It is unacceptable that America’s workers are suffering through the worst job loss in a generation while many politicians are still sitting back and standing in the way of reform. Fixing our unemployment problem is as important to ending the recession as addressing the banking system.

We lost 663,000 jobs in March, bringing the total job loss since the recession began to over 5.1 million and the unemployment rate to 8.5 %. These numbers are a stark reminder of the dire situation facing working families every day.

The job losses were spread throughout the economy – hitting manufacturing, construction, and professional services hard. The broader measure of unemployed and underemployed workers shot up to 15.6 percent in March – meaning that more than 24 million Americans are either looking for work, working part-time because they can’t find full-time work, or have stopped looking because they are so discouraged.

We need to get our economy back on track, create good paying jobs, and restore balance to the fundamental building blocks of our economy.

President Obama’s budget is an important first step that includes a serious down payment on national health care reform, investments in growing green jobs and addressing climate change, essential funding for education and other programs that are crucial for working families.

But we also must make broad-based economic changes to have sustained economic growth and an economy that works for everyone. We must deal with our country’s unsustainable trade deficit. We must reform our financial regulatory system to provide more transparency and government oversight and regulation. And we must pass the Employee Free Choice Act so workers can win the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively with their employers for fair wages, security and benefits.

At the G20 meeting President Obama attempted to get world leaders to be more aggressive in addressing their economic problems to make the United States’ stimulus package more effective. It was a successful meeting in many ways but in order to counter what is a global recession world leaders will need to do more and the United States may well need to pass a second stimulus package.

Contact: Eddie Vale (202) 637-5018