Today’s employment report amplifies the drumbeat of bad news for America’s workers. For the laid-off high-tech employee in Ohio and the unemployed mill worker in Maine, this is an unexpectedly painful report. It is more evidence that George Bush’s insistence on an economic policy built entirely on millionaire tax cuts and reckless trade policies is failing the nation and failing America’s working families.

Adding only 96,000 jobs in September is far below the mark of where we need to be to make up for lost ground. The news is grim across the spectrum: we lost 18,000 manufacturing jobs and 12,000 information jobs–good jobs that support families–while temporary, low-wage jobs rose by 33,000. Since Bush became president, we have lost more than 2.7 million manufacturing jobs and 558,000 information jobs.

More than 220,000 people dropped out of the labor force last month, while the share of the workforce composed of workers holding two or more jobs has increased. And the number of workers who have been unemployed for at least six months rose again. All these combined show how difficult it is for workers to find full-time, family-supporting jobs. And at the same time, health care and other household costs such as heating oil are rising fast.

It’s official: George Bush will be the first president since Herbert Hoover to have lost jobs under his watch. Through wars, turbulent weather and deep economic crises, no other president in 70 years has ended his term with a net job loss. We’re almost a million jobs in the hole since Bush took office, and his only response is to insist on more of the same failed economic policies that have turned a $5.6 trillion surplus into a huge deficit, while poverty has grown, incomes have fallen and millions of Americans have lost their health care.

Contact Suzanne Ffolkes 202-637-5018