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Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, says in this podcast that there is further confirmation that we are in a recession in Friday's unemployment report. Policymakers need to respond with a much more robust program of job creation and extended unemployment benefits than that being advanced by the Bush administration and conservatives.

In the podcast, Mishel puts these numbers in context:

• The economy lost 22,000 jobs in April, but the employment picture was particularly bad in manufacturing and construction, which lost 110,000 jobs, and in retail trade, which was down 27,000 jobs.
• The number of persons working part time for economic reasons increased in April by 306,000 to 5.2 million. This level was 849,000 higher than in April 2007.
• The first-quarter gross domestic product was reported earlier this week as growing at an annual rate of 0.6 percent, not nearly enough to assure needed growth in job opportunities.

Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, says that in reality, Sen. John McCain’s plan for health care will “dismantle the employer provided system,” which will force “millions of us who now get decent health insurance on the job to instead buy whatever they can find on the individual market.” He says McCain’s plan will actually drive the cost of health care up. (0:41)

Even though a fight for union representation rights has stalled in Congress, the Jobs with Justice coalition is not only being persistent but is optimistic as it prepares for its upcoming national conference.

The grassroots organization of labor and community activists has had several recent successes at the state and local level, and a major focus of its conference—in Providence, R.I., from May 2-4—is building on those successes to win passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would facilitate union elections without corporate interference, living wage ordinances and civil rights protections for immigrant workers.

In this interview, Jobs with Justice executive director Sarita Gupta discusses the agenda of the conference and the challenges the organization will tackle in the coming months.

More details are available at the conference registration page.

Rick Perlstein explores the life of Richard Nixon and the impact he is having in today’s politics in his just-released book, “Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.” He talked about the book at a reading April 14 at Georgetown University sponsored by the Toqueville Forum. Steven F. Hayward, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of his own book on Nixon, was the respondent. The book is now available at major bookstores.

James Roosevelt Jr.., grandson of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is working to keep the FDR legacy alive as a member of the board of governors of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. In this interview, Roosevelt encourages progressives to consider what the New Deal meant for America and spearhead a 21st century revival of government activism on behalf of the people. The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, which has merged with the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank, held an all-day conference in Washington on “The New New Deal,” that the Campaign for America's Future co-sponsored.

Progressives need to rekindle the spirit of the New Deal to move the nation toward solutions to today's economic crises that match the size of the problems, according to the leaders of the The Roosevelt Institution, which sponsored a conference in Washington April 9 on "The New New Deal." In this podcast, two conference participants, New Deal historian William Leuchtenburg and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities president Robert Greenstein talk about the Roosevelt era and the difference his expansive vision about the role of government would make on such issues as the housing crisis.

Responding to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report that the nation’s unemployment rate rose from 4.8 to 5.1 percent in March. Economic Policy Institute economist Jared Bernstein dissects the current unemployment trends and discusses the remedies that progressives need to be pushing for in the coming months.

RELATED: Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief: "Reading the Vital Signs in the Jobs Report."

Forty years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., much of his economic justice agenda remains unfulfilled, according to a report coauthored by William Spriggs, the chairman of the economics department at Howard University. In this interview, Spriggs discusses how the appearance of economic progress in some areas is distracting the nation from serious underlying problems that foster continued racial disparities.