news.newamericamedia.org — On the eve of President Barack Obama's White House Summit on Jobs, labor leaders issued a dire warning: Unless Congress and Obama create a "bold jobs program," state and local governments could shed almost a million jobs next year, further worsening our national unemployment rate.
huffingtonpost.com — America today has plenty of rich and super-rich. But it has far more families who did all the right things, but who still have no real security. Going to college and finding a good job no longer guarantee economic safety. Paying for a child's education and setting aside enough for a decent retirement have become distant dreams. Tens of millions of once-secure middle class families now live paycheck to paycheck, watching as their debts pile up and worrying about whether a pink slip or a bad diagnosis will send them hurtling over an economic cliff. America without a strong middle class? Unthinkable, but the once-solid foundation is shaking.
salon.com — Some of the best minds of this generation are getting together at the White House jobs summit this week to get our economy back to pre-recession levels. But if they do only that, we will all fail. President Obama is right to bring together some of the nation's top business, labor and community leaders to figure out how to bring jobs into the recovery. But just re-creating the past is not enough. We must create a new financial structure — an inclusive, expansive economy that harnesses the skills of all people. An economic recovery that doesn't lift up low-income people and communities of color is no recovery at all. President Obama has shown he is committed to a recovery for all, which is why I am honored to be one of several nonprofit and advocacy leaders who will try to bring the voices of struggling Americans to the table at the jobs summit.
thenation.com — Now is not a time for deficit hawk hysteria; rather, it's a time for smart thinking to rebuild this country which has been pillaged and looted for these last eight-plus years, resulting in a massive public investment deficit. We need to create jobs, and in turn increase consumer demand, raise revenues, and grow our way out of this jobless recovery. The private sector can't get that job done at this moment — the government must fill the void.
thenation.com — Yes, joblessness is a bigger deal than Afghanistan. Yes, joblessness is a bigger deal than health care. Yes, joblessness is a bigger deal than the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and the cap-and-trade fight. It is a bigger deal, even, than Tiger Woods.
robertreich.blogspot.com — Most ideas for creating more jobs assume jobs will return when the economy recovers. But here's the real worry. The basic assumption that jobs will eventually return when the economy recovers is probably wrong. Some jobs will come back, of course. But the reality that no one wants to talk about is a structural change in the economy that's been going on for years but which the Great Recession has dramatically accelerated.
House of Representatives staffers who take the District's subway system to work are now confronted with a host of scary images as they exit the station: A forlorn Uncle Sam panhandling to pay off a $12 trillion debt; a stopwatch with the message that it would take 31,000 years for that stopwatch to tick off one trillion seconds, a poster with 16 digits symbolizing the debt, down to the penny, stre more »
In a conference call with reporters, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.; Thea Lee, deputy chief of staff, AFL-CIO; James Galbraith, economist, professor at Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs; and Campaign for America’s Future codirectors Robert Borosage and Roger Hickey argue in favor of a robust jobs-creation program along the lines of the AFL-CIO five-point jobs program. more »
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ndn.org — This month’s off year elections sent one message to Washington that has been heard loud and clear. Voters expect Congress to focus on the economy, especially employment, and take decisive and affirmative steps to deal with both the causes and ravages of the greatest economic downturn in the U.S. since the Great Depression. As the Obama administration considers a variety of new proposals to help bring down the unemployment rate, one key constituency is raising its voice and asking for a return on the investment it made in his presidency.
truthdig.com — In his powerful new book, “The Healing of America,” T.R. Reid asks, “Which inequalities will society tolerate? Is it acceptable that some people are left to die because they can’t see a doctor when they get sick? That question encompasses a more basic question: Is health care a human right?” President Franklin D. Roosevelt had the answer when he offered his “Second Bill of Rights” as the nation was nearing the end of World War II in 1944. He looked ahead to a postwar world where Americans had the right to a decent job, home, education and “adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.”
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