According to the Boston Globe, the "stimulus" package currently being debated in the Senate will create, at most, 3 or 4 million jobs.

As part of its hard sell, the White House this afternoon released job-creation estimates for Eastern states from the economic recovery package.

It said that of the 3 million to 4 million jobs the plan would save or create, 800,000 of them would be in 10 Eastern states.

The estimates include 83,000 jobs in Massachusetts, 44,000 in Connecticut, 17,000 in New Hampshire, 16,000 in Maine, 13,000 in Rhode Island, and 8,000 in Vermont.

The official unemployment rate, which was 7.2 percent at the end of 2008, is expected to shoot up rapidly in the coming months. However, there is a less publicized but also official figure called “total” unemployment—and it has already reached 13.4 percent. This number includes people who couldn’t get anything but part-time work when they need to work full time, plus the millions who have stopped looking altogether, termed “discouraged” workers. This means, out of a total workforce of 154 million, that 20 million workers are unemployed.

At the present rate, millions more will lose their jobs in the coming months. Last year 2.6 million lost their jobs—a huge number but still deceptively low when trying to project what will happen this year because, of the 2.6 million, 2 million lost their jobs just in the last four months of 2008.

The 20 million workers already considered unemployed or underemployed—and this figure is sure to rise in the new year—will have to wait for the stimulus package to go into effect. Meanwhile, 1.5 million people enter the work force each year. This means that the "stimulus" program won't put any dent in the 20+ million people who will be out of a job.

Working people and their organizations need to organize to demand a real jobs program - one that puts people directly to work, instead of just throwing money at big corporations and government bureaucracies.

Labels: senate, stimulus program, total unemployment, unemployment