September 5—The day after President George W. Bush announced the U.S. economy is “looking up” and proposed making most of his millionaire tax cuts permanent, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) confirmed that working families are enduring the worst jobs loss crisis since the Great Depression.

The BLS announced Sept. 5 that the economy shed another 93,000 jobs in August—for a new total of approximately 3.3 million private-sector jobs lost since the president took office.

“Instead of soaking America’s workers with failed economic policies that do not create jobs, that build mountains of debt for our children and 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,” said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney. “That is the only way to create and preserve jobs, restore real economic growth and security for working families and secure the nation.”

With 1.9 million unemployed Americans now looking for work for 27 weeks or longer, unemployment dipped slightly to 6.1 percent or 8.9 million workers, according to the BLS report, down from 6.2 percent in July.

Of the 93,000 jobs lost in August, 44,000 were in manufacturing, the BLS said. That made August the 37th straight month of manufacturing job losses, now totaling nearly 1.9 million manufacturing jobs lost since the recession began in March 2001.

Among the approximately 49,000 service jobs lost in August, some 16,000 were in the information sector while telecommunications shed about 7,000 positions. And professional and business services employment edged down 10,000 jobs in August.

Last week, as new unemployment insurance (UI) claims jumped by 50,000 to 409,000, the highest level since mid-July, the newly jobless had growing reasons to fear they will exhaust those UI benefits before they find new employment.

The percentage of jobless workers who used up their regular UI benefits without finding new work—and therefore need emergency UI benefits—reached 43.8 percent in July, the highest figure on record since 1950. And a recent Federal Reserve Bank of New York report says most recent job losses will be permanent—thanks to the employers’ race to the bottom, sending U.S. jobs to countries where workers enjoy far lower wages and few workplace protections. In addition to the steady hemorrhaging of blue-collar industrial jobs to other countries, research operations, such as Forrester Research Inc., have predicted the loss of 3.3 million white-collar jobs to low-wage countries by 2015.

This year, the months still to come could be bleakest for U.S. workers. The nationally respected outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. predicted that, based on recent job trends, U.S. employers would announce an additional 399,000 new job cuts during the final four months of 2003.

America’s working families need jobs, not promises, Sweeney said. The Bush administration has predicted its economic policies, including the tax cut package (called the “Jobs and Growth Plan”) that took effect in July, would create 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004—344,000 jobs each month, starting in July 2003. “The president is already in the hole, with an August jobs deficit of 437,000 promised jobs that did not materialize,” Sweeney said.

To track the administration’s promised job growth, the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute (EPI) launched a JobWatch website. The group said the site will enable the public to better understand if the economy is growing enough to bring down unemployment and raise wages, if job projections are being met and where jobs are growing or going.

“Today’s economy is defined by a seeming contradiction,” said EPI President Lawrence Mishel. “The recession officially ended in November 2001, yet 28 months into this business cycle we are experiencing the largest sustained loss of jobs since the Great Depression.”

More

Read AFL-CIO President Sweeney’s remarks on the August BLS jobs report.

Visit EPI’s JobWatch website tracking Bush administration job promises.

Read the new EPI report, Labor Market Left Behind.

Read AFL-CIO President Sweeney’s Sept. 3 speech on America’s job losses. 

Learn more about President Bush’s preference for millionaire tax cuts over jobs.

Get more information on America’s job crisis.

Get hands-on resources for surviving unemployment. 

See where your state stands on unemployment insurance.

Find out about today’s economy.

Get an economic update from the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute.

Read The Benefits of Full Employment: When Markets Work for People, by economists Jared Bernstein and Dean Baker.