Jobs, Jobs, Jobs -- Finally

By Robert Borosage

Created 11/18/2009 - 10:56am

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gets it. No wonder she drives the wingnuts batty.

With the Senate befuddled by the antics of Joe Lieberman and Max Baucus on health care and the White House Clintonistas lobbying President Obama to devote his January State of the Union address to deficit reduction, Pelosi ladled up [1] a portion of common sense. Unemployment is over 10 percent and rising. It is time to focus on jobs. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid added his support. The President announced a job summit for December. Democrats finally got the subject right.

The need is clear. One in six workers is unemployed, has given up looking or is forced to work part-time. For young workers aged 16 to 24, unemployment is 19 percent. For young African Americans, unemployment is at 30 percent. And as Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testified [2] yesterday, we're likely to see—at best—a slow recovery with no new job growth. That exacts a devastating toll in hopes crushed, families stressed, young people stalled, and poverty and hunger spreading.