Main Street

Word on the Street: Jobs lost at the hands of elected officials

Catherine Balsamo – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

A recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Ann Belser noted that, after processing July’s job stats, we are now at 9.1% unemployment. The article goes on to explain: “[July’s] jobs report would have been better if governments had not cut so many workers.” Unfortunately, states across the country, including Pennsylvania, have lost a painful amount of jobs at the hands of their own elected officials.

Under the new state budget here in Pennsylvania – a budget that doesn’t even include all the cuts to education that Governor Corbett wanted – we lost or will lose a total of 10,000 jobs in education alone.

Think about that: because of decisions made by our elected officials ten thousand jobs will be gone within the field of education in the state of Pennsylvania. Wow.

As painful or shocking as these statistics are, the on-the-ground impacts of this continuing jobs crisis (exacerbated by anti-government politicians) are more staggering than any unemployment statistic could be.

One Working America member here in Western Pennsylvania went from making a solid professional wage as a computer information services technician to being unable to support himself after he was laid-off. He is a single dad, and he and his daughter recently moved back in with his parents. This member can no longer access the sort of medical care he could when he was employed. Even though this member is exceptionally brilliant and hard working, he still can’t find work. The jobs simply aren’t there.

Another member is desperate for her and her housemate to find employment. Their lives may depend on it, because she has health issues that demand a diet she can’t afford, and because her housemate has no access to healthcare and consequently relies on her to be his “medical personnel.”

Our governor may have run on a “jobs campaign,” but he has put jobs – and consequently us – last. The new state budget will put thousands more families in situations like the ones such as those just described.

Governor Corbett and job-killing elected officials across the country need to know what their constituents main priority is – getting back to work – and that we are holding them accountable for upholding their campaign pledges of focusing on job creation.

Working America members know that elected officials who claim to be promoting job growth by adding corporate tax loopholes are not really focusing on reducing unemployment. We all see that those extra corporate profits are going to the top, instead of being used for investments that put Americans back to work.

Despite the obstacles that unemployed Pennsylvanians face while officials like Governor Corbett fail to get it right, workers have done anything but give up. The computer technician mentioned above is organizing his friends and neighbors to take action. He also spoke at a jobs town hall and interviewed with the employment reporter from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The second member mentioned wrote a letter to the editor published in the Post-Gazette, sharing her unemployment situation and calling on Governor Corbett to “balance the budget responsibly.” Working America members are attending events, signing petitions, writing letters to elected officials and to the papers, and getting their friends and family members involved. Actions like these are some of the things that we need to do to hold our elected officials accountable for promoting job growth.

With more and more folks doing their part to hold our politicians accountable, we’ll be less and less likely to open the newspaper and read that “the jobs report would have been better if governments had not cut so many workers.”