Trumka to Launch Jobs Initiative Tomorrow
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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.
Unemployment Insurance Must Be Extended for Struggling Workers
With 26 million U.S. workers unemployed or underemployed, and the long-term jobless rate the highest since 1981—hundreds of thousands of struggling workers need relief. The U.S. Senate is expected to take action next week on an extension of unemployment insurance (UI).
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says struggling workers will receive a much-needed boost from the UI extension—and workers whose UI has already run out will see it resume:
Our proposal from the outset has been simple: Let’s support those families who have been hardest hit by the recession. In the almost three weeks since Republicans first began to delay this measure, over 150,000 Americans have lost their unemployment benefits. Those Americans, and the thousands of others who will lose their benefits if we don’t act, need us to act now. It cannot be overstated how critical this assistance is to workers.
State-by-State Unemployment Data Show Economy Still Hurting
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The latest state-by-state jobs and unemployment numbers are out, and as the experts at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) note we have a long way to go before we can say this recession is over.
Nationally, the economy lost 5.2 percent of all jobs since December 2007. In many states, the story is even more grim: Arizona has lost 10 percent of its jobs, Michigan has lost 9.8 percent and Nevada has lost 8.5 percent.
The official unemployment rate is at a 26-year high, at 9.8 percent, with states like Michigan, California and South Carolina even more severely affected. And the official unemployment rate doesn’t take into account the workers who have been discouraged due to long-term absence from the job market; it’s estimated that counting these discouraged, some 26 million people are out of work.
This is no time to play political games with unemployment insurance, as Republican Sens. Jon Kyl (Ariz.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah) are doing. Unemployment insurance must be extended so the U.S. economy isn’t further weakened. As Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) noted in Huffington Post, the failure to provide unemployment insurance in this devastating recession doesn’t just hurt the unemployed, it hurts families, small businesses and communities:
Without an extension…about a million of our long-term unemployed nationwide will lose benefits by the end of the year. We must not allow this to happen, especially as the holidays approach. As our economic recovery continues to take shape, it’s crucial that we not forget about those families who are hurting the most, still struggling to find work in a very difficult job market.
Kyl and Hatch Block Unemployment Aid for Tens of Thousands of America’s Jobless
Because of the actions of two Republican senators, every day this month 7,000 jobless workers have lost their unemployment insurance (UI) coverage. Each day these two Republicans continue to stand in the way of Senate passage of a UI extension, 7,000 more workers will run out of benefits.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has tried twice to bring the UI measure to a vote on the Senate floor. First Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), then Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) blocked action.
Christine Owens, executive director for the National Employment Law Project (NELP), says workers are “devastated” by the Republican roadblock.
Unemployed workers across the country are devastated and dismayed by the failure of the U.S. Senate to extend their lifeline. Every day, 7,000 additional workers are facing the total loss of benefits, in many cases after struggling to find work for more than a year and a half.
Congress Must Extend Unemployment Benefits ASAP
When Congress returns to work in September, one of its first items of business should be extending the federal unemployment benefits for the 640,000 jobless workers due to run out of benefits at the end of September and the 1.5 million more who will lose their jobless benefits by the end of the year.
In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director Bill Samuel said that July’s 0.1 percent drop in unemployment occurred only because some 450,000 gave up looking for work and dropped out of the workforce.
The July unemployment rate is still at a horrible 9.4 percent. A more accurate picture of the nation’s jobless crisis includes workers forced to take part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time work and discouraged workers who’ve given up finding a job. That figure is 16 percent.
