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To read mainstream media’s celebration of official unemployment rate dropping from 8.9% to 8.8%, you wouldn’t know that the jobs deficit remains dire for millions of Americans (not coincidentally, corporate profits are going through the roof). Let’s look through the hoopla: Gee … if everybody just gives up looking, we could cut the unemployment rate to zero.
Back in the real world, community, faith-based, student and labor groups continue to push for Full and Fair Employment, recognizing that there is no such thing as a “jobless recovery,” no matter how happy CEOs are about corporate reserve cash, or that bank bonuses are bigger than ever. In Illinois (here, here), Portland, and elsewhere, coalitions took action in response to the new jobless report to point out that the growth of 103,000 jobs was not even enough to tread water, much less create the 11 million jobs needed to return to pre-recession unemployment. After Thanksgiving, 1.2 million Americans will be cut off from their existing unemployment benefits. These benefits have helped keep more than 3.3 million jobless workers and their families out of poverty. Moreover, before hitting the campaign trail Congress failed to extend the TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) emergency fund, leaving even more working people out in the cold. Never before have federal jobless benefits been cut when unemployment levels were so high (9.6%) for so long. Meanwhile, corporations are raking in record profits, but they still won’t create jobs. Republicans claim that extending such unemployment benefits and TANF would increase the nation’s deficit, which is ironic given their push to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich. But solving the deficit requires taxing the corporations that got us into this mess, not cutting jobs and services for working people. Most economists agree that unemployment benefits are a necessary economic component of actually sustaining other jobs in local communities that are striving to recover from the worst downturn since the 1930s. For every dollar spent on making the Bush tax cuts permanent, you get $.29 of increase in the GDP. For every dollar spent to extend Continue reading Provide Jobs — or at Least Income When a friend has news to deliver to another, most use the method of giving the good news first to soften the blow of the bad news. According to some, Kentuckians were given the bad news first Election night, when Republican Dr. Rand Paul was announced as Kentucky’s elected U.S. Senator. Dr. Paul faces great scrutiny about his opinion of minorities and their civil rights and “bashing” the unemployed. This summer during the debate over the extension of unemployment benefits, Lexington radio station WVLK-AM reported that Paul said:
On Dr. Paul’s election website, he selects 16 issues to comment on and not one of them was about jobs creation. At his victory speech, Dr. Paul said, “Government does not create jobs. Individual entrepreneurs, businessmen and Continue reading Rand Paul wins in Kentucky, but Yarmuth and Fischer Also Prevail Now that the dust is settling on the mid-term elections—revealing a wave of Republican victories in the House and Senate, Democrats should have all the motivation they need to maximize their time left in the post election congressional session. After Thanksgiving over 2 million Americans will be cut off from their existing unemployment benefits. These benefits have helped keep more than 3.3 million jobless workers and their families out of poverty. Moreover, before hitting the campaign trail Congress failed to extend the TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) emergency fund, which subsidized jobs for nearly 250,000 otherwise unemployed parents and youth. Never before have federal jobless benefits been cut when unemployment levels were so high (9.6%) for so long. Meanwhile, corporations are sitting on more than $8 trillion in reserves that could be used to create jobs. “I lost my home and my family, and now I’m on the verge of being homeless,” said Rafael Guzman who has been unemployed in Orlando, Florida since August 2008. “If Congress can’t create new jobs for people like me, they have to at least provide us with the unemployment benefits to help us get through this crisis.” When Congress returns to Continue reading Extend Unemployment Insurance & TANF Until the Economy Recovers A core practice of progressive organizing is to build power by bringing together people directly affected by a problem, developing solutions and taking action together to demand change. With jobless Americans currently numbering 15 million and (official) unemployment rates projected to be as high as 13% by 2020, Jobs with Justice coalitions are developing models for organizing the unemployed, empowering these voices and faces of the crisis to be a visible and powerful component of winning Full and Fair Employment and a New Economy. The JwJ approach weaves together unions, community agencies and religious congregations into a project that no group could do on its own. Though on-line approaches can be very useful (e.g. see here, here, here, here and here), JwJ member groups reach out to laid-off workers for in-the-flesh, “jobless potlucks,” workshops on “surviving unemployment” or moving “From Anger to Action.” Some cities do weekly canvasses of unemployment offices or food banks and other recruitment activities, collecting surveys or “I’ll Be There” pledges. Unemployed workers councils identify obstacles to good jobs and help plan local organizing to demand new programs at the city, state Continue reading Jobless, Not Voiceless: Labor and Community Unite to Organize Unemployed Fifteen million jobless are still waiting for our Senators to finish the job and pass unemployment insurance extension. Millions more are waiting for COBRA health subsidies and aid to states. CALL NOW: 1-888-854-1978 Tell your Senator to vote for the American Jobs & closing Tax Loopholes Act: This jobs crisis is deeper and longer-lasting than even the Reagan recession of the 1980s. State and local governments are starting to lay off thousands of teachers, and experts predict a loss of nearly one million jobs in the coming months if Congress fails to help the states now. So what’s the hold up? Many Democrats seem to be falling for right-wing scare tactics about the budget deficit and some are even buying into the ridiculous argument that getting jobless benefits keeps the unemployment rate higher. But defecits are necessary in a jobs crisis. Just imagine what forcing one million more onto the Continue reading CALL NOW! The Jobless Can’t Wait Any Longer. |
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