A study out of Australia found that people in poor quality jobs (those with high demands, low control over decision making, high job insecurity and an effort-reward imbalance) had more adverse effects on mental health than being unemployed.

Yep, a crappy job can be harder than no job at all. Holy Fosters.

“The researchers analyzed seven years of data from more than 7,000 respondents of an Australian labor survey for their Occupational and Environmental Medicine study in which they wrote: As hypothesized, we found that those respondents who were unemployed had significantly poorer mental health than those who were employed. However, the mental health of those who were unemployed was comparable or more often superior to those in jobs of the poorest psychosocial quality. The current results therefore suggest that employment strategies seeking to promote positive outcomes for unemployed individuals need to also take account of job design and workplace policy.”

Okay, some of you will take the gratuitous Fosters reference and the Australian sample for the study and blow this off. But you’ll do this to your own detriment.

I believe that this part of “down under” applies perfectly to “up and over” (or whatever words you choose to describe the opposite of “down under”).

Leaving out one important fact, a crummy job allows you to pay your bills in a way that no job usually doesn’t, I’m still reticent to toss this finding into the round file.

I’m not tossing it for one main reason, there is a major belief out there that it is always better to look for a job when you have a job. Because you’ve got both the economic and emotional security to come across better in an interview.

But this finding does cast a shadow on that concept. Because a crummy job can actually deplete your energy to the point that you can’t get hired.

I’m not sure that I’d ever suggest to someone to leave their job to increase the chances they’ll get a new one. But it does suggest that everyone who is unemployed should realize that there are certain advantages that go with the turf. And lord knows, it’s important for anyone who doesn’t have a job to grab every advantage that they can.

Thankfully the researchers didn’t limit their findings to just out of work people. They added a comment directed at employers too. Perhaps employers could be persuaded to be more mindful of the mental health of their workers — happier employees are a benefit to their employers. “The erosion of work conditions,” the researchers noted, “may incur a health cost, which over the longer term will be both economically and socially counterproductive.”

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winningworkplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Many in the labor movement objected to President Barack Obama speaking at the Chamber of Commerce yesterday. Yet there was little protest from AFL-CIO leaders to the president’s speech.

For the first time, President Obama ventured over to the Chamber of Commerce to speak. While the speech was full of the usual platitudes of most Obama speeches, what mattered most was not what he said, but the speech’s symbolism. By speaking at the Chamber, President Obama was offering an olive branch to the very organization that has led attacks against him.

President Barack Obama speaks at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on February 7 in Washington, D.C. He talked about the importance of working together on job creation and growing the economy. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The president defended some of his regulatory agenda and tax policies. He also called on CEOs to create more jobs in America. But he made no mention of the Chamber’s tolerance of unionbusting policies that lead to nearly 30,000 reported cases of unfair labor practices against U.S. workers by companies every year.

The symbolism of the speech upset many in the labor community. Ralph Nader wrote an open letter to the President suggesting “What about walking next door and visiting your political friends at the headquarters of the AFL-CIO, whose member unions represent millions of working Americans? You can discuss with Richard Trumka, a former coal miner and the new president of the AFL-CIO, your campaign promises in 2008. Repeatedly you said to the American people that you supported the “card check” and a “federal minimum wage of $9.50 in 2011.”

The AFL CIO neither organized a protest of the president’s speech nor extended an invitation for the president to cross the street and speak at the AFL CIO headquarters (where Obama has never given a speech).

Two unions—the National Nurses Union/California Nurse Association (CNA) and the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE), though, did organize a protest of the president’s speech at the Chamber. Both unions, it should be noted, have traditionally been more politically independent of the Democratic Party. Both unions endorsed Ralph Nader in his 2000 presidential run (At that time the CNA hadn’t merged with other unions).

The AFL CIO refused requests to endorse the protest. Still, 75 union members and allies picketed the president’s speech, chanting “Hey Hey, Hoo Hoo, Union Busting Got To Go”! One labor union member, who wished to remain anonymous, told me afterward that “I feel like by protesting today, we at least salvaged the dignity of the labor movement.”

Following his mantra “The President doesn’t communicate well with me in the press,” AFL-CIO President Trumka refused to denounce President Obama in remarks on MSNBC. In fact, Trumka disagreed with IAM (machinists union) President Thomas Buffenbarger’s remark that “this isn’t a truce with business. I think he capitulated.” Instead, Trumka defended the president’s speech. He also praised the selection of former JPMorgan Chase Director William Daley as Chief of Staff, suggesting his selection might make things better for organized labor.

Why is organized labor’s top leader so unwilling to criticize the Chamber of Commerce appearance?

One CNA official told me that the AFL CIO was hesitant to protest the Chamber as a result of their rare joint statement last month in which they endorsed increased spending on infrastructure program. The AFL CIO, it seems, is hoping that by teaming up with the Chamber, it has a better chance of seeing Congress pass funding to keep its members employed and its unions financially solvent and vibrant.

But I can’t help worrying that by teaming up with the Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO is undermining energy the labor movement needs to win the war against the country’s business class.

*This post originally appeared in Working In These Times on February 8, 2011. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer who has worked for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, the Campaign for America’s Future, and the Obama-Biden campaign. He has appeared as a commentator on CNN, Fox News, and NPR, and writes frequently for In These Times, Huffington Post, Alternet, and Truthout.

What do the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers have in common–besides playing in the Super Bowl Sunday? Both teams are named after the major manufacturing industry in their towns. Both cities were built on manufacturing and enjoy a loyal following built on the middle-class, blue-collar jobs supported by these industries. The Packers’ middle-class fans are also the team’s owners–the only team not owned by a super-rich person.

This is not the first Super Bowl with both teams hailing from proud working class communities.  The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) has launched the first-ever Super Bowl Manufacturing Index, which shows how many people were employed in manufacturing at the time of each working class Super Bowl. The index shows that in 1967 when the Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs, there were 17.9 million manufacturing jobs. This Sunday, there are only 11.7 million.

The players know the importance of manufacturing to their fans. At a recent AAM town hall meeting in Green Bay, Packer players A.J. Hawk and Mason Crosby spoke out about the value of manufacturing jobs (see video).

Scott Paul, AAM’s executive director, says:

As we celebrate this year’s Super Bowl, let’s not forget the men and women who have made these team great–their blue-collar fan base.  We can keep these communities strong by supporting a strong American manufacturing base and its highly skilled workers.

*This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on February 4, 2011. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: James Parks – My first encounter with unions was at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when my colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. I saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. I am a journalist by trade, and I worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. I also have been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. My proudest career moment, though, was when I served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections.

Not the wars. Not greenhouse gasses. Not even the deficit. The issue most important to Americans is jobs.

Despite that, jobs failed to make an appearance in the State of the Union address.

The talk was all about business. Business was doing better. Business needed taxpayers to help pay for research and innovation. Business will get government help to eliminate pesky regulations. Business must have lower taxes.

The most telling statement was this:

“We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business.”

Especially because it wasn’t matched by a companion:

“We have to make America the best place on Earth to work.”

The speech expressed a policy in which business is the focus of government, taking precedence over workers.  The American colonists created a government for their own benefit; they did not constitute an agent to serve business. A policy giving corporations primacy is risky for American workers.

The state of the union noted that happy days are here again for corporations and banks:

“Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again.”

Never mentioned, however, were the 14.5 million unemployed Americans, the sustained record rate of foreclosure, and the increasing poverty and food bank reliance among citizens of the richest nation in the world.

The state of the union outlined a plan under which the government will coddle corporations, essentially proving companies government welfare using American workers’ tax dollars. If businesses create jobs for workers as a result, fine. If they don’t, there’s no plan to exact a penalty.

For example, under the policy described in the speech, American workers will fork over tax dollars to pay for research and development for businesses that are sitting on a record $1.8 trillion in cash reserves — hoarding it rather than creating jobs.

The president said:

“Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race. And in a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology — an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.”

Maybe it will create new jobs. Hopefully. But no guarantees were offered. Mentioned as a business success story in the speech was a Michigan company, Luma Resources, which began manufacturing solar shingles with the help of a $500,000 government grant. It created 20 jobs, $25,000 a job.  American taxpayers might think that’s a little pricey, but what’s worse is the potential for Luma Resources to go the way of Evergreen Solar, squandering the corporate welfare.

Evergreen, the third largest maker of solar panels in the U.S. and recipient of at least $43 million in corporate welfare, announced earlier this month it would close its main American factory in Massachusetts and move manufacturing to China. Eight hundred Americans will lose their Evergreen jobs by April.

Evergreen officials said China will give the company even higher amounts of corporate welfare, which, of course, makes sense since China is not a capitalist country. Its economy is government controlled. And that government routinely violates international trade regulations – by providing banned subsidies to industries and by deliberately devaluing its currency.

No matter how better educated American workers get. No matter how much more innovative. No matter how much more productive. No matter how many tax dollars the government spends on research and development, if the corporations that benefit move manufacturing overseas, the American workers who paid for it will suffer.

In fact, it’s more than suffering; it’s betrayal by their government that provided tax benefits to companies for off-shoring jobs. It is betrayal by their government that fails to stop violations of trade laws by countries like China that lure away firms like Evergreen.

At the end of the State of the Union speech, the president said:

“From the earliest days of our founding, America has been the story of ordinary people who dare to dream.”

An ordinary American dreams of a family-supporting job, owning a home, saving enough to pay for a child’s college education, helping to build a safe community. Corporations aren’t Americans, no matter how often the U.S. Supreme Court grants them rights that the U.S. Constitution guarantees to human beings. Businesses aren’t citizens. Their allegiance isn’t to America. It’s to profits. They dream only of dollars. They concede no responsibility to family, community or country.

They were not included when the president said:

“Tucson reminded us that no matter who we are or where we come from, each of us is a part of something greater — something more consequential than party or political preference.  We are part of the American family.”

The top priority of the American government must be making America the best place on Earth for Americans.  If that’s good for corporations, great. The government must never place American citizens second.

*This post originally appeared in United Steelworker’s Blog on January 31, 2010.

About the Author: Leo W. Gerard is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee and chairs the labor federation’s Public Policy Committee. President Barack Obama recently appointed him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. He serves as co-chairman of the BlueGreen Alliance and on the boards of the Apollo Alliance, Campaign for America’s Future and the Economic Policy Institute.  He is a member of the IMF and ICEM global labor federations and was instrumental in creating Workers Uniting, the first global union.

Six years ago, Wal-Mart’s efforts to build its first store within the Chicago city limits sparked a city-wide furor and debate over the big box giant’s labor and community practices…and led to the passage of a historic living wage “Big Box Ordinance” heralded as a national model.

But the ordinance was vetoed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, who called it a job-killer that would prevent stores from opening. Wal-Mart then opened a store on the city’s west side free from the living wage requirements. Now Wal-Mart is moving forth with plans – despite community opposition chronicled on this blog – for two stores on Chicago’s south side. And the company reportedly also plans to open a store in a relatively upscale north side neighborhood.

Wal-Mart opponents rally Jan. 27 at a proposed new location for the store on Chicago's north side. (Courtesy of UFCW Local 881)

Last year, the Chicago Federation of Labor and other community groups touted a “deal” with Wal-Mart, which has announced plans to build a dozen stores in Chicago. According to the labor group, the corporation promised to pay at least $8.75 an hour (with an increase of 40 to 60 cents after one year of work) and hire union workers to build all its Chicago stores. The same day, a Wal-Mart spokesman disputed the concessions, saying: “There are no deals. All raised are based on performance.”

Despite the fact that labor claimed a victory last year, Wal-Mart is still not welcome to the city, according to union members, workers’ rights advocates and local business leaders who rallied against the proposed north side Wal-Mart on January 27.

Though the city’s media, elected officials and general public are paying relatively little attention to the issue this time around, UFCW Local 881 and other labor and neighborhood groups are trying to galvanize opposition to the proposed north side store because of Wal-Mart’s labor practices and effects on surrounding communities.

At a rally near the proposed site last week, Susan Hurley, executive director of Jobs with Justice, said:

We are reinforcing our fight to bring good jobs to our communities.  As we work towards positive economic development of our neighborhoods and long-term sustainability, we recognize that there are many alternatives and Walmart should not be one of them.  We cannot afford the widespread expansion of poverty-type Walmart jobs.

The Lakeview neighborhood where Wal-Mart proposes to build is more upscale and commercially vibrant than the south and west side Chicago sites Wal-Mart has previously targeted. Much opposition has come from local retailers, including boutiques and independent high-end stores who don’t want the competition and stigma represented by a Wal-Mart.

Chicago workers’ rights advocates say that along with these concerns, they also want to keep the focus strongly on the labor record of Wal-Mart, which has launched a campaign to clean up its image nationally over recent years, even as it continues to face the nation’s largest class action gender discrimination lawsuit and a host of other legal complaints.

Maureen Martino, executive director of the local Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce, said:

Walmart’s strategy was to build in areas where food and retail deserts exist. Obviously their strategy has changed and perhaps the City Council needs to reassess the impact this will cause on our small business community.

Now is the time to preserve our communities by offering incentives and financial assistance to our small businesses and not add another factor that will lead to storefront vacancies.

And Rev. Calvin Morris, executive director of the Community Renewal Society, added:

Walmart is supposed to be applauded for their appalling corporate behavior for locating themselves in economically underserved areas, but that’s clearly not their only purpose. They also seek to bring their race to the bottom wage and benefit standards to economically thriving neighborhoods all over the city of Chicago. I know Chicago can do better!

Editor’s note: This article, including its headline, has been updated to note the fact that Wal-Mart has disputed that any formal wage agreement between it and Chicago labor groups was made in June 2010.

*This article originally appeared in Working in These Times on Jan 31, 2011. Reprinted with permission.

As the new year begins, it’s as good a time as any to look at a topic almost completely ignored by mainstream media: how Native American people are faring in the U.S. labor market. The economy and its paucity of jobs dominated U.S. headlines throughout 2010, but news media overlooked the particularly difficult experiences of native peoples.

In late November, the nonpartisan think tank Economic Policy Institute released a report looking at unemployment figures among American Indians. According to Algernon Austin of EPI, unemployment in Indian Country is bleak.

For instance, the national unemployment rate among Native people spiked from 7.7 percent in the first half of 2007 to 15.2 percent in the first half of 2010. Whites experienced a 4.1 percent and 9.1 percent unemployment rate respectively, in the same time period. In his brief “Different Race, Different Recession: American Indian Unemployment in 2010,” Austin writes that:

We find some of the largest disparities in employment between American Indians and whites in Alaska, the Northern Plains, and the Southwest.

These are also the regions of the country where the ratio of the Native to non-Native population is among the highest.

The unemployment numbers are different from those released by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Labor Force Report, whose sample and methodology is different than that used by EPI. The BIA bases its numbers on the American Indian and Alaska Native population that lives on or near the reservation and are eligible for BIA-funded services.

This population, however, according to Austin, is only about one-third of the total American Indian and Alaska Native population.

Austin’s report, based on statistics from Current Population Survey (CPS) data, uses the total American Indian and Alaska Native population, including biracial individuals. Here are his research’s key findings:

• By the first half of 2010, the unemployment rate for Alaska Natives jumped 6.3 percentage points to 21.3%—the highest regional unemployment rate for American Indians.
• Since the start of the recession, American Indians in the Midwest experienced the greatest increase in unemployment, growing by 10.3 percentage points to 19.3%.
• By the first half of this year, slightly more than half—51.5%—of American Indians nationally were working, down from 58.3% in the first half of 2007.
• In the first half of this year, only 44% of American Indians in the Northern Plains were working, the worst employment rate for Native Americans regionally.
• The employment situation is the worst for American Indians in some of the same regions where it is best for whites: Alaska and the Northern Plains.

This year, President Obama made efforts to work toward building a better relationship with native people, ordering his administration to seek the advice of native people on the best ways that federal programs and policies could serve them.

In 2010, the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration’s Indian and Native American Program awarded $53 million to 178 grantees to provide employment and training services geared toward unemployed, under-employed and low-income Native American adults.

And it awarded an additional $13.8 million in grants to 78 tribes, tribal consortiums, and tribal nonprofit organizations to offer summer employment and training activities for native youth to offer basic and occupational skills training and job placement assistance.

As outlined in the 2010 White House Tribal Nations Conference Progress Report, Obama requested $55 million in his 2011 fiscal year budget for the Indian and Native American Program, which grants funding to tribes and Native American nonprofits to provide employment and training services to unemployed and low-income Native people.

That’s a 4-percent increase over fiscal year 2010. Whether it will be approved or not is another matter, of course.

This article was originally published on Working In These Times.

About The Author: Rose Arrieta was born and raised in Los Angeles. She has worked at three dailies and two television stations. She currently lives in San Francisco, where she is editor of the Bay Area’s independent community bilingual biweekly El Tecolote. She can be reached at rmarrieta@inthesetimes.com.

The new year started with better but not great news on the jobs front. The latest figures from the U.S. Department of Labor released this morning show that unemployment dropped from 9.8 percent in November to 9.4 percent in December.

Even with the expected holiday season hires, only 103,000 net new jobs were created last month. Economists had predicted 150,000 to 175,000 new jobs for December. The number of jobs created is a drop from November, when 151,000 jobs were added.

The jobless rate has been at 9 percent or more for the past 20 months—the longest it has been this high since World War II, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economist Heidi Shierholz says the drop in the unemployment rate is somewhat misleading. 

Around half of the improvement was due to 260,000 people dropping out of the labor force, leaving the labor force participation rate at 64.3 percent, a stunning new low for the recession. Incredibly, the U.S. labor force is now smaller than it was before the recession started, though it should have grown by over 4 million workers to keep up with working-age population growth over this period.

According to the report, 14.5 million are officially jobless, down by 556,000 from last month. Long-term joblessness did not change from last month, with 6.5 million workers jobless for six months or more. That represents 44.3 percent of all unemployed workers.

The economy needs to add about 150,000 new jobs each month to keep up with the growth in the labor force. But to lower the nation’s unemployment rate to 6 percent by 2013 and make up for the more than 8 million jobs lost due to the Bush recession, the economy needs to add 350,000 jobs a month.

The nation is in dire need of a battle plan to create jobs and revive the economy. But instead of tackling job creation out of the gate, the new Republican majority in the House is playing cheap partisan politics by devoting its first week of action to repealing health care reform.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says that while the drop in December’s unemployment rate is welcome news, “net job growth is still not enough to accommodate our growing population, let alone close the 11-million job gap left by the Bush recession.”

The cuts being proposed by Republicans in Washington and around the country, including undermining Social Security and Medicare and cutting transportation spending, are the wrong remedies at the wrong time and threaten our economic future. We need dramatic action to invest in America and give states and cities breathing room to prevent further layoffs and create jobs.

Manufacturing gained 10,000 jobs in December, contributing to a gain of more than 100,000 jobs since December 2009. Construction jobs fell by 13,000, while retail jobs increased slightly by 12,000. But that follows November’s loss of 28,000 retail jobs. State and local public employee jobs fell by 20,000 last month.

The health care and leisure/hospitality sectors continue to be the strongest areas of job growth, with leisure/hospitality jobs increasing by 47,000 and health care employment expanding by 36,000 in December.

Earlier this week, Michael Snyder took a dispiriting look at how working families have been battered in recent years, especially with vanishing middle-class jobs and blue-collar jobs that pay decent wages. These jobs vanished in large part because of Bush-era trade and economic policies that encouraged U.S. firms to export jobs and gave Wall Street and Big Banks free rein to recklessly ride the economy off a cliff.  Snyder writes:

More than half of the U.S. labor force (55 percent) has “suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers” since the recession began in December 2007.

Since the year 2000, we have lost 10 percent of our middle-class jobs. In the year 2000, there were about 72 million middle-class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle-class jobs. Meanwhile, our population is getting larger.

One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one anti-poverty program run by the federal government.

Income inequality continued to grow with the richest 20 percent of working families taking home 47 percent of all income and earning 10 times that of low-income working families.

This article was originally published on AFL-CIO Now Blog.

About The Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety.

About the Author Jonathan Tasini: is the executive director of Labor Research Association. Tasini ran for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in New York. For the past 25 years, Jonathan has been a union leader and organizer, a social activist, and a commentator and writer on work, labor and the economy. From 1990 to April 2003, he served as president of the National Writers Union (United Auto Workers Local 1981).He was the lead plaintiff in Tasini vs. The New York Times, the landmark electronic rights case that took on the corporate media’s assault on the rights of thousands of freelance authors.

Just read a story on AOL about a CEO of a small construction company. (Actually two stories…the original and her update).  Link at the end of the post.

Even though she doesn’t acknowledge it….or maybe even recognize it, within her stories there is a message for how to survive and find the next job.

Simply stated:  write, write write.  As a result of getting her story published on AOL she has gotten ten opportunities to apply for positions.  She is in that process right now.  But she got those opportunities because she took the time to write.  Now there is no guarantee you will get on AOL, but I can guarantee there are many other places that will publish your writings on your expertise, vision and leadership

So begin writing.

1.  Start Blogging:    It is easy and you can do it for very few dollars….even free.  If you want help, there are services like ours that can make it even easier.  But start getting your message out there.  Write about your expertise in your industry.  Address emerging trends, industry challenges, industry opportunities, government and regulation issues, technology applications and on and on and on.  Apply SEO and SEM to your blog.  If you don’t know how….learn!!  Send a link to your blog to everyone you know.  Include a link with every job application.  Put a link on your Linkedin and Facebook page.  Join Linkedin industry groups and provide them with a link to your blog.  All of this is free and it can produce great results.

2.  Write on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and many others.   Communicate your message  through social networks.  Write about your situation, your leadership and vision, your expertise.   Show your expertise by answering questions regarding your industry or areas of skill….as posted by other members of Lindedin.  When answering several questions, the algorithms of Linkedin will recognize you as an expert.

3.  Write Articles.  These are not just blog articles or posts, but rather articles for publication in online trade journals.  There are also many online article publication websites that will publish every article you write….for free.  Their sites success is predicated on a huge volume of content on many topics.  They want your articles.  The articles will be picked up by search engines and you will gain extraordinary credibility across the Net.

Guaranteed, getting your message out to the marketplace through your writing can be the catalyst to drive success in your search.  And once you achieve a new position, don’t make the mistake of stopping your writing.  Our economy will be unstable for many years to come.  But consistently putting your message out across the Net, will pay dividends for years to come.  You will secure your future. You will be sought out, rather than having to seek a position.

Here is a link to Mollee’s article.  Be certain to read her update as well.

Be a dedicated and committed writer and you will succeed as well.

This article was originally posted on Corporate Warriors.

About The Author: Don Straits founded Corporate Warriors more than 18 years ago, and has dedicated his career to helping people develop strategies to support their careers. If you would like to contact Don for coaching or seminar work, please do so at don@corporatewarriors.com. You can also find his website here.

This is the season of gift giving and, for millions of us, the present we really need is a job.

We know that American families need jobs. But American businesses also need jobs—rather, they need customers with jobs. When millions of unemployed workers and their families have little money to spend, businesses, big and small, have few customers. Production stalls, hiring is frozen and investments are put on hold. Firms cannot thrive and the economy will not return to health until people can afford to buy the things they need.

The nation also needs jobs—it needs people with jobs who are paying their income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes. Tax revenues have fallen and government budget deficits have exploded because people are not working. To get deficits under control, we must put people back to work, back to earning money and back to paying taxes. Job creation must be our nation’s highest priority.

The nation’s official jobless rate is 9.8 percent, or nearly one in 10 workers. But the official count only includes people who are actively looking for work. Someone who has given up and stopped looking is not counted. Older workers who have declared themselves “retired” when they had planned to continue working are not counted. Another 9 million people are working part-time when they want full-time work. All together, more than 28 million people, or more than one in six potential workers, are either unemployed or under-employed. This more comprehensive, “real” count is nearly twice the official one.

A federal program to create millions of needed jobs will be costly. But in this very wealthy nation, the money could be found if jobs were our highest priority. Congress could have ended the Bush tax cuts for the 2 percent of taxpayers with the highest incomes, or raised the estate tax to the level it was in previous years. But a Congress that chooses instead to extend these tax breaks for the wealthy cannot honestly claim there is no money for jobs. There is money. But it is funding tax breaks for the rich, not jobs for the unemployed.

There are other potential sources of money for jobs, ways to raise money that also strengthen the economy and close tax loopholes. We could put a tax on financial transactions that would bring in money while also reducing speculation and strengthening the financial system. We could tax capital gains (money made from selling stock and other investments) at the same rate as we tax wages and salaries. We could tax hedge fund managers at least at the same rate as we tax their secretaries.

Working people have a clear choice. We can either beg Santa for jobs (and many of us have already tried that one) or we can come together and demand that our elected officials do what’s right for working families, businesses and our nation: Create jobs.

This article was originally posted on AFL-CIO Now Blog.

About The Author: Edith Rasell is on the national staff of the United Church of Christ serving as Minister for Economic Justice in Justice and Witness Ministries. She works with UCC congregations around the country as well as national and international organizations to bring greater economic justice to people in the U.S. and around the world, especially the poor and marginalized. Read more about Edith’s work on the UCC Economic Justice home page.