"Horrific" June Jobs Report

CNBC reports: "June's miserable jobs report has put the fear of a double dip recession back into the markets. The U.S. economy added a paltry 18,000 jobs in June, and the unemployment rate climbed to 9.2 percent from 9.1 percent as laid off government workers continued to join the ranks of the unemployed. There were also 44,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported for April and May.

"'Even the hours worked slipped. It's just a horrific report. Unemployment going up is not good,' said Marc Chandler, Brown Brothers Harriman chief currency strategist."

SARAH BYRNES, via Lacy MacAuley, lacy at ips-dc.org
Sarah Byrnes is the Economic Justice Organizer with the Project on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies. She is the organizer of the Common Security Club network. IPS said in a statement this morning: "Many Americans are choosing to form 'Resilience Circles,' also called 'Common Security Clubs,' which are groups of 10-20 people who bond together to increase their personal security. Groups are focused on joint learning, mutual aid, and social action, with members often providing valuable assistance to one another in times of need. Resilience Circles are meeting in over 25 cities across the United States, and people in dozens of other cities are forming groups."

Byrnes said: "We're in this together. We are not going back to a model of economic growth based on debt, over-consumption and cheap energy. We have to prepare ourselves and our communities for change."

MAX FRAAD WOLFF, mfwolff at aol.com
Wolff is an instructor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University and senior analyst with Greencrest Capital. He wrote in a blog post today: "We continue to see significant weakness in public sector employment, led by local public sector job losses. Public sector employment contracted by 39,000 jobs in June. Federal stimulus is declining and states and localities are feeling the pinch. State difficulties and budget issues are being passed along to municipalities. In June we continued to see heavy reductions in local employment, particularly education employees. Local governments reduced payrolls by 18,000 in June. 12,600 of these local job losses came in education. These declines are accentuated by the June end and July start of the fiscal year for most states and municipalities. The public sector lost 39,000 jobs in June with the federal government making a larger contribution than in recent months, reducing payrolls by 14,000. State and local governments have been shedding jobs for over 2 years."