Despite rosy projections of “economic recovery,” millions of workers remain out of work, without savings, and exhausting their unemployment benefits. Unless Congress extends unemployment benefits past the Feb. 28 deadline, 2.7 million people stand to lose unemployment benefits by April.
Nearly one in ten Americans is out of work. Over 40 percent of the unemployed, 6.3 million people, have been unemployed for six months or longer. This is the largest “long-term unemployment” figure since the government began tracking it in 1948. For women and oppressed communities, long-term unemployment is even more rampant.
The U.S. economy must create over 100,000 jobs per month in order to sustain employment growth. With over 15 million people officially jobless, job creation has not kept pace with job loss, so millions are expected to remain jobless for years to come.
Massive unemployment and job losses are part of the “boom-bust” nature of capitalism—which is currently on full display as a criminal economic system. Bosses employ workers in order to make profit, not to provide the jobs necessary to pay for life’s necessities. The time to fight for jobs is now.
