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.
Trumka: Jobs Crisis—Fix It Now
 |
|
Today at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other leaders joined together to call for urgent action to create jobs and rebuild the economy.
In a live webcast panel discussion, the consensus was clear: Without quick action, an entire generation could be mired in economic turmoil. The nation can, and must, put people back to work—while addressing critical needs for the future of our communities.
The scale of the jobs crisis is obvious: Since the beginning of the recession, more than 8 million jobs have been lost. The official unemployment rate is at 10.2 percent, with more than 26 million unemployed or underemployed. These figures are even more severe among African American and Latino communities. Young people are at risk of permanently stunted opportunity, and the jobs crisis is rebounding throughout the country with increased hunger and poverty, massive numbers of home foreclosures and diminished access to health care.
Trumka to Launch Jobs Initiative Tomorrow
 |
|
Tomorrow morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will announce a major new initiative to create and save jobs.
(Watch the live webcast at www.aflcio.org/createjobs starting at 9 a.m.)
Trumka will be part of a noted panel in “Spotlight on the Jobs Crisis” at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
With unemployment at its highest rate in more than 20 years, Trumka says America needs bold, quick action to put people back to work, in addition to longer term, structural fixes for our economy. The AFL-CIO initiative he announces will include calls to extend help for the unemployed, rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, provide aid to struggling states and communities, create federally funded community-based jobs and increase lending to small and medium-sized businesses to spur job creation.
Let’s Have a Real Senate Debate on Health Care
 |
||||
|
||||
Next week, the U.S. Senate is expected to begin debate on long-promised health care reform legislation. We’ve waited decades and fought hard for this moment—but progress could be blocked if a minority of senators refuses to allow a fair debate and a fair vote.
That’s right: Despite huge wins for pro-working family, pro-health care reform candidates in the House and Senate and the election of a pro-health care reform president, a few senators can do the bidding of insurance companies and prevent a bill from getting to the floor or getting a vote.
Now is the time to contact your senators and tell them: Health care can’t wait. It’s time for action.
Here’s more news from the fight for real health care reform:
- The Alliance for Retired Americans offered thanks to members of the U.S. House who voted to pass a health care reform bill that will improve Medicare and help the young and seniors alike. Alliance members also are protesting insurance companies like Humana that have used scare tactics and falsehoods to try and stop reform.
Unions Can Help Create Good Jobs for People of Color
 |
||||
|
||||
Increasing union membership is one of the keys to creating more good jobs for all workers, but especially for people of color and those in low-wage jobs, several experts said today. Many of the 8.1 million jobs lost during the current recession have been good jobs, including union jobs in manufacturing. The jobs now created, mainly in the service sector, are less likely to provide what working families need.
In a new report released today, Algernon Austin, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI’s) program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy, says the United States has too few good jobs. He defines a good job as one with a wage that can support a family, health care benefits and retirement security. Using that minimal standard, Austin found that Hispanics are less than half as likely as non-Hispanic whites to have good jobs, and African Americans about two-thirds as likely.
Obama Announces White House Jobs Summit
 |
|
This morning, President Obama announced he will invite labor leaders, business executives, small business owners, economists and other financial experts to a special White House summit on jobs next month.
Obama says the summit will explore ways to slow the loss of jobs and quicken the pace of job creation at a time when the nation’s jobless rate is at 10.2 percent, its highest point since 1983. As Obama said,
We have an obligation to consider every additional responsible step that we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country.
Just this week, the AFL-CIO Executive Council met in Washington, D.C., to outline a national jobs creation strategy that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will announce Tuesday at a special Economic Policy Institute (EPI) jobs and economy panel and seminar. (Plan now to view the live webcast from 9-11:30 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 17, at www.aflcio.org/createjobs.)
SAG President Joins AFL-CIO Executive Council
 |
||||
|
||||
The AFL-CIO Executive Council today welcomed a new member, Ken Howard, president of the Screen Actors (SAG). Howard, who was elected to lead the actor’s union in September 2009, replaces former SAG President Alan Rosenberg.
Convening for a one-day meeting in Washington, D.C., the council heard from Ron Bloom, senior counselor to President Obama for manufacturing policy and a former staff member at the United Steelworkers (USW). The council and union leaders have repeatedly called on the Obama administration to quickly enact a national industrial policy to foster and sustain growth in the nation’s manufacturing industries. Increasing our manufacturing capacity is critical as the world prepares to move toward a green economy.
Pollster Celinda Lake also shared the results of polling on the economy and the political implications of a protracted jobs crisis.
Biden: Strong Unions Needed to Build Middle Class
The nation cannot rebuild its middle class without strong unions, Vice President Joe Biden said today. Biden said he and President Obama believe it is impossible to grow the middle class without growing unions.
Biden, who chairs the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families, met with a panel of scholars assembled by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Economic Policy Institute (EPI) to discuss the challenges facing America’s middle class in the 21st century economy.
At the live webcast event, EPI President Lawrence Mishel said unions set standards in the workplace. Decent standards help ensure “employers are not competing to see who can make the jobs worst, but who can make the products better,” Mishel said.
‘Economy Track’ Tells Story Behind the Numbers
The nonprofit Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has launched an interactive tool for anyone interested in looking beneath current economic data to find out what’s really happening with jobs and the economy. The new online feature, “Economy Track,” offers easy-to-understand charts built on government statistics and enhanced with exclusive EPI data.
For example, Economy Track illustrates how unemployment is higher for African Americans and Hispanics than for whites, higher for men than for women, and much higher for blue-collar workers than for those with white-collar jobs.
Users can focus on unemployment and underemployment trends by state, race/ethnic group, gender, occupation and education level.
Today’s Health Care News
 |
|
Here’s the latest news from the battle for health care reform:
• While much of the media focuses on the Senate, the House bill is expected to be released tomorrow, with a vote coming soon. Call your members of Congress and ask them to support real reform.
• In the Washington Post, Harold Meyerson writes that a health care excise tax could hurt middle-class families because companies
have the power to impose health care costs and cutbacks on workers, who have little or no power to resist. if employers opt for cheaper policies to avoid the excise taxes on more expensive plans, their savings may not be passed on to workers as higher wages but simply kept by the employers. Out-of-pocket health costs for workers would rise, but into-pocket wage increases to cover those costs might not be forthcoming.
The senators’ version of health care finance assumes that workers will pocket the benefits of a cost-conscious system. The senators assume wrong.
