Where Are The Jobs?

Unemployment - Last Man Standing
Originally uploaded by iQoncept


With the political conversation being completely dominated by health care and banking reform, someone on Capitol Hill has finally said what I’ve been longing to hear for months.

That someone was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who during a meeting of his Democratic colleagues earlier this week announced plans to “take up” a new jobs creation bill.

On the heels of Reid’s announcement came word that the White House is hosting a “jobs forum" in December.

It is about time.

I was beginning to wonder has anyone on the Hill or in the White House been paying attention to what’s happening out here on Main Street America.

Don’t look now, but everyone is out of work.

Well, maybe not everyone, but it sure feels like it.

In October the national unemployment rate officially hit 10.2 percent with nearly 16 million people out of work. Some economist say the real rate of unemployment is in the neighborhood of 17 percent when you factor in folks who have simply given up looking for a job.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the ranks of the unemployed have swollen by 8.2 million and the unemployment rate has gone up by 5.3 percentage points, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There’s no denying that health care reform is important as is fixing the abuses on Wall Street. But with the jobless rate the worst it has been in a quarter-century, putting Americans to work is the No. 1 priority.

If you don’t agree consider the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia where Republicans took back those statehouses. Voters in both states rated “jobs and the economy” as their top issue.

I believed the President and Democratic leaders when they promised that the $787 billion stimulus packaged passed at the start of the year, would save or create 3.5 million jobs. And, that well might be the case once all the money is spent and the funded projects are up and running. But so far the White House can only point to about 640,000 jobs being saved or created.

That just doesn’t cut it.

Enough with relying solely on business tax credits or investments in green technologies to spark hiring and create jobs. Those initiatives will most likely bear fruit in the long-run, but America needs to return to work now.

It’s time for more direct action. It’s time to roll out a public jobs plan.

I know for some the term “make work” is scary. But what should be more frightening is the prospect of ever increasing unemployment.

It’s time to use our tax dollars to hire people to clean-up parks, paint school buildings, fix-up vacant houses, and staff community centers.

It has worked before. Think New Deal and its WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps programs. Not only were the economic benefits significant but the psychological boost it gave Americans was incalculable.

You don’t have to leaf through the pages of a history book to see a more recent example of our government taking direct action to meet the economic needs of Main Street.

For most of the summer Americans excitedly watched as cars disappeared from auto lots and showed up in their driveways and those of their neighbors. According to researchers the $3 billion rebate program resulted in an estimated 700,000 new vehicles being sold.

The program was an immediate shot in the arm for consumers, local dealerships, the auto industry and for states’ budgets that saw roughly $875 million in sales tax revenue generated. It has been estimated that the overall impact of the program was north of $25 billion.

There is currently no bigger Clunker that the American economy.

It’s time that Congress and the White House get serious and creative about creating jobs and putting people back to work.