The Employment Picture Is Improving!
Only 15.3 Million People without Jobs!

By Harry Kelber

While the Obama administration and congressional Democrats saw the April increase of 290,000 jobs as further evidence that the recession was over, there was an actual increase of 300,000 people in the ranks of the jobless last month, with total unemployment rising to 15.3 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With the job picture showing improvement, President Obama has decided to focus on cutting government spending to shrink the budget deficit, in response to Republican and public criticism of the government’s spending policies.  Further, he shows no desire to spend more money on job creation beyond the $781 billion that Congress approved two years ago.

The prevailing mood among Obama’s advisers and Democrats is that as the economic recovery  gains strength, companies will increase their hiring, absorbing millions of unemployed.  Eventually, the plight of the jobless will no longer be the government’s responsibility, but will depend on the operation of the free market economy.

There was no breakdown of how many of the 290,000  new jobs were temporary or permanent hires.  Some 66,000  were temporary employees, hired for work on the  U.S. Census Bureau until December. In the last four years, a total of  five  million people have been added to the unemployment rolls—from 14.8 million in January to 15.3 million in April.

But the official count tells only part of the nation’s unemployment problems. If you count the 9.2 million who are on involuntary part-time and those who are entering or re-entering the work force, there are nearly 27 million U.S. workers either unemployed or underemployed.

To add  to these depressing statistics, it will take 11 million new jobs to get us back to December 2008, when the Great Recession started.  The Economic Policy Institute ( EPI)  estimates that the economy would have to generate 325,000 jobs every month for four years  to "fill the hole in the labor market." There is not a ghost of a chance that Corporate America will achieve this, especially since companies strive to get maximum production with a minimum of labor.

The tragic outlook for millions of workers is they will never have a decent job again and  they  may be doomed to a life of poverty and misery—unless the White House, Congress and the American labor movement work together and act urgently in their behalf.

Can We Duplicate the Job-Creation of the New Deal?

President Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s (when unemployment was about 25 percent), is a good example of the miracles that were accomplished in just a few tough years. Harry Hopkins, as FDR’s director of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), was supplied by Congress in 1935 with an initial $4.8 billion; By March 1936, more than 3,400,000 persons were employed on thousands  of projects, repairing or building  the nation’s roads, bridges, dams,  schools, parks, airports and public buildings.

Actors, musicians and painters were given jobs to work in their special fields. Young people found employment in slum clearance, fire fighting and reforestation. Between 1935 and 1943 when it ended, the WPA had provided almost eight million jobs.

In the Obama jobs program, we never had a manager with authority, certainly not one with the talent and tenacity of Hopkins. There was no sense of urgency. Obama did not appoint an outstanding individual to head the jobs program, as he did with other agencies. Projects  for which money was committed, were often unnecessarily delayed or abandoned—and no one on the Obama team got excited about it. It’s time for Obama to give the jobs program the importance it deserves.

Creating new jobs cost money.  Congress must be persuaded to supply whatever funds are needed, with the knowledge that  it will produce long-term dividends in a thriving American economy, where jobs will be available to whoever wants one.

The labor movement must make certain that more work projects are created and that its wealth of expertise in the building trades and other industries are utilized  in the management and operation of these projects.

If we can have the White House, Congress and organized labor working together on providing those urgently needed jobs, we can build an America that we can all be proud of.

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I was a labor activist in 1933, when the Work Progress Administration and the Public Works Administration began to change the face of America. It will always remain an unforgettable chapter in America’s rich history.—Harry Kelber