live webcast with a panel of leading scholars to discuss the unique challenges facing America’s middle class in the 21st century economy.
This special Center for American Progress (CAP) and Economic Policy Institute (EPI) event will cover economic developments and trends affecting middle-class families, including changes to the overall labor market in recent decades, shifting gender roles, the need for a work-and-life balance in today’s economy, economic inequality and mobility, and the increased gap between productivity and wages.
Biden is chairman of the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families that President Barack Obama established in January to ensure the administration’s economic recovery effectively raises the living standards of middle-class families and those aspiring to be in the middle class.
Click here to watch.
No Recovery Without Jobs. No Recovery Without Jobs. No Recovery…
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“Jobs now” was the rallying call of thousands of delegates to the recent AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, and “unemployment aid” is the cry from millions of those who find themselves unable to get work in a U.S. economy that now has six jobless workers for every one job opening. More than eight of 10 Americans (83 percent) cite unemployment as the nation’s big problem in a survey just out by Peter D. Hart Research Associates.
And yesterday in Washington, D.C., several top economists, including Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, all stressed that creating jobs and alleviating the pain of unemployed workers must happen quickly at the federal level—or unemployment will not fall below 8 percent through at least 2014.
That’s more than 12 million U.S. workers without jobs as America’s status quo. And that’s only the official unemployment figure. Those not counted in the official data likely would double that number to at least 24 million workers.
All those who think 24 million jobless workers is a fine way to operate the economy, raise your hands.
Poll: Creating New Jobs Trumps Fixing Deficit
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With unemployment at the highest rate in 26 years, most Americans want the government to create more jobs before it worries about the deficit.
A new survey of public views of the economy, released today by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), shows more than eight of 10 Americans (83 percent) see unemployment as a big problem today.
While voters have some concern about the growth of the federal deficit, job creation is far and away their top priority. In fact, by a margin of 53 percent to 42 percent, voters are more concerned about rising unemployment rates than the rising federal deficit.
The Tracking the Recovery survey was conducted among 802 registered voters nationwide from Sept. 21-23 by Hart Research Associates for EPI. The poll takes an indepth look at Americans’ experiences in this recession, their expectations for the year ahead, their views of the government’s role and degree of success so far and their priorities for further government action. Click here to download the poll results.
Unemployment Reaches 26-Year High of 9.7 Percent
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Some 216,000 U.S. jobs were cut in August, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data out today. That worsens the unofficial unemployment rate to 9.7 percent, the highest rate since June 1983. The rate was 9.4 percent in July.
If underemployed workers or those who want a job but have given up looking are counted, the broader U.S. unemployment rate stands at 16.8 percent, up from 16.3 percent last month. That means more than 25 million Americans need jobs or full-time work but cannot find it. Worse yet, there now are 5 million long-term unemployed workers, the worst such figure in any recent recession. That means there were nearly six workers looking for every job available.
The 216,000 job loss is the smallest monthly decline since last year. Employers cut 276,000 jobs in July, compared with an average of 691,000 per month in the first quarter.
There is some good news: The economic recovery package has created about 1.2 million jobs, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Without the stimulus package, the monthly job loss would have been double what it was just six months ago.
