Since its start, UCubed has been consistent in how we count the jobless. Unemployed, plus Involuntary Part-Time, plus Want-a-Job.  Those three numbers from Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tables now add up to 28.26 million jobless Americans.

However, since the start of the Grave Recession in December 2007, the number of Americans “Not In The Labor Force” – another BLS statistic – has grown by 9.33 million Americans! And just in the last three months, it grew by 2.6 million.

Go ahead and pop the cork. But remember, that cheap champagne can give you quite a hangover.

UCubed has been pushing that idea for two years. So we should be ecstatic. But the public relations value of those announcements far outweigh their real impact. 20,000 jobs divided by 5 years equals 4,000 veterans get jobs each year.

In January, 815,000 veterans were unemployed – 481,000 or 60 percent of them were Gulf War II-era veterans. And that’s according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The mismatch between problem, resources allocated and results is simply stunning.

Congress is debating whether to renew legislation that extended unemployment insurance benefits for the long-term unemployed for up to 99 weeks (providing 73 weeks of federal benefits beyond the regular 26 weeks of state-financed benefits in most states). A good benchmark for testing whether this is a good idea is to determine if the long-term unemployment situation has improved enough to warrant discontinuing extended benefits or shortening the length of time unemployment benefits can be received.

The figure shows the share of unemployed workers who have been out of work for more than six months, the maximum length of regular benefits in most states. There has been little discernible improvement. The share of the unemployed who have been out of work for more than six months shot up from a 17.5 percent average in 2007 to 43.7 percent in March 2010; it has since hovered around that point, peaking at 45.5 percent in March 2011. It currently sits at 42.5 percent—25 percentage points above the pre-recession level.

The fact that there has been so little improvement in job-finding prospects for unemployed workers shows that it is much too early to begin cutting back on how long unemployed workers can receive benefits. Congress should reject suggestions to cut back on unemployment benefits; instead, it should renew through the end of 2012 the program of extended benefits as it currently stands.

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Click here to read the original article and view the table associated with the article.

It’s vital that Congress and the White House actually follow through on these proposals. The situation of the American jobless is actually much more dire than the official statistics would have you believe.

The Department of Labor says that the unemployment rate is 8.5 percent. On its own, that’s a distressing figure. But it doesn’t include people that are under-employed or have simply given up looking for work.

When you include those groups, the rate jumps to a stunning 15 percent.

Also, the government figure doesn’t take into consideration the quality of jobs, or whether the positions are full- or part-time. So working, say, the graveyard shift at a local casket company with no health benefits gets counted the same as genuine career-building employment.

Fortunately, during the State of the Union, the President seemed to agree with UCubed that putting people back to work requires investment into American manufacturing and infrastructure. That’s precisely what this country did during the Great Depression, and it worked wonders. As the President said in his address:

During the Great Depression, America built the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. After World War II, we connected our states with a system of highways. Democratic and Republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, from the workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today.

It’s what we’ve been saying all along. In fact, crews from the Works Progress Administration built the Lyons Street approach to the Golden Gate Bridge and they helped construct the Sausalito Lateral. And, although the Hoover Dam was built by the Project Works Administration, its artwork, including the “Winged Figures of the Republic,” was a WPA contribution.

The difference between the WPA and PWA was more than flipping letters. The Works Progress Administration required 85 percent of all monies were spent on the wages and salaries of the jobless. The Project Works Administration, focusing on massive construction projects, spent heavily on materials, heavy equipment and overhead.

So, a modern-day Works Progress Administration would reinvigorate our community infrastructure, link our nation together and modernize our plants and equipment to make American companies more competitive globally. It would also spend federal monies – and this is the critical distinction – so 85 percent would go towards paying the wages and salaries of the jobless.

The power of the President to rebuild America’s economy alone is exceedingly limited.  He can’t do it now, except on the margins. He needs Congress to cooperate. And there’s our opportunity.

One-third of the Senate and all 435 House Reps are up for re-election this November. Instead of just ticking off the box against all incumbents, let’s make politicians actually answer the tough questions about job creation — and then base our votes on their answers.

We need to ask questions like, “Where’s a job for me?” And “Why can’t you find a job for me doing the work that needs to be done?”

With 40 million voters coming from jobless households, the under-employed and unemployed are now one of the most powerful voting blocs in the country. If we turn up the volume and turn out at the polls, the politicians better respond.

UCubed has partnered with Rock the Vote to give America’s jobless a chance to change the direction of this country. Click here to participate!

ZERO is how many times the words “jobless” or “unemployed” were used in the 2012 State of the Union Speech. ZERO is the number of times those words were used in the 2011 State of the Union Speech.

So how many voters will turn out from “unemployed” households in November, households where someone has been “jobless” in the last three years? The answer is:

In Unity – Strength,
Rick

Rick Sloan
Executive Director

“President Obama’s rallying cry for a national commitment to re-train 2 million workers and his administration’s work to secure 135,000 jobs for our nation’s veterans should be applauded,” said UCubed Executive Director Rick Sloan. “But for 65 minutes, more than 27.3 million jobless Americans waited patiently for an answer to their one burning question, ‘Where’s a job for me, Mr. President?’ To them the silence was deafening.”

UCubed continues its call for a proven jobs plan that works and will put millions of jobless Americans to work immediately – a 21^st century Works Progress Administration (WPA). “The answer millions of jobless Americans are waiting for is sitting in plain sight in our nation’s history,” said Sloan. “President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s WPA was the monument to action needed to bring this country out of the Great Depression. We did it once. Let’s do it now.”

Click here to tell the White House and Congress to enact a modern-day WPA today! And be sure to “Like” UCubed’s WPA ad campaign on Facebook.

And here’s why.

A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that the public disapproval rating of Congress has hit a stunning 84 percent. That’s the highest level in history.

Now is not the time for jobless Americans  to become disengaged from the political process. This is precisely when they can most effectively leverage their collective voting power to fill Washington with policymakers that actually understand their plight and know how to fix it.

There are 40 million unemployed and underemployed people in America. If we act together, the next election is up to us. It’s simple arithmetic — there is no other voting bloc with our reach, numbers, or passion.

And just a tiny uptick in our participation rates could have a major impact on who ends up in the White House in 2012. Just look at how thin the margins have been in the GOP contests.

In Iowa, Rick Santorum won with about 30,000 votes — only 34 votes ahead of the second-place finisher, Mitt Romney. The race was so tight that it took three weeks to figure out who actually won.

Iowa has more than 90,000 unemployed voters – more than enough to have outright picked the primary’s winner if they had been unified and active.

Now look at New Hampshire. Combined, Romney and Ron Paul — the top two finishers in that primary — only tallied 154,380 votes. The Granite State is home to about 38,000 unemployed — more than enough to alter the results.

With so many Americans lacking confidence in a GOP-led Congress, and with such a topsy-turvy Republican presidential contest, many key states will again be decided by just a few votes. And over the next few months, primaries are being held in states with some of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

Nevada is the nation’s most unemployed state, with a jobless rate of 13 percent. Mississippi is in the top 5, at 10.5 percent. And Michigan is top 10. All three are holding primaries in the next three months. If unemployed and underemployed voters turn out in strong numbers and help determine the outcomes in these primaries, the 2012 candidates — including the President — will be much more likely to listen to what we have to say and actually enact real change once they take office.

And there’s no legitimate reason why the unemployed and underemployed should not participate in those primaries.

A New York Times survey last November reported that only 15 percent of the jobless were Republicans. Maybe, just maybe, that’s why the GOP presidential candidates have been so overtly callous towards the unemployed.

What if we flooded those primaries with jobless voters? If jobless Republicans… jobless Independents… and even jobless Democrats descended on those voting precincts, perhaps the candidates would alter their anti-jobless rhetoric and policies.

Well, I can daydream, can’t I?

UCubed has partnered with Rock The Vote to give America’s jobless a chance to change the direction of this country. Click here to participate!

“Between 1935 and 1938, over 9.7 million jobless Americans received WPA pay checks,” said Buffenbarger. “The WPA offered average Americans a chance to prove themselves, work hard, and ensure their families’ financial security. They grabbed at the chance. We’re still driving on the roads and bridges they built. We’re still flying into the airports they constructed. And we’re still admiring the photographs taken, stage plays produced and books written.”

“The WPA was an opportunity to modernize our country even in the midst of the Depression,” explained Buffenbarger. “If we could do it then, we can do it now.”

Buffenbarger’s remarks preceded release of the DGA report “Creating Jobs, Putting People Back to Work, and Turning Our Economy Around” which included a WPA-style jobs initiative. The report also calls for policies that establish a strong Buy American Act, discourage the outsourcing of American jobs, strengthens U.S. trade laws, creates a national manufacturing policy and develops skills training programs – all points included in the 21-point jobs plan, Hire US, America, and crafted by unemployed members of the Union of Unemployed in 2010.

UCubed, with over 60,000 members, is a community service project of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). For more information, visit Union of Unemployed and UCubed’s ongoing WPA Facebook campaign.

As you may know, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) has underwritten the phenomenal growth of UCubed. The IAM has assigned staff, funded our Facebook campaigns and paid for our TV ads.

And for much of the last year, GOP politicians created a cottage industry attacking the IAM in South Carolina. So as the SC primary draws to a close, the IAM is running an ad I thought you should see.

Called “Scales“, the IAM ad makes a simple observation:

When unionized workers stick together, we tip the scales for ALL workers. We win; they lose.

The IAM  negotiated an exceptional, four-year deal for its Boeing members with increases in wages, benefits, pensions and job security. And workers in their communities will benefit when they cash their paychecks.
What happened to the GOP politicians in SC?  All but one of them  has lost (or soon will).

Still, after so much political hyperbole, 28 seconds of truth-telling seems long overdue.

Please watch “Scales“. Then forward this email or hit the “Like” button.

After all they’ve done for UCubed, it is the least we can do for the IAM.

In Unity — Strength,
Rick

Rick Sloan
Executive Director

by Eli Saslow, January 18, 2012, The Washington Post

CONWAY, S.C. — He awoke to his alarm on Monday morning at 6, just like always, even though his handwritten schedule for the day read only: “Find something to do!” Steven Murdock, 39, poured himself a cup of coffee and rummaged through the defrosted Thanksgiving leftovers in an otherwise barren refrigerator. He grabbed the phone that bill collectors were threatening to turn off and made his first call of the day.

“I need some kind of odd job to help me get by,” he told a neighbor. “Know of anything?”

It was the beginning of another workweek in a town with too little work, and all around Murdock, the South Carolina economy of 2012 stirred to life. Forty people formed a line outside the downtown food bank, carrying empty plastic bags they hoped would be filled. Dozens more waited for sunrise at the unemployment office. A sign at the Department of Social Services directed all comers to an overflow parking lot, built to accommodate the 25 percent of Conway’s population that now survived primarily on government support.

Murdock was no longer among them. In the 14 months since he lost his $11-an-hour construction job, his options had been whittled down to this morning routine of cold calls to friends and neighbors. His weekly unemployment benefits had expired. His food stamps had been trimmed to less than $50 a week. His bank account was in the red, his hot water was turned off, and he no longer had health insurance to treat a pinched nerve or bouts of depression. Lately, his only medication was the pep talks he gave himself between phone calls.

“Nobody else is going to turn this around for you,” he said as he readied to dial again. “Get off your ass. Make something happen. Sink or swim.”

As South Carolina prepares to hold its Republican primary Saturday, the economically depressed state already has revealed a definitive issue of the 2012 presidential campaign: How can government best serve a record number of jobless and poor? What should happen to the Steven Murdocks?

There is President Obama’s vision, which Republican opponents call “a European welfare state”: People like Murdock are entitled to government help during a time of extreme hardship, no matter the cost.

And there is the Republican vision, which Obama calls “you’re-on-your-own economics”: A government burdened by debt must encourage self-sufficiency, even when it seems harsh.

Does cutting government support programs leave people to fail or free them to succeed?

Sink or swim?

Murdock believed he could swim. He had worked six days a week ever since he dropped out of high school at 16, moving out of his parents’ house to take a job in construction. In the years since, he had made his living as a plumber, a manager at a Pizza Hut, a beer distributor, a tobacco picker, a truck driver, a mover, a framer and a landscaper. He had never been married; his friends had been work friends, and his free time had gone to overtime.

He picked up the phone and tried another neighbor. “Need some yardwork done? Some raking? Maybe a power wash?”

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Click here to read the complete article in The Washington Post.