Politics

August Jobs Report

By Karina

This morning, the Department of Labor released unemployment numbers for August showing that 216,000 jobs were lost last month - the fewest jobs lost in a year:

Speaker Pelosi:

Today?s jobs report is a clear indicator that while the number of American job losses continues to decline now to the lowest level in a year, we must continue to work to rebuild our economy.

Economists agree that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that Congress passed in January played a key role in preventing a severe economic collapse and is helping us climb out of the worst recession since World War II. We have a long way to go; but fortunately, President Obama and Congressional Democrats acted decisively earlier this year, and the results are beginning to show.

The Recovery Act has boosted American businesses and the paychecks of 95% of Americans with one of the broadest tax cuts in history. Across the country, teachers, firefighters, police officers and nurses have been able to stay on the job; small businesses have been offered new opportunities for capital to keep their doors open and grow; and we are creating thousands of jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges, and developing green technologies to power our future.

Too many Americans remain out of work, and too many families face the daily challenge of putting food on the table and paying their bills without a monthly paycheck. We must continue to work on their behalf to create good-paying jobs, lower health care costs, and reinforce the building blocks of progress for our economy.

Recent economists in the news on how the Recovery Act is helping the economy:
CNN.com,9/3/09:

?I don’t think it’s any accident that the recession ended when the stimulus was providing its greatest impact,? said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Economy.com.

New York Times, 9/4/09:

Economists credited the stimulus plan and other rescue efforts by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve with stabilizing the economy and slowing job losses. ?They ended the credit crisis,? Robert Barbera, chief economist at ITG, said. ?Banks are functioning. You?re got some pop from the clunker program. They get high marks in those areas. It?s a real tough labor market, one of the toughest in the postwar period, but it simply looks better than it did six months ago.?

Washington Post, 9/4/09:

While some congressional Republicans and others are dubious about the success of the stimulus plan, economists generally agree that the package has played a significant part in stabilizing the economy. ?It’s starting to play a role, helping us to have slightly positive rather than slightly negative GDP growth,? said Phillip Swagel, an assistant Treasury secretary in the Bush administration who is now a visiting professor at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. ?It’s a gigantic amount of fiscal stimulus, and anyone who tells you it has had no impact, you should be skeptical of.?

Wall Street Journal, 9/2/09:

?Without that extra stimulus, we would be somewhere around zero,? said Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist for Goldman.

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 04, 2009 (boomark / email).