The Case For A Real Jobs Bill

The scope of the problem:

10.0 percent The unemployment rate in December 2009.
17.3 percent The rate that includes the underemployed (part-time workers who want full-time work) and discouraged workers (who aren't actively looking for a job but want to work).
27 million The total number of unemployed and underemployed people in need of a job.
Unemployment is particularly severe for certain groups and certain areas:
27.1 percent Teenage unemployment
16.2 percent African-American unemployment
48.4 percent African-American youth unemployment
12.9 percent Hispanic unemployment
60 Metropolitan areas that have unemployment rates that exceed 12 percent; 16 have unemployment rates 15 percent or higher

The Recovery Act did make a difference.

Between 600,000 and 1.6 million The number of jobs the Congressional Budget Office found that the Recovery Act saved or created as of September 2009. The Act boosted economic activity by between 1.2 percent and 3.2 percent last summer, and unemployment would have been 0.3 to 0.9 percentage points higher without it.

10.8 percent What the unemployment rate would have been without President Obama’s stimulus plan, according to a panel of 50 economists assembled by USA Today.

A real jobs program will make a real difference.

4.6 million jobs would be created in the first year of the American Jobs Plan by the Economic Policy Institute, at a gross cost of roughly $400 billion. The entire cost would be recouped within 10 years by a financial transactions tax, which would take effect three years after enactment. The AFL-CIO jobs plan would have a similar impact, and parts of it could be financed by funneling money in the Troubled Asset Relief Program fund that would otherwise go to large Wall Street financial institutions into community banks and credit unions that would use it to finance Main Street businesses.

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