Main Street

Another 466,000 Unemployed

The unemployment crisis continues to deepen. Another 466,000 Americans joined the ranks of the unemployed last month. Right now more Americans are unemployed than ever before, even more than in 1933 at the depths of the Great Depression.

Yet, where is the uproar? Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary, asks “why isn’t the media screaming?” New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has been asking that question and more for months.

According to the August employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics “the number of unemployed persons increased by 466,000 to 14.9 million, and the unemployment rate rose by 0.3 percentage point to 9.7 percent.”

Another 2.3 million Americans are unemployed but aren’t counted because they hadn’t sought work in the last four weeks. Add this group to both the labor force and unemployment totals, and the number of unemployed Americans is actually 17.2 million — with the actual unemployment rate at 11 percent.

Another 9.1 million Americans are underemployed, reports the BLS, “working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.” Add this group and the unemployed and underemployed number 26.3 million Americans — nearly 17 percent of the work force.

In an interview last Friday on The Ed Show on MSNBC, Nobel prize economist Joseph Stiglitz, professor at Columbia University, said:

“There’s absolutely no reason why we need to accept a situation where people who want to look for a job can’t get it. We have so many needs in our country. And this situation where we have people looking for jobs, and we have so many needs — I think we should view as unacceptable.”

Prof. Stiglitz is one of an impressive list of leading economists, compiled by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who’ve said the February 2009 stimulus was too small, or have since called for another round to fuel job-creating recovery.

And that is exactly what the AFL-CIO Executive Council called for July 28 in a major policy statement.

It is crystal clear that urgent action from the federal government is needed to boost economic growth and jobs, and invest in America’s future: we need a second installment on the Obama Administration’s economic recovery program, and this second installment must focus like a laser beam on job creation.

Our growth model in recent decades—debt-financed consumer spending and asset bubbles, combined with huge trade deficits—has failed. We cannot borrow and outsource our way to prosperity: without good jobs in America, there will be no sustainable economic recovery. As private demand pulls back and Americans rebuild their savings, the most effective path to sustainable growth is an ambitious public investment agenda.

There is no viable alternative to public investment right now.

The policy statement also calls for extending unemployment benefits immediately, increasing food stamp spending to help families in need, providing additional aid to state and local governments to offset budget cuts and stem more layoffs, and investing in additional transportation, clean energy and other infrastructure projects.

As the August jobs report shows, the unemployment crisis in America continues to deepen. The day after that report was issued The New York Times lead editorial “Where the Jobs Aren’t” asks:

The question, then, is how bad does it have to get before the Obama administration and Congress make job creation a priority.

Will administration officials and lawmakers fight for new laws to make it easier to form unions, which are especially important in elevating and protecting the jobs of low-income workers? How will professed support for green jobs be translated into a manufacturing policy that promotes good jobs? Will efforts to improve the educational system also include serious efforts to train and retrain people for new jobs?

Help is wanted for out of work Americans.

Tags: Jobs, recovery, stimulus, unemployed, unemployment