Main Street

Big Push for Big New Jobs Plan

Support is growing from the grassroots for more substantive action to create jobs, and it’s breaking through on Capitol Hill with a major push for House passage of the Local Jobs for America Act.

Introduced last month by House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the bill would provide direct funding to municipalities, counties and states to support the creation and retention of an estimated one million full-time, good-paying local jobs.

With communities across the country facing persistent high unemployment coupled with severe state and local budget crises, the Local Jobs for America Act represents the most substantial direct job creation plan yet proposed in Congress. The plan quickly gained support from the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors as well as Jobs for America Now, the nation’s largest jobs coalition with more than sixty national organizations including Working America and the AFL-CIO.

Within three weeks of its introduction, the bill had garnered 105 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.

Then the grassroots organizing behind the bill gained increasing momentum. During the recent Congressional recess, groups supporting the new jobs plan contacted scores of Representatives in their districts and expanded the effort to gain additional organizational backing.

Last Friday, working through coalition partner Half in Ten, a letter of support signed by more than 300 local, state and national organizations was sent to the House leadership urging swift passage of the Local Jobs for America Act.

Here’s the text of the letter:

Dear Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Majority Whip Clyburn, Democratic Caucus Chair Larsen, Assistant to the Speaker Van Hollen and Chairman Miller:

The undersigned organizations write to express our strong support for the Local Jobs for America Act (HR 4812), which would create a million public and private jobs in local communities. We applaud Congressman Miller for the introduction of this critical legislation.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost over 8 million jobs, including many providing critical services in communities across the country. The current crisis of unemployment is devastating families all across America. March’s unemployment report revealed an overall jobless rate of 9.7 percent; among African-Americans the jobless rate was a staggering 16.5 percent, among Latinos, 12.6 percent, among women who head families, 11.3 percent, and among youth, 26.1 percent.

We need bold Congressional action in order to put Americans back to work and prevent more layoffs and cuts in crucial services. The Local Jobs for America Act will not only provide employment for hundreds of thousands of jobless workers, it will create and save jobs for workers who are providing services that our communities badly need.

The Local Jobs for America Act provides $100 billion over two years to create or save 750,000 jobs providing local services, and to save 250,000 education jobs. The funding will also keep 5,500 law enforcement officers on the beat, allow localities to hire additional firefighters, and provide on-the-job training slots to help local businesses create employment opportunities. These jobs in turn will put money in the pockets of families, spurring demand in the economy and creating additional private-sector jobs and tax revenues.

Projections of a slow recovery in the labor market underscore the urgent need to create jobs now. Job-creation must precede short-term deficit reduction as lost tax revenue from joblessness is significantly exacerbating our nation’s fiscal problems. As local and national organizations who are witnessing firsthand the current crisis of unemployment and the increased need for services in the face of deep budget cuts, we believe that a bold response cannot wait.

We support quick passage of the Local Jobs for America Act to immediately put Americans back to work, in addition to meeting pressing needs in our communities.

Also last Friday, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported the number of House co-sponsors had reached 141. Click here to see a current official list of co-sponsors.

If you don’t see your House member listed, you can call toll-free 888-254-5087 and urge them to become a co-sponsor of Rep. Miller’s Local Jobs for America Act (H.R. 4812). If your Representative is already a co-sponsor, call to thank them for their support.

The urgency of taking large-scale direct action to create jobs couldn’t be clearer. The statistics of massive job loss and persistent unemployment are well known: 15 million officially unemployed; 11 million more underemployed or discouraged from looking for work; higher unemployment rates among lower-income communities; more than 6.5 million out of work for six months or longer.

But new information provided by the non-profit National Priorities Project shows that without substantial additional job creation investments, it will take a startlingly long time to return to pre-recession employment levels. Combining local and state data on budgets and unemployment with national recovery estimates, they have produced state-by-state and metropolitan area projections. The results are a shocking testament to the need for immediate large-scale job creation.

For example, in Ohio it is estimated that, without substantial added jobs investments, the metropolitan areas of Akron, Cleveland and Toledo can expect the following employment recovery times:

Akron 2018 Quarter 2
Cleveland 2024 Quarter 2
Toledo 2034 Quarter 1

In Connecticut:

Bridgeport-Stamford 2020 Quarter 1
Hartford 2018 Quarter 3
New Haven-Milford 2015 Quarter 3

In California:

Los Angeles-Long Beach 2013 Quarter 4
Redding 2016 Quarter 2
San Francisco-Oakland 2012 Quarter 4

You can use NPP’s tool to look up your state and its major metropolitan areas.

Wherever you look, though, one thing is clear. We can’t wait any longer. We need jobs now!

Read more about the Local Jobs for America Act here.

Tags: jobs, Local Jobs for America Act, Rep. George Miller, unemployment