It should now be obvious to even the most myopic that the White House and Capitol Hill are owned by corporations and the other wealthy few.

So there will be no 21st century New Deal job programs coming out of Washington.  In fact, the DINO party is doing its best to help the GOP kill all legacies of the New Deal.  This wealthy, corporatist plutocracy continues to ignore the increasing ranks of the unemployed (unemployment they created or helped create) while occasionally trotting out their corporatist president to rhetorically prevaricate to the public.

As for the slight drop in jobless numbers, Dave Johnson at Our Future writes:  "The new monthly job numbers are out. They are a little bit better than they have been, but they are not very good. We added very few jobs but the unemployment rate went down. This is a function of a really bad economy in which people are so discouraged they aren't even bothering to look. So many people have given up that the labor force is actually smaller now than before the recession. We must make sure that these people are not just discarded, abandoned and marked up as a loss. They are people.

"We are more than two years into this recession, and we still are not seeing job growth that will bring the unemployment levels down anywhere near where they need to be. The stimulus worked but was not enough, and it is winding down. The new Congress has no intention whatsoever of new job-creation or infrastructure programs. And it is ending help for state and local governments that are increasingly shedding jobs.

"The official unemployment rate dropped, but only because 260,000 people "left the labor force." That means they gave up looking for work. There are so many discouraged workers who are not in the labor market that any truly good news will bring a flood back into the labor force. And that will keep the unemployment number high.

"The stock market is up and corporate profits are soaring, so as far as the people who make decisions are concerned, things are better than ever. They refuse to see the problems faced by the rest of the people of the country. While waves of people are hitting the "99er" limit for receiving unemployment checks, our leadership will not do anything about it. Plutocracy has replaced democracy.

Then he suggests the following to a corporatist, Wall Street protecting president and Congress: "The President and Congress should recognize that stock prices and corporate profits have become separated from what the rest of the country is experiencing. "Main Street" is not recovering. People are not finding jobs. It is still a crisis. We need a jobs first economic plan."

Jonathan Tasini weighs in at Working Life:  "The Department of Labor says the "official unemployment rate" is now at 9.4 percent. Even The Wall Street Journal points out:

The U.S. unemployment rate has now been above 9% since May 2009, or 20 months. That is the longest stretch at such an elevated level since the Second World War. In the recession of the early 1980s, the jobless rate crept to 9% in March 1982 and remained above that mark until September 1983.[emphasis added]

"But, the depth of the crisis is better seen here by looking at the U-6 level, which measures "Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force".

 "That number is at 16.7 percent.

 "And that doesn't even reflect how bad things are. I have pointed out that the minimum wage--which millions of people work for--is a poverty-level wage and a national scandal that covers up the depth of the economic crisis. It should be more than $19 an hour if we took in account the productivity rises over the last 30 years--that is, how hard people have worked compared to the rise in wages.

 "So, it isn't just the number of jobs but the QUALITY OF JOBS.

 "I'm guessing that at least one in five Americans--20 percent--in the U-6 and minimum wage categories does not have decent full-time paying work. And I think the crisis is far bigger if you really look at what it takes to get by in today's world of higher prices."

His following suggestion is more proactive than Johnson's.

"Which brings me to the Job Party. Several of us concluded recently that we needed a movement that is focused entirely on the job crisis:

The Job Party is a nationwide grassroots movement to demand an Emergency Jobs Bill for 15 million jobs so every unemployed American can go to work, feed their families, and put a roof over their head.

In December, Congress passed a $900 billion tax bill for 2 years that will produce only 1 million jobs through "trickle-down" economics for the rich. For that same $900 billion, Congress could create 15 million jobs paying $30,000 per year for 2 years!
Not only is that morally right, but it's economically right too - because those 15 million paid workers would massively increase consumer spending, fuel growth for the whole economy, and greatly reduce the national debt.

It's a revolutionary change from the failed "trickle-down" policies of the past 30 years that created the Great Recession that's killing us. We call it "gusher-up" and we demand the politicians in Washington DC embrace it before we all starve and the nation goes broke.

And if this current Congress doesn't act, we'll elect a new Congress in 2012 that will.

Move over, Tea Party - the Job Party has arrived. Join us today!

"We would like to have people help build this. This is the economic crisis of our times. We can't wait for the current political system to act.

 "We are gathering together the best ideas for creating jobs--and we want your ideas. Please contribute YOUR IDEAS.

 "We are collecting YOUR stories about your experience trying to get a decent job.

 "We are gathering the people who will take to the streets to demand that we start creating real jobs in this country. Sign up!."