Late last week on All Things Considered, I heard an unnamed White House official touting the dramatic turn-around in the jobs picture. This smooth-talking, nearly giddy, spokeswoman touted the addition of some 50,000 new jobs in one month early this year compared with the loss of as much as 700,000 jobs per month the year before. Her figures were indeed impressive. And jobs numbers released for March were said to be encouraging.
It is useful, however, to see where these numbers may come from. Many, says former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, come from government hiring -- as a result of the stimulus package and more recently from Census hiring, as well. This is evidence for my long-held position that the government needed to enact an FDR-style jobs program in order to jump-start the economy. Reich shows that Americans continue to fall behind in the area of jobs. The need for a serious jobs program remains real and great.
http://robertreich.org/post/491319675/no-jobs-recovery
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