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Groups urge Washington to create more jobs
House Democrats mulling legislation; White House summit set for Dec. 3
By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch
Last Update: 1:54 PM ET Nov 17, 2009
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Groups representing African-Americans, labor unions, Hispanics and others on Tuesday urged the White House and Congress to take more action to create jobs, citing prolonged unemployment that has hit minority communities especially hard.
The six groups said that President Barack Obama and Congress have taken "significant steps" to help the economy, and that those steps have created more than one million jobs and led to a resumption of economic growth in the third quarter. The White House credits its $787 billion economic stimulus package with both creating jobs and adding to growth.
"But," said the groups in a statement, "it's clear that much more must be done to generate millions more jobs to assure a robust recovery that reaches all Americans."
The statement was issued by the Economic Policy Institute, the AFL-CIO, the Center for Community Change, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAACP and the National Council of La Raza. Read the statement.
The U.S. unemployment rate hit 10.2% in October. For African-Americans, the statement said, it is 15.7% and for Hispanics it is 13.1%.
The groups' call comes as both Democratic lawmakers and the White House are mulling plans for more job creation. Republicans, meanwhile, oppose spending more money to create jobs and some corporations remain reluctant to hire workers.
Obama is planning to host a jobs summit at the White House on Dec. 3.
"We have a responsibility to consider all good ideas to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country," Obama said in a statement late Monday. He said he looks forward to hearing from chief executives, small business owners and others about how to create more jobs.
"We have a responsibility to consider all good ideas to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country."
President Barack Obama
Obama's administration has warned that job growth will continue to lag even as the economy recovers.
Members of the House Democratic Caucus also met Monday night to discuss ways of creating jobs. Among the ideas reportedly discussed were spending on infrastructure, aid to small businesses and extension of tax breaks.
The AFL-CIO and the other groups recommended relief through continued unemployment benefits and COBRA, giving fiscal relief to state and local governments, investing in infrastructure improvements in schools and transportation, and other steps.
Some of that dovetails with Democratic proposals in the House. Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., who heads the House Democratic Caucus, has called for infrastructure investments paid for with a transaction tax on stock and derivative trades.
Republican leaders in the House, meanwhile, are urging Democrats and the White House to adopt some of their ideas, which include allowing small businesses to take a tax deduction equal to 20% of their income and letting those businesses join together to buy health care coverage. Read Republicans' job creation plans.
Obama is planning to kick off a "White House to Main Street" tour the day after the jobs summit, traveling first to Allentown, Pa. The tour will be spread out over "the next few months," the White House said, and allow Obama to "speak with workers and share ideas for continued recovery."
The statement by the AFL-CIO and the other groups also said that the U.S. will need to tolerate higher deficits over the next few years in order to create more jobs. But Obama is under pressure to keep the deficit down, and is mulling ways to slash it.
The U.S. government ran a deficit of $176 billion in October, beginning the new fiscal year in the red and marking a record 13th consecutive month of budget shortfalls. Read story about U.S. budget deficit.
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