WASHINGTON - February 5 - January unemployment finally fell below double digits, but our country remains in a serious, deep, and long-term jobs crisis.  We need to create at least 10 million jobs now, and Wall Street and the big banks that created the crisis need to foot the bill. 

We welcome the news that unemployment dropped to 9.7%, but we shed another 20,000 jobs last month, following a revised 150,000 loss in December, and the number of long-term unemployed continues to break records.

These numbers underscore what we have been saying all along.  Working families need bigger and bolder actions –in the short, medium and long term – to create jobs in the immediate future – or we risk permanent scarring of our economy and our workforce.

President Obama's Recovery Act has clearly contributed to the positive economic growth in the 4th quarter and the slowing of job losses since he took office.  But we still need to do more to dig out of the deep hole we're in.
We need a bolder program to create jobs than anything that has been proposed by Congress or the Administration to date.  Working families need 10 million jobs, and Wall Street and the big banks should foot the bill.  The AFL-CIO's five-step plan takes us in the right direction: 

1. Extend the lifeline for jobless workers. Unless the Senate acts now, supplemental unemployment benefits, additional food assistance and expansion of COBRA health care benefits will expire in a few months. They must be extended for another 12 months to protect working families from bankruptcy, home foreclosure and loss of health care. Extending benefits also will boost spending and create jobs throughout the economy.

2. Rebuild America's schools, roads and energy systems. America still has at least $2.2 trillion in unmet infrastructure needs. We should put people to work to fix our nation's broken-down school buildings and invest in transportation, green technology, energy efficiency and more.

3. Increase aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services. State governments alone have a $178 billion budget shortfall this year—while the recession creates greater need for their services. States and communities must get help to maintain critical frontline services, prevent massive job cuts and avoid deep damage to education just when our children need it most.

4. Put people to work doing work that needs to be done.  If the private sector can't or won't provide the needed jobs, the government should step up to the plate, putting people who need jobs together with work that needs to be done. These should never be replacements for existing public jobs. They must pay competitive wages and should target distressed communities.

5. Put TARP funds to work for Main Street.  We agree with President Obama that there needs to be more lending to small businesses.  The bank bailout helped Wall Street, not Main Street. We should put some of the billions of dollars in leftover Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to work creating jobs by having community banks lend TARP money directly to small- and medium-size businesses.  If small businesses can get credit, they will create jobs.

Working families know that there will be no economic recovery without significant job creation.