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Right Response to Unemployment Is Smart Stimulus Spending

Fri, 09/10/2010 - 09:38 — Dave Culver
Section(s): 
Government & Politics
  • The federal government has spent a lot of money for the purposes of avoiding a Depression and easing a recession. But it has not spent that money well or wisely.
  • The jobs emergency
  • Class Warfare from the Top Down

John Nichols, The Nation

The official jobless rate rose from 9.5 percent to 9.6 percent in August. That’s a modest increase, but the trajectory is in precisely the wrong direction for a country that fears a double-dip recession – not to mention an Obama White House that fears a big dip in Democratic majorities in the House and Senate after an election that is now just two months away.

The president says that there is "positive news" to be found in the fact that private sector employers created 67,000 new jobs. But that spin is not going to get very far at a point when the country must create twice that many jobs each month just to keep up with growth in the number of Americans who are entering the workforce.
 
And that does not begin to address the challenges posed by underemployment – Americ ans who have jobs but who can’t get enough hours or sufficient pay to support their families – and the growing number of long-term unemployed Americans who have given up looking for jobs.

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Related:

The jobs emergency, Robert Reich, RobertReich.org

  • Twelve thousand new jobs in July -- when 125,000 are needed monthly just to keep up with population growth, when more than 15 million Americans are out of work, and when more than a half-million more state and local jobs are on the chopping block.
  • Predictably, Washington's latest rescue effort falls woefully short
  • U.S. Experiencing Worst Episode of Prolonged Unemployment Since Great Depression
  • An aid package to the states to prevent layoffs was funded by cutting the federal food stamp program.

Class Warfare from the Top Down, Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation on Grit TV

  • While the economy stagnates and our infrastructure crumbles, Bush's breaks for the wealthiest Americans are doing far more harm than good.
  • "The spine of this White House," says vanden Heuvel, "is wobbly."
  • Why Obama Is Proposing Whopping Corporate Tax Cuts, and Why He’s Wrong

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