Washington, D.C. — Today CAP Action Senior Economist Heather Boushey discussed what she expects to see in tomorrow’s release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Situation Report for May. At a CAP Action event focused on how the middle class are America’s real job creators and the choices facing voters and policymakers this election year, Boushey offered the following comments regarding the upcoming unemployment numbers due for release tomorrow:
“It’s fantastic that we’ve been seeing growth each month. It’s been over a year and a half of consistent job gains. But [job growth] is at a pace that’s not fast enough to get us back to full employment soon enough."
“The real tragedy here is that we haven’t had the focus of Congress, especially this particular Congress, on boosting job creation and seeing that as the beginning of a virtuous circle. Instead we’ve seen a lot of conversations about debt and deficit and austerity, we’ve seen state and localities cutting back, quite frankly shooting ourselves in the foot by laying off school teachers and child care workers and all the kinds of people that are making the investments in the next generation that’s going to grow the middle class in the future and grow the economy…"
“Month after month we hope that these numbers will serve as a wake-up call to policymakers that we need to focus on building the middle class and supporting families… and I feel like it’s falling on deaf ears.”
Click here to watch a clip of Heather Boushey discussing the upcomign jobs report.
To speak with Boushey, contact Katie Peters at [email protected] or 202.741.6285
CAP Columns reacting to recent jobs reports:
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