Another Dismal Jobs Report Suggests the Economy Needs More Investment, Not Cuts
by Clyde Weiss | September 02, 2011
This morning’s disappointing news that the nation’s staggering 9.1 percent unemployment rate remains unchanged is another challenge to those who want to cut spending at the expense of growing our economy.
The fact that there was no net job gain last month – and reported job gains in June and July were actually untrue (the government revised its figures to report that 58,000 fewer public service jobs were added during that time) – speaks loud and clear to the fact that the private sector continues to sit on trillions of dollars in revenue rather than spend it on new jobs.
This dismal economic picture is made worse by the loss of 35,000 public-sector jobs a month. “Over 40 percent of private-sector job gains in the current recovery have been canceled out by job losses in the public sector,” according to a new report on joblessness by Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Pres. Lawrence Mishel and EPI economist Heidi Shierholz.
The EPI report also notes that unemployment hurts far more than those who lack jobs – it hurts the entire economy. That’s why EPI recommends that Congress “implement programs to rejuvenate the labor market.” That means spending money to improve school buildings, roads and bridges, and helping states that are cutting critical public service jobs. The loss of those jobs diminishes the services they provide and also eats into the economic base of communities where those workers live.
AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee, in a statement today on the jobs report, says “politicians seem more interested in attacking working families and posturing over when a jobs program should be presented rather than putting America back to work.”
President McEntee, in a Labor Day statement, also notes that these politicians “are giving even more power to the greedy interests who created the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”
Jobs will get America back on track. President Obama, in an address to Congress next Thursday evening, will outline his plan to create jobs that is expected to include a new round of stimulus spending. We hope lawmakers will set aside politics and put the nation’s economic interests first. We must grow the economy through jobs, not cutbacks.
