Main Street

To Keep and Create Jobs

The editors of The Nation:

But unemployment benefits extensions and retraining schemes are not sufficient. Americans need jobs–millions of them–and if the private sector is not going to create them, then the government must. Facing record budget shortfalls, states and municipalities have had to lay off record numbers of public workers and are also in dire need of aid from Washington. One promising idea involves extending tax credits to businesses that hire more workers.

Call it a second stimulus or a new New Deal. But the administration and Congress cannot delay, and they cannot get spooked by deficit projections–the perennial excuse for inaction. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich puts it, “The federal government should be spending even more than it already is on roads and bridges and schools and parks and everything else we need. It should make up for cutbacks at the state level, and then some. This is the only way to put Americans back to work…. When one out of six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, this is no time to worry about the debt.”

When talk of green shoots turns into jobs and prosperity for ordinary Americans, there will be time to focus on debt reduction. But widespread and expanding unemployment cannot be ignored any longer. The president must go for the gold: he must propose sweeping initiatives to keep the jobs America has and create the jobs America needs.

Tags: Jobs, unemployment