The Jobless Recovery

Is the U.S. economy growing? It depends on whom you ask. If you, or a member of your family, are among the millions of unemployed, chances are the answer would be a resounding NO!

Instead of job growth, more than 3.2 million private sector jobs have disappeared since President Bush took office. This is the largest sustained loss of jobs since the Great Depression.

On average, that’s roughly 106,000 private sector jobs lost every month – the worst under any president in 58 years. The number of unemployed workers has risen to over nine million, and the unemployment rate has jumped from 4 percent at the end of 2000 to 6.1 percent in September 2003. The rate would be much higher if the underemployed and those who have given up looking for work were included.

Instead of developing a vigorous jobs creation plan, considered by leading economists to be the most responsible, effective, and equitable way to jump-start the economy, President Bush instead responded with tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Without the tax cut, jobs were projected to grow by 4.1 million by the end of 2004. The President’s Council of Economic Advisers projected that the President’s plan would raise the level of growth enough to create an additional 1.4 million new jobs for a total of 5.5 million new jobs between July 2003 and the end of 2004, or 344,000 new jobs each month. That’s not just slightly positive, that’s wildly optimistic. So far, the jobs growth plan has fallen 672,000 jobs short of their projections. The only growth that’s occurred as a result of the tax cuts is growth in our country’s deficit.

Instead of developing a vigorous jobs creation plan, President Bush instead responded with tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

After two years and two rounds of very expensive tax cuts, what do we have to show for it? Not much: the poverty rate is up and middle incomes are down; there are fewer jobs and higher unemployment; and critical resources for healthcare, education, and public safety programs have been siphoned away from the states.

Adding insult to injury, conservatives in the House of Representatives are holding up legislation that could provide $90 billion in infrastructure jobs and classroom construction because the legislation contains Davis-Bacon, prevailing wage protections.

BAC President John J. Flynn and the BAC Government Relations Department are making a concerted effort to call and meet with House members to urge passage of critical jobs creation legislation and to put America back to work.