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State of the Union: Obama "finally gets it"

“Nothing is more important right now than jobs,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

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In his January 28, 2010, State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama made jobs the nation’s number one priority.

The President first summarized the steps taken at the height of the economic crisis ─ extending or increasing unemployment benefits for more than 18 million Americans, cutting taxes for 95 percent of working families, passing the $787 billion Recovery Act.
These actions kept “about two million American’s working right now, who would otherwise be unemployed.”

Turning immediately to the plight of the 8.4 million Americans who lost their jobs during the Great Recession, Obama, said, “But I realize that for every success story, there are other stories, of men and women who wake up with the anguish of not knowing where their next paycheck will come from; who send out resumes week after week and hear nothing in response.  That is why jobs must be our number-one focus in 2010, and that’s why I am calling for a new jobs bill tonight.”

Emerging from the House gallery, where he heard Obama’s address, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recorded a video message praising the President’s initiatives.  Trumka said, “nothing is more important right now than jobs, and nothing is more important than giving working Americans a place to go to work.”

Watch Trumka video on State of the Union

Obama Urges Passage of Jobs Bill
The President spent two-thirds of his State of the Union address focusing on jobs and the economy.  In order to address the terrible squeeze felt by middle-class Americans, Obama called for
•   A financial reform package that will make it possible for businesses to access credit and create jobs;
•   A clean energy economy that will create millions of new jobs;
•   Using $30 billion of the money Wall Street repaid to help community banks make loans to small businesses and creating a new small business tax credit; and
•   Passing tax incentives for large businesses to keep and create jobs in the United States.

Commenting on these incentives, Trumka said, “We must act on a scale that will be meaningful.  We need more than 10 million jobs just to get out of the hole we’re in.  We want health care fixed.  We want our leaders to break the stranglehold of Wall Street and the big banks and make them pay to repair the economic damage they created.”

AFL-CIO’s Five-Point Jobs Plan
Echoing the frustration of American workers, Trumka said, “the President was right to call out Republicans for obstructing change and putting politics ahead of progress.”

Trumka urged, “Now it’s time for all of us to get busy and work together to bring the big changes that are essential — starting with enacting a jobs bill that is big enough to create jobs for the millions of people who want to work and can’t find jobs. The time for small change is long gone. We were pleased to see that the President embraced two of the job creation proposals we have made — investing in infrastructure and helping small businesses get credit through TARP funds.”

The AFL-CIO’s Five Point Plan to create jobs would immediately begin to put people back to work and ease the economic hardships on Main Street’s working families. The plan, which Trumka says will soon be expanded, includes the following:
•    Extending unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless (due to run out next month) along with expanding food stamp assistance, and health care benefits (COBRA) for unemployed workers and their families through COBRA.
•    Rebuilding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
•    Increasing aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services and jobs.
•    Funding jobs in neglected communities.
•    Using left over bank bailout funds to get credit moving to small Main Street businesses.

Tremendous Economic Challenges Remain
During his first year in office, President Obama overcame the horrific legacy left to him by President Bush: a broken economy and an imminent depression.  Yet, even with the economy back from the brink, due to the largest government intervention in U.S. history, tremendous economic challenges remain before the job market returns to normal.

•   America needs more than 10 million jobs to return to 5 percent unemployment, the jobless rate before the recession began.
•   While unemployment will average 10 percent this year, the jobless rate was a tremendous 30.8 percent for those with annual household incomes of $12,499 or less.
•   More than 40 percent of the nation’s unemployed have been out of work for more than six weeks, pushing long-term unemployment to record highs.
•   While the White House estimates the creation of 95,000 jobs a month in 2010, due to population growth we need to generate about 125,000 new jobs a month ─ just to keep current unemployment levels from growing.

Obviously, there is no quick-term recovery or easy fix in sight. According to Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, while “the economy is growing, albeit at an unsatisfactory rate,” there is still “a long, long way to go.”

In this context, Trumka’s announcement that the AFL-CIO will be rolling out a nationwide jobs campaign reflects a strategic alignment of union and White House objectives.  

Commenting on Obama’s State of the Union Address, Trumka notes, “The President was absolutely right to make jobs a top priority and we must act on a scale that is meaningful.  I hope you can join us in this fight.”

Jerry Brown, Ph.D., is senior editor of the Green Labor Journal.