No Days Off: Congress Must Create Jobs Now

By Eliseo Medina, International Secretary-Treasurer, Service Employees International Union

While workers across the country celebrate having time off this Labor Day, unemployed men and women are desperately seeking ways to get back to work, and many who are employed are barely getting by on slashed paychecks. Cindy Valdez, a homecare worker from Santa Cruz, is working longer hours than she is paid for to care for an elderly patient. Cindy fears that she won’t be able to make ends meet if her wages are reduced even further. Though millions of Americans have stories like Cindy’s, communities of color have long suffered from living in the lesser of two Americas. In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. illustrated these two worlds in a speech to healthcare workers in New York, underscoring the link between economic injustice and racial inequality. Today, as a newly erected memorial in Washington, DC stands as a testament to Dr. King’s unwavering commitment to achieving equality, men and women of color like Cindy are still bearing the brunt of an imbalanced financial market.

Recent unemployment rates for African Americans (15.9 percent) and Latinos (11.3 percent) are devastating compared to a 9.1 percent national unemployment rate. It is up to our elected officials to find viable solutions to unemployment and ensure that workers earn enough to put food on the table. Some members of Congress want us to believe that resources are scarce, and that there is nothing that can be done to solve the jobs crisis without increasing the national debt. The truth is, lawmakers could put more than six million people back to work by holding big business accountable and allowing millionaires to pay their fair share.

The folks in Washington just need to do the math. In a recently published op-ed piece, investor Warren Buffett asked the government to raise his taxes. Forcing hedge fund managers to pay the same tax rate as nurses and teachers would generate $21 billion.

Coupled with Warren Buffet’s plan to allow millionaires to pay their fair share in taxes, we could put more than two million Americans back to work fixing parks and schools, teaching children and delivering health care. Taxing dangerous Wall Street speculation–the sort of activity that triggered the Great Recession–could generate over three times as much revenue ($1 trillion) needed to put 2.5 million people back to work fixing our crumbling infrastructure. Ending the $139 tax giveaway to big oil could fund relief for the unemployed and job training programs that would create another two million jobs.

Job creation, especially in hardest hit areas like communities of color, is a necessary step to once and for all achieve true recovery. This Labor Day is not just another day off. It is a reminder that lawmakers have an obligation to honor the sacrifices workers have made to keep this country running. There would be no greater tribute to the men and women who protect our neighborhoods, care for the sick, teach our children, and provide other critical services than putting forth a serious jobs agenda.