Rep. Jan Schakowsky Announces Bill to Create 2.2 Million Jobs

The Drive For Decent Work applauds Rep. Jan Schakowsky for her leadership in developing and proposing a comprehensive job creation bill.  We expect that this bill will receive strong support from labor, religious, human needs and community-based advocacy organizations across the U.S.  We urge other House members to sign on and help build a broad base of support for this and related jobs legislation.

You can help!  Please write to your Representative and urge him/her to cosponsor the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act.

Cross-posted from Rep. Jan Schakowsky's web site:

Schakowsky Announces Bill to Create 2.2 Million Jobs

“Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act”

Estimated to Lower Unemployment Rate by 1.3%

CHICAGO, IL (August 10, 2011) – Today Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of President Obama’s 18-member Fiscal Commission, announced she will introduce the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act, a cost-effective plan to put over 2 million people to work for two years.

The time has come for Congress to focus like a laser on the most pressing crisis facing our country – the jobs crisis. With extended unemployment benefits scheduled to expire at the end of this year, 13.9 million people remain out of work. The average worker who is unemployed has been searching for a job for more than nine months and recent reports reveal that private sector employers largely refuse to hire those currently jobless. An additional 8.4 million are working part time because they cannot find a full-time job. In June 2007, 63 percent of adults were employed, now the percentage is 58.2 percent. Despite reports of a Congress immobilized and unable to address the jobs crisis– Congress can and must do something today.

“It begins with this simple idea: If we want to create jobs, then create jobs. I’m not talking about “incentivizing” companies in the hopes they’ll hire someone, or cutting taxes for the so-called job creators who have done nothing of the sort. My plan creates actual new jobs,” said Rep. Schakowsky. “The worst deficit this country faces, isn’t the budget deficit. It’s the jobs deficit. We need to get our people and our economy moving again.”

If enacted, the legislation would create 2.2 million jobs that will meet critical needs to improve and strengthen communities:

•The School Improvement Corps would create 400,000 construction and 250,000 maintenance jobs by funding positions created by public school districts to do needed school rehabilitation improvements.

•The Park Improvement Corps would create 100,000 jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 25 through new funding to the Department of the Interior and the USDA Forest Service’s Public Lands Corps Act. Young people would work on conservation projects on public lands include restoration and rehabilitation of natural, cultural, and historic resources.

•The Student Jobs Corps would creates 250,000 more part-time, work study jobs for eligible college students through new funding for the Federal Work Study Program.

•The Neighborhood Heroes Corps would hire 300,000 teachers, 40,000 new police officers, and 12,000 firefighters.

•The Health Corps would hire at least 40,000 health care providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and health care workers to expand access in underserved rural and urban areas.

•The Child Care Corps would create 100,000 jobs in early childhood care and education through additional funding for Early Head Start.

•The Community Corps would hire 750,000 individuals to do needed work in our communities, including housing rehab, weatherization, recycling, and rural conservation.

The legislation gives the unemployed priority for jobs, particularly those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits (the “99ers”), and veterans. The bill allocates a fair distribution of funding and jobs among states, with targeting based on high unemployment and need. The bill also ensures that jobs do not undercut the rights of other workers, lower wages, displace current workers or take business from small/local businesses.

The $227 billion cost of the bill ($113.5 billion over each of two years) can be fully paid for through separate legislation such as Rep. Schakowsky’s Fairness in Taxation Act, which creates higher tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires, and eliminating subsidies for Big Oil and tax loop holes for corporations that send American jobs overseas.

Click here for more information

###

CONTACT: Adjoa Adofo; 202.225.2111, adjoa.adofo [at] mail.house.gov

Posted by Chuck Bell at 8:36 AM    

comments (0)

Jobs And Economic Justice Tour Launched

cross-posted from OurFuture.org
Jobs And Economic Justice Tour Launched 
by Isaiah J. Poole, 3/10/11

"...The Progressive Caucus is launching a 'jobs and economic justice' tour around the country, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., announced at the Summit on Jobs and America's Future."

"The tour is designed to promote an alternative to the 'so be it' agenda of congressional conservatives and their corporate backers that Ellison says is attacking the fundamental underpinnings of the middle class — and ultimately the principles of American democracy..."

Read rest of post

Posted by Chuck Bell at 2:31 AM    

comments (0)

Larry Summers, Obama's Top Economic Adviser, Makes The Case For Another Round Of Stimulus Spending

Larry Summers, Obama's Top Economic Adviser, Makes The Case For Another Round Of Stimulus Spending

Huffington Post | Ryan McCarthy First Posted: 05-25-10 01:20 PM | Updated: 05-25-10 01:24 PM

In a speech yesterday at Johns Hopkins University, Larry Summers, President Obama's top economic adviser, made the case for increased spending to stimulate the economy, arguing that paying down the U.S. deficit in the near term could pose serious economic risks.

At the Atlantic, Derek Thompson quipped that the Obama administration was finally explaining Keynesian economics, and suggested that Summers's speech was part of a larger strategy to reassure those concerned by the $1.5 trillion budget deficit. The Financial Times calls Summers's pitch a case for a "mini-stimulus."

Read rest of post

Posted by Chuck Bell at 3:40 AM    

comments (0)

House Passes Watered-Down Jobs Bill

AFL-CIO NOW BLOG:

House Passes Watered-Down Jobs Bill, Too Late to Help Jobless

by Tula Connell, May 28, 2010

By 215-204, the U.S. House today passed a watered-down version of H.R. 4213, “The Promoting American Jobs, Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act of 2010.” The bill extends unemployment insurance (UI) for six months. But the Senate, now on vacation, will not even consider the bill until the week of June 7, a week after UI expires for millions of jobless workers.

The bill that passed today did not include the COBRA extension or Medicaid assistance to the states. It does include $23 billion in funding to put off 21 percent cuts in Medicare reimbursements to doctors for 19 months and ensures that Medicare beneficiaries have access to quality and affordable medical care. It also includes subsidies for local infrastructure projects by extending the Build America Bonds program and funds for summer job creation.

Earlier this week, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told members of Congress, “If you’re not for this bill, you’re not for jobs.” Today, Trumka says: "We are profoundly disappointed and angry with representatives in Congress—Democrats as well as Republicans—who refused to support health care for the unemployed and job-saving critical aid to cash-strapped states in the original version of H.R. 4213. Working family voters will not forget who sided with them and who did not. "

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Chuck Bell at 3:27 AM    

comments (0)

Model state resolution on jobs crisis

Model resolution calling on the President and Congress to enact a comprehensive job creation and state fiscal relief plan (Progressive States Network)

A resolution to memorialize the President of the United States and the United States Congress to enact a new, broad-based job creation plan, including significant additional fiscal relief to states and local governments to foster economic growth and create and maintain jobs across the nation.

Whereas, almost eight million more Americans are unemployed today than at the start of the recession in December 2007,

Whereas, the number of Americans who are unemployed or underemployed has reached over 27 million,

Whereas, state tax revenues dropped nine percent during fiscal year 2009, the largest decline since the years directly following World War II,

Whereas, states are facing an estimated $350 billion budget shortfall in 2010 and 2011,

Whereas, teachers, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, and many workers across the state face the dire prospect of job loss during a time of economic uncertainty,

Whereas, families will have to deal with the reality of budget cuts: larger class sizes, an inferior educational asystem, reduced health care and safety services, and generally diminished quality of vital public programs,

Whereas, further budget cuts will only deter consumer demand, discourage private industry activity, lead to higher unemployment, and hamper overall economic growth,

Be it resolved by the [House of Representative or Senate] of the State of _______________________, that we hereby memorialize the President of the United States and the United States Congress to take proactive steps to create jobs and enact fiscal relief for state and local governments to foster growth, avoid further budget catastrophe, ensure that states perform the core functions that all American families deserve, and deliver jobs to Americans on Main Street,

Be it further resolved, that any job creation and state fiscal relief plan must include extending FMAP increases for Medicaid, providing additional support for education, boosting funding for infrastructure projects and public transportation investments, supporting the long-term unemployed to sustain them until they reenter the workforce, and providing direct financial assistance to state and local governments to perform the vital services needed to maintain growth in local communities across the nation,

And be it further resolved, that copies of this resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and the members of (state) congressional delegation.

Posted by Chuck Bell at 6:27 AM    

comments (0)

Will Grassroots Push for Jobs Bills?

As Congress Leaves Jobless in Lurch, Will Grassroots Push for Strong Jobs Bills?

In These Times (3/29/10)

By Art Levine

Even as Senators skipped town before a two-week break without extending unemployment insurance and COBRA health subsidies, hopes are rising among congressional liberals and unions that stronger job creation measures could win the backing of emboldened Democratic leaders and President Obama. (Some state-based officials also expect state agencies to tide over workers at risk of losing their benefits before the Senate takes action in mid-April, while advocates for the unemployed are far more alarmed.)

But will progressives be willing to mount the strong campaign needed to overcome conservative and centrist resistance to major jobs spending?That's the political challenge, especially after the first stimulus bill last year was effectively smeared as a waste of money although it saved or created nearly two million jobs. As George Packer notes in his devastating New Yorkerarticle, "Obama's Lost Year," 94 percent of Americans don't think it created jobs in their areas.

Yet despite relatively weak efforts so far by Congress to create anywhere near the 11 million jobs needed to return to pre-recession employment levels, a targeted $75 billion bill co-sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) to save or create nearly a million local jobs is gaining traction on the Hill. "As long as the jobs picture looks like this [nearly 10% officially unemployed], pressure continues to build," the AFL-CIO's legislative director, Bill Samuel, told In These Times.

George Miller's bill—developed with mayors, county officials and others—will provide $75 billion over two years to local communities to hold off planned cuts or to hire back workers for local services who have been laid-off because of tight budgets. Funding would go directly to eligible local communities and nonprofit community organizations to decide how best to use the funds, as outlined by Rep. Miller. Yet even that legislation isn't anywhere near the scope of the $400 billion or so labor unions and its allies have proposed spending to create millions of jobs.

Read rest of article

Posted by Chuck Bell at 5:55 AM    

comments (0)

Unemployment Benefits set to expire, if Senate doesn't act

Alert from: Coalition for Human Needs

Call-in Day to Save Jobs and Protect the Jobless:
Tuesday, February 23

At the end of this month, the federal program providing unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed will EXPIRE. Why hasn't the extension passed? The Senate got snarled up in deals to pass tax breaks for businesses and multimillionaires and paralyzed itself. If they do not take quick action, nearly 1.2 million jobless people will not get unemployment benefits in March alone; by June, about 5 million people will lose out if Congress does not act.

This is just an outrage. But the Senate may just continue to dither about tax breaks if they do not hear loud and clear that unemployed people need help. Ironically, the extra money in people's pockets from UI does more than most business tax breaks to create jobs. In fact, up to 800,000 jobs nationwide could be lost if the unemployment benefits are not extended through the end of this year.

Another urgent matter is the impending loss of federal aid to states to help pay for Medicaid, education, and other vital services. The Senate hasn't acted on that either, although states are now at work on their own budgets and will cut much more deeply without the federal aid.

So - there is an urgent need for you to call. And for you to forward this request to everyone you know. There are two easy ways to call:

You can click here for a message from Jobs for America Now and a really nifty link that connects you right to your Senators' offices: http://www.jobs4americanow.org/the-end-of-the-line/

Or use this toll-free number to be connected to the Capitol Switchboard; just ask for your Senators' offices: 1-888-460-0813*
Tell them: Act NOW to pass a full-year extension of unemployment benefits and COBRA health and more aid to states for Medicaid, education, and other vital services and jobs.

We know you have a lot to do. But when jobless benefits are about to expire, being silent is not a good choice. 5 million people are counting on us. Please make sure the Senate knows the nation is watching. Thanks!

*Thanks to AFSCME for making the toll-free number available.

Posted by Chuck Bell at 3:10 PM    

comments (0)

Is Obama Doing Enough To Create Jobs?

cross-posted from Huffington Post

Is Obama Doing Enough To Create Jobs?:

Shahien Nasiripour, Huffington Post

02/12/10

Even as one in 10 Americans remain unable to find work and President Obama has established job creation as his 'number one focus' this year, the legislative proposals being seriously discussed in Washington don't even come close to addressing the problem, according to some leading economists.

Among the White House's proposals is a payroll tax holiday to incentivize firms to hire more workers. Two competing ideas, one from Senators Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and another from Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), propose similar plans but with small differences in detail. The latter is expected to be introduced in legislation the week after next by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

But the consensus among many economists is that what's really needed are public works projects and major investments in infrastructure and education to create long-term, sustainable jobs.

Economists, including James K. Galbraith, Dean Baker, Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Reich, say the short-term moves being considered on Capitol Hill -- such as marginal tax credits and funds to boost lending to small businesses -- are likely to fizzle out. They're good ideas but they just don't go far enough to reverse the loss of more than 8 million jobs over the last two years.

Galbraith wants a government-created financing network that will lend money to businesses and industries which align with long-term U.S policy initiatives, like energy consumption and renewal. Extending unemployment benefits is also a good idea, Galbraith said, but it's a relief measure, not a job-creation one.

Read rest of post

Posted by Chuck Bell at 4:49 AM    

comments (0)

Corporate Tax Breaks Removed From Senate Jobs Bill

Here's a good analysis of the "tax extenders" component that Sen Reid removed from the Senate jobs bill.

cross-posted from Huffington Post

The K Street Kickback: The Giveaway That Reid Stripped From The Jobs Bill:

"The GOP is outraged that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) spiked the bipartisan jobs bill unveiled on Thursday, dropping some of its major provisions. But what exactly was cut from the bill that made them so angry -- was it the loss of the COBRA subsidies or the unemployment extension?

No, it was the K Street Kickback, which extends huge tax credits to large corporations. Unlike the Louisiana Purchase or the Cornhusker Kickback, which won the support of Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) for the health care reform bill, the K Street payoff is counted in the tens of billions of dollars, rather than a few hundred million. While Democratic senators come cheap, getting Republicans to buy into a jobs bill seems to cost taxpayers serious money.

One of the top priorities of Big Business lobbyists is the 'tax extender' issue, the extension of expiring tax credits worth tens of billions of dollars to major corporations, which is favored by Republicans..."

"To Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, tax extenders don't belong in the jobs bill."

"They have nothing to do with the jobs bill, nothing to do with unemployment," said Marr, a former adviser to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. "These shouldn't distract from the task at hand, and the task at hand is that one in ten people are unemployed..."

Read rest of post

Posted by Chuck Bell at 4:34 AM    

comments (0)