Congress and the media paid homage to the agenda of the billionaires and Wall Street, with the manufactured “fiscal cliff” PR campaign frenzy that just ended. So now can we get back to the country’s priorities? Can we talk about jobs now?

Part of the so-called "fiscal cliff" agreement included extending federal unemployment insurance (UI) for workers who have been jobless for more than 26 weeks.

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) details five ways extending UI benefits the economy. 

The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT) is investing $33.5 million of union pension capital to construct 129 apartments for low-income households at Old Colony, one of Boston's largest and most distressed public housing properties. The project is expected to generate 340 union construction jobs. It is part of HIT’s National Construction Jobs Initiative and the AFL-CIO’s Green Jobs Initiative.

It’s a double whammy for low-wage workers when they get hurt or fall ill on the job.

A new policy brief, “Mom’s Off Work ’Cause She Got Hurt: The Economic Impact of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses in the U.S.’s Growing Low-Wage Workforce,” examines the growing problem. 

This is an excerpt of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka's "Opposing View: Union Jobs Build the Middle Class" from USA Today.

It's a tough time to work for a living.

Middle-class families have been losing ground for more than a decade. Today, working people have a smaller piece of the pie than at any time in the past 50 years. During that period, the number of people belonging to unions also declined steadily; in fact, if you look at the decline of the middle class beside the state of union membership, those numbers are parallel. This should concern everyone who cares about a strong America.

Workers who want full-time hours but are only given part-time work are considered underemployed in the category of involuntary part-time workers. The National Council of La Raza's Monthly Latino Unemployment Report shows that Latinos, from November 2011 to October 2011, had the highest rate of involuntary part-time work. 

"Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work" is a new film, by award-winning filmmakers Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin, that documents employee-owned businesses that compete in the economy, while giving their workers secure and dignified jobs in democratic workplaces. The movie tells the story of several companies who are dealing with changes to the global economy by rethinking the way businesses run in order to promote more sustainable communities.

Outside of hardcore trade policy wonks, few in the United States or Canada have ever heard of the impending Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (commonly referred to as TPP) or know much about it—and it's time that changed. The TPP is a trade agreement based around the current "P-4" (Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore). 

Nearly 2 million long-term jobless Americans will lose their unemployment insurance lifeline just days after Christmas if Congress doesn’t act to renew the federal unemployment insurance program for job seekers out of work six months or longer. The program expires at the end of the year. Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), says if long-term jobless aid ends,

The basic economic security floor will be ripped from under two million unemployed workers.

Paul Krugman reminds us in his New York Times column today that the real economic problem right now is a jobs crisis—not a deficit crisis. The unemployment rate may have dipped, but the number of jobless workers is more stubborn. So why aren’t pundits and the rest of the Inside-the-Beltway crew screaming about unemployment?