Today’s report confirms what working families know and fear: all of the economic signs that matter point in the wrong direction.
We have lost jobs for the last seven months and more than one million jobs since the so-called recovery began in November of 2001. Fifteen million Americans are unemployed or underemployed; one in five has been unemployed for at least six months.
Our nation is now back down to the level of jobs we had in 1999-- meaning Bush's failed economic policies have erased the remarkable job gains of the last two years of the Clinton Administration.
The dismantling of our nation’s industrial core continues. Last month’s loss of another 44,000 manufacturing jobs marks the 37th straight month of loss in this vital sector. Altogether, we have lost 2.5 million manufacturing jobs since President Bush assumed office.
And the effects of the President’s faulty economic polices are spilling over and trickling down to the public sector. Since February, we have lost more than 131,000 public sector jobs. That means fewer first responders, emergency workers and public servants who administer the vital public programs American families rely on during periods of economic crisis.
The President’s job is to create jobs for American workers. Mr. Bush and his advisors promised to create more than five million jobs by the end of next year, an average of 344,000 each month starting with the July tax cut. The President is already in the hole, with an August jobs deficit of 437,000 promised jobs that did not materialize.
No window-dressing, posturing or stump speeches will change this picture. This administration’s preferred solution of still more tax cuts for the rich, reiterated only yesterday, will only make matters worst.
Instead of soaking American workers with failed economic policies that do not create jobs, that build mountains of debt for our children, and that destroy our capacity to meet the nation’s needs, the President should rebuild America with investments in what matters most—schools, our health care system, and the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. That is the only way to create and preserve jobs, restore real economic growth and security for working families, and secure the nation.
Contact Suzanne Ffolkes 202-637-5018
