"Freefalling Out of the Middle Class"

Watch this PBS Newshour piece on the real state of the US economy. Well done!

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, announced that she will introduce a  budget outline aimed at putting more than two million people to work.

Titled the “Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act,” the plan would cost $227 billion and would be implemented over two years. It would be financed by separate legislation introduced by Schakowsky called the "Fairness in Taxation Act," which would raise taxes for Americans who earn more than $1 million and $1 billion. It would also eliminate subsidies for big oil companies while closing loopholes for corporations that send American jobs overseas.

Watch the video here: http://schakowsky.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2975&Itemid=8/

TAKE ONE MINUTE NOW: Write/call to your Congressmember to support this bill: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

The Bill aims to:

• Create over 2 million jobs to address the real crisis facing America: the jobs crisis.
• Create emergency jobs for two years, to provide time to get the economy back up and running.
• Costs $221 Billion (id="mce_marker"10.5 billion for each of fiscal years 2012 and 2013).
•  Can be fully paid for through separate legislation such as Rep. Schakowsky’s Fairness in Taxation Act, which creates higher tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires, eliminating subsidies for Big Oil, and through eliminating tax loopholes for corporations that ship American jobs overseas.

THE CORPS: 2.1 Million Jobs

1. School Improvement Corps – Creates 400,000 construction and 250,000 maintenance jobs through new funding to public school districts for needed school rehabilitation improvements (id="mce_marker"00 billion)
2. Park Improvement Corps – Creates 100,000 jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 25 through new funding to the Department of the Interior and the USDA Forest Service’s Public Lands Corps Act. Conservation projects on public lands include restoration and rehabilitation of natural, cultural, historic, archaeological, recreational and scenic resources. ($400 million)
3. Student Jobs Corps – Creates 250,000 more part-time, work study jobs for eligible college students through new funding for the Federal Work Study Program. ($850 million) 
4. Neighborhood Heroes Corps –
5. Teachers: Direct funding to states to hire, re-hire, and prevent lay-offs of 300,000 teachers. ($40 billion)
6. Cops: New funding to hire 40,000 police officers. (id="mce_marker"0 billion)
7. Firefighters: New funding to hire 12,000 firefighters. ($2.4 billion)
8. Health Corps - Grants to hire at least 40,000 health care providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and health care workers to expand access in underserved rural and urban areas. ($8 billion) 
9. Community Corps – Creation of a new Community Corps that will create 750,000 jobs to do needed work in our communities, including energy audits and conservation upgrades, recycling and reclamation of reusable materials, urban land reclamation and addressing blight, including foreclosure and disaster-affected areas, rural conservation work, public property maintenance and beautification, housing rehabilitation, and new housing construction modeled after Habitat for Humanity. ($60 billion)

Standards for new programs:

• Priority for jobs given to the unemployed, particularly those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits (the “99ers”).
• Formulas will allocate fair distribution of funding and jobs among states, with targeting based on high unemployment and need.
• Ensures that jobs don’t undercut the rights of other workers or lower wages.
• Ensures work is additive and doesn’t displace current workers or take business from small/local businesses. 
• Includes trigger for phase-out if unemployment drops below 5%.