This article originally appeared in New America Media.
On the eve of President Barack Obama's White House Summit on Jobs, labor leaders yesterday issued a dire warning: Unless Congress and Obama create a "bold jobs program," state and local governments could shed almost a million jobs next year, further worsening our national unemployment rate.
The nation's unemployment rate already stands at 10.2 percent, it's highest rate in 26 years.
Unemployment is even higher for blacks (15.7 percent) and Hispanics (13.1 percent). The Labor Department says more than one in four teenagers is unemployed.
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., is pushing a $40 billion jobs program, which he says would create "one million full-time jobs."
"These jobs could focus on communities that critically need them and put people back to work," he said. "People are needed to paint and repair schools, community centers, libraries, clean up abandoned and vacant properties, alleviate the blight that's been caused by the foreclosure crisis."
"We need people to help expand our emergency food programs to prevent hunger and promote stability, and of course we need staff at our Head Start and preschool programs," he said. "We have all kinds of jobs that need to be filled and all kinds of people we need to fill them. But we need to pay those people who can get the economy going again."
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