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Obama is expected to offer new proposals to make college more affordable, to ease the housing crisis still slowing the economy, and to boost American manufacturing, according to people familiar with the speech. He will also promote unfinished parts of his jobs plan, including the extension of a payroll tax cut soon to expire.

In essence, this State of the Union is not so much about the year ahead as the four more years Obama wants after that.

Obama’s splash of policy proposals will be less important than what he hopes they all add up to: a narrative of renewed American security. Obama will try to politically position himself as the one leading that fight for the middle class, with an overt call for help from Congress, and an implicit request for a second term from the public.

The timing comes as the nation is split about Obama’s overall job performance. More people than not disapprove of his handling of the economy, he is showing real vulnerability among the independent voters who could swing the election, and most Americans think the country is on the wrong track.

So his mission will be to show leadership and ideas on topics that matter to people: jobs, housing, college, retirement security.

The White House sees the speech as a clear chance to outline a vision for re-election, yet carefully, without turning a national tradition into an overt campaign event.

On national security, Obama will defend his foreign policies but is not expected to announce new ones on Iran or any other front. He will ask the nation to reflect with him on a momentous year of change, including the end of the war in Iraq, the killing of al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and the Arab Spring protests of peoples clamoring for freedom.

But it will all be secondary to jobs at home.

In a winter season of politics dominated by his Republican competition, Obama will have a grand stage to himself, in a window between Republican primaries. He will try to use the moment to refocus the debate as he sees it: where the country has come, and where he wants to take it.

In doing so, Obama will come before a divided Congress with a burst of hope because the economy – by far the most important issue to voters – is showing life.

The unemployment rate is still at a troubling 8.5 percent, but at its lowest rate in nearly three years. Consumer confidence is up. Obama will use that as a springboard.

The president will try to draw a contrast of economic visions with Republicans, both his antagonists in Congress and the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

The foundation of Obama’s speech is the one he gave in Kansas last month, when he declared that the middle class was a make-or-break moment and railed against “you’re on your own” economics of the Republican Party. His theme then was about a government that ensures people get a fair shot to succeed.

That speech spelled out the values of Obama’s election-year agenda. The State of the Union will be the blueprint to back it up.

Despite low expectations for legislation this year, Obama will offer short-term ideas that would require action from Congress. His travel schedule following his speech, to politically important regions, offers clues to the policies he was expected to unveil.

Both Phoenix and Las Vegas have been hard hit by foreclosures. Denver is where Obama outlined ways of helping college students deal with mounting school loan debt. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Detroit are home to a number of manufacturers. And Michigan was a major beneficiary of the president’s decision to provide billions in federal loans to rescue General Motors and Chrysler in 2009.

For now, the main looming to-do item is an extension of a payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, both due to expire by March. An Obama spokesman called that the “last must-do item of business” on Obama’s congressional agenda, but the White House insists the president will make the case for more this year.

If anything, Republicans say Obama has made the chances of cooperation even dimmer just over the last several days. He enraged Republicans by installing a consumer watchdog chief by going around the Senate, which had blocked him, and then rejected a major oil pipeline project the GOP has embraced.

Obama is likely, once again, to offer ways in which a broken Washington must work together. Yet that theme seems but a dream given the gridlock he has been unable to change.

The State of the Union atmosphere offered a bit of comity last year, following the assassination attempt against Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. And yet 2011 was a year of utter dysfunction in Washington, with the partisanship getting so bad that the government nearly defaulted as the world watched in embarrassment.

The address remains an old-fashioned moment of national attention; 43 million people watched it on TV last year. The White House website will offer a live stream of the speech, promising graphics and other bonuses for people who watch it there, plus a panel of administration officials afterward with questions coming in through Twitter and Facebook.

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“I’m incredibly optimistic about our prospects,” Obama said about the economy after meeting with more than a dozen corporate and small business leaders whose firms have succeeded, to one degree or another, in bringing jobs back to the United States.

A day after his Republican adversaries competed in the New Hampshire primary, Obama sought to grab back the spotlight and underscore his focus on the economy by convening a high-profile White House forum on how to increase employment and stem the hundreds of thousands of jobs that have been sent overseas.

Obama did not mention any of his potential Republican challengers during his public remarks. But two participants in the forum, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, compared Obama favorably to Mitt Romney, who on Tuesday won the New Hampshire Republican primary and solidified his lead over the GOP presidential field.

Gerard said his union represented workers in companies that had been acquired by Romney’s former firm, Bain Capital, and that eventually shut down. “From our point of view, this president from day one has tried to create jobs not cut jobs,” he said.

As a result, the day had all the feel of a presidential counterpunch to the Republican candidates, and particularly to Romney, who has sought to portray Obama as a foe of free enterprise.

Obama highlighted big and small firms ranging from Ford to a North Carolina specialty furniture company as examples of enterprises that have invested in the U.S. rather than abroad. He called on other companies to do the same with the help of government incentives.

The White House says the president will propose $12 million in his 2013 budget to promote business investment from overseas in the United States. Obama has already proposed tax incentives, including a cut in employers’ Social Security taxes, to encourage more hiring. Congress has not acted on those measures.

As if to underscore the political stakes, Obama called for new jobs to take root, not in China or Germany, but “in places like Michigan and Ohio and Virginia and North Carolina,” all crucial states in his bid for re-election.

“Right now, we’re at a unique moment, an inflection point, a period where we’ve got the opportunity for those jobs to come back,” Obama said. “And the business leaders in this room, they’re ahead of the curve, they recognize it.”

But among the causes behind the new spate of hiring is the lack of wage growth in the United States over several years — a fact that Obama often cites as an impediment for those wishing to rise to the middle class.

Indeed, Hal Sirkin of Boston Consulting Group, a participant in the forum, told reporters that not only are U.S. workers more productive than Chinese workers, wages in countries such as China are rising at rapid rates.

“It’s a simple mathematical equation. It’s changing,” he said. “And it will mean that it is a lot easier to retain jobs in the U.S. and it will be a lot easier to attract jobs back to the U.S. It’s not about the patriotism — although I know everybody on stage with me here is just as patriotic. But it is about the underlying economics. And the economics are favoring the U.S. at this point at this time. And by 2015, we expect to see the beginning — and these people are the absolute beginning — of the wave of ‘reshoring’ back to the U.S.”

But any move towards insourcing is fighting a powerful trend: U.S. multinational corporations have been adding jobs overseas partly because that’s where an increasingly large share of their sales are. Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index now earn more than half of their revenue from overseas.

That has fueled a shift in jobs, with large U.S. multinational corporations reducing their U.S. employment while adding jobs in other countries. U.S. multinationals cut more than 800,000 jobs in the United States in 2000-2009, according to the Commerce Department. They added 2.9 million overseas in the same period, the most recent data available.

The Great Recession and the sluggish recovery may have blunted that trend. Labor costs have fallen, particularly in manufacturing, as unions in many industries have accepted lower pay to preserve jobs. At the same time, businesses have cut costs and boosted efficiency. Productivity grew at the fastest pace in 18 months in last year’s third quarter.

“The U.S. is becoming a pretty reasonable place to manufacture,” said Gary Clyde Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “We are more competitive.”

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Thursday’s 95-0 vote gave lawmakers the opportunity to fly home to holiday events and boast about helping veterans and protecting jobs. But it did little to help close the scorching partisan divide over how to revive the gasping economy, an issue that seems sure to decide next year’s presidential and congressional elections.

“We deal with a lot of contentious issues here, but this should not be one of them,” said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., a leading sponsor of the veterans’ provisions.

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The legislation would award tax credits of up to $9,600 to companies that hire disabled veterans who have been job-hunting for at least half a year and strengthen employment counseling and training programs for vets and troops about to leave the military.

It also would erase a law, yet to take effect, requiring federal, state and local government agencies to withhold 3 percent of their payments to companies with which they conduct business. That law was enacted under President George W. Bush to nudge companies to fully pay their taxes, but lawmakers now say it would fence off money those firms could better use to hire more workers.

The House is expected to approve the bill resoundingly next week, which would send it to Obama.

The president’s signature would make the veterans tax credits the first fragment of his $447 billion jobs package to be enacted. Those tax credits would cost $90 million over the next decade, according to White House estimates. Obama also has supported annulling the withholding requirement on contractors’ payments.

The rest of the president’s jobs plan, which is highlighted by payroll tax cuts and money for infrastructure projects and hiring teachers and police officers, has foundered.

There are about 240,000 unemployed veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, around 12 percent of those who served there, the White House says. A total of 850,000 veterans overall are out of work, and 1 million additional service members are expected to return to civilian life by 2016, according to White House data.

“No veteran who fought for our nation should have to fight for a job when they come home,” Obama said in a written statement after the vote that also called on Congress to approve additional jobs proposals.

That didn’t stop both parties from seeking political advantage in Thursday’s vote.

Knowing they faced certain defeat in the Democratic-led chamber, Republicans nonetheless tried amending the bill with a giant package they said would create jobs by cutting income tax rates, repealing Obama’s health care overhaul and blocking or annulling many labor, energy and environmental regulations. It was rejected by a near party-line 56-40 tally, but it created an opportunity for the GOP to demonstrate its formula for healing the economy.

Before the day’s votes, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sarcastically congratulated Democrats for “doing something we haven’t been doing enough of around here. We’re going to legislate.” He said Democrats usually spend their time “trying to make Republicans look bad.”

At the same time, Obama’s campaign emailed supporters, urging them to pressure lawmakers to vote for the measure.

“Members of Congress will have two clear options to choose from: Do something to create jobs for veterans returning from overseas, or do nothing,” the email said.

Outside groups also vied for attention. The Association of American Railroads said one-fifth of the railway workers hired this year were expected to be veterans, while the trade group Associated Builders and Contractors said repealing the withholding law would remove uncertainty clouding long-term planning by construction companies.

Economists say repealing the withholding requirement would have an imperceptible, if any, impact on jobs.

Conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., voted for the bill but was the only dissenter when the Senate voted to combine the veterans provisions with the withholding language. He said politicians were “pandering” for veterans’ votes by approving tax credits that wouldn’t really persuade companies to hire vets.

Beyond increasing to $9,600 the tax credit for hiring disabled veterans, the bill also would create new tax credits of up to $5,600 for employers hiring veterans who have job hunted at least half a year and $2,400 for those out of work for four weeks or more.

In addition, it would expand education and job training benefits for veterans, improve employment counseling they receive while still in the military and provide an extra year of job services for disabled veterans.

“This bill is a win for the economy and the right thing to do for our veterans,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., a long-time sponsor of tax credits for vets.

Overall, the tax breaks and jobs programs for veterans would cost just over $1 billion, Democratic aides said. It would be paid for by extending a fee the Veterans Affairs Department charges to back home loans.

Annulling the withholding law would cost the government $11.2 billion over the next decade. The legislation makes up the lost revenue by making it harder for some Social Security beneficiaries to qualify for Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income people.

Supporters of the failed measure said it would have created tens of thousands of construction jobs and lifted the still-struggling economy. But Republicans unanimously opposed it for its tax surcharge on the wealthy and spending totals they said were too high.

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The 51-49 vote fell well short of the 60 votes required under Senate procedures to start work on the bill. Every Republican opposed the president, as did Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska and former Democrat Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who still aligns with the party.

Obama’s loss was anything but a surprise, but the White House and its Democratic allies continue to press popular ideas from Obama’s poll-tested jobs package in what Republicans say is nothing more than a bare-knuckle attempt to gain a political edge by invoking the mantra of jobs but doing little to seek compromise.

“The truth is, Democrats are more interested in building a campaign message than in rebuilding roads and bridges,” said Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “And frankly, the American people deserve a lot better than that.”

“Their goal is to do everything they can to drag down this economy, to do anything they can to focus attention negatively on the President of the United States in hopes that he can get my job, perhaps, and that President Obama will be defeated,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. “So let’s not talk about campaign speeches here on the Senate floor. Let’s talk about reality.”

After Republicans blocked Obama’s infrastructure plan, the president’s Democratic allies immediately killed a competing GOP infrastructure plan that would have extended existing highway and transit spending programs and paid for the spending with a $40 billion cut in unspent funding for other domestic programs. The White House opposed the measure over its spending cuts and provisions that would block recent clean air rules and make it harder for the administration to issue new rules.

Obama unveiled his $447 billion jobs plan in September and has launched a campaign-style effort – featuring multiple rallies in states crucial to his re-election bid – to try to get it passed. In votes last month, Republicans blocked the entire $447 billion jobs package and a subsequent attempt by Democrats to pass a $35 billion piece of it aimed at preventing layoffs of teachers and firefighters.

Another political flash point is the way Democrats have sought to pay for Obama’s jobs measures – a surcharge on income exceeding $1 million. The idea enjoys wide backing in opinion polls but is stoutly opposed by Republicans, who say it would hit small business owners and therefore threaten job growth.

With the demise of Thursday’s measure, an announcement could come as early as Friday on what’s the next piece of Obama’s jobs agenda to break out for a stand-alone vote. Democratic aides say the next measure would be legislation to provide a $4,800 tax credit for hiring an unemployed veteran and increasing the tax credit for hiring a veteran with a service-related disability to up to $9,600.

Republicans back the idea of the veterans hiring tax credit.

Thursday’s legislation would have provided an immediate $50 billion investment in roads, bridges, airports and transit systems. It also called for a $10 billion bank to leverage private and public capital for longer-term infrastructure projects.

The measure would be financed by a 0.7 percent surcharge on income over $1 million.

After Obama’s full $447 billion jobs bill was filibustered to death last month, the White House immediately announced it would seek votes on component pieces. That’s a way to exert political pressure on Republicans sensitive about their own jobs agenda, which so far has centered on relaxing regulations and boosting offshore oil exploration and drilling.

Obama last week uncorked a “We Can’t Wait” initiative that relies on executive authority rather than legislation from a bitterly divided Congress to help homeowners refinance “underwater” homes and give borrowers relief from their student loans.

Meanwhile, House GOP leaders are casting blame on the Senate for failing to act on 15 “forgotten” jobs bills, including a measure to repeal a law requiring federal, state and many local governments to withhold 3 percent of their payments to contractors until their taxes are paid.

Also Thursday, the House is poised to approve bipartisan legislation to remove a Securities and Exchange Commission ban that prevents small, privately held companies from using advertisements to solicit investors. The SEC ban, says bill sponsor Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., unfairly limits the ability of small companies to raise capital.

“While the president is out doing campaign events all over the country, what he could do is to actually come to Washington and be focused on trying to help pass bills that would create a better environment for job creation and help put the American people back to work,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said.

Even God wants to see the unemployed put back to work, he said.

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Obama said the nation’s aging transportation network costs U.S. businesses and families about $130 billion a year. Failing to upgrade the network could cost the U.S. hundreds of billions dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs by the end of the decade, he said.

The Senate planned to vote Thursday on whether to take up the measure — $50 billion for road, bridge and other repairs and $10 billion to attract private money to help finance such projects.

Like his jobs proposals, this piece is expected to be unanimously opposed by Republicans and a few Democrats who object to any new spending and to the president’s plan for a new tax on the wealthy to help pay for it.

Obama said the public is on his side and that lawmakers will have to answer to their constituents if they don’t pass it.

“There’s no good reason to oppose this bill. Not one,” he said at the foot of the Key Bridge, which connects the District of Columbia and Arlington, Va.

The government has identified the bridge as in need of the type of crucial repair and maintenance that Obama says his bill would help finance.

“Members of Congress who do, who vote no, are going to have to explain why to their constituencies,” Obama said. “The American people are with me with this. And it’s time for folks running around spending all their time talking about what’s wrong with America to spend some time rolling up their sleeves to help us make it right.”

He also tried to shame the Republican-controlled House by accusing its leaders of wasting time during a jobs crisis with debates over commemorative baseball coins and reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the country’s motto. The House has refused to consider Obama’s jobs bill.

“That’s not putting people back to work,” Obama said. “I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work. There’s work to be done. There are workers ready to do it. The American people are behind this.”

Obama said the spending on transportation would help get some of the more than 1 million unemployed construction workers back on the job.

A House Republican aide said not even 20 minutes were devoted to the baseball coins and U.S. motto. The aide also noted that more than a dozen House-passed bills to create jobs by reducing regulations and altering tax laws are awaiting action in the Democratic-led Senate.

Republicans also scoff at Obama’s constant calls for his jobs measures to be passed “right now.” In the case of the transportation bill, a recent Congressional Budget Office report determined that more of the $50 billion would be spent in 2017 than in the current budget year.

Obama singled out House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, as well as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the GOP’s point person on the budget.

In one example, he said, “I can’t imagine that Speaker Boehner wants to represent a state where nearly 1 in 4 bridges is classified as substandard. I’m sure that the speaker of the House would want to have bridges and roads in his state that are up to par.”

After the Senate blocked Obama’s larger $447 billion jobs bill last month, the White House announced that it would seek individual votes on the measure’s parts. That helps exert political pressure on Republicans sensitive about their own jobs agenda, which so far has centered on relaxing regulations and on undoing a new rule that requires the government to withhold 3 percent of payments to federal contractors.

Obama and his Democratic allies believe they have a winning issue in repeatedly pressing popular ideas, such as spending on road and bridge repair and to help states and local communities keep teachers and emergency services workers on the job.

Last month, Obama began a new effort to portray himself as acting on the jobs front while lawmakers do nothing. He has announced a series of steps he’s taken, which do not require congressional approval, that are intended to help homeowners, college students with federal loans, veterans, small businesses and others.

And Obama said he hit the road to take his case directly to the people for a simple reason: “I’m the president.”On the second-day of a three-day tour to continue pushing his ideas for creating jobs, Obama acknowledged he’s been asked why he is taking time to ride a bus through small-town North Carolina, a traditionally Republican state that he won in 2008 and hopes to win again.

“I’m not the Democratic president or the Republican president,” Obama said at a community college in Jamestown, N.C. ” … I don’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat because we’re all Americans.”

Although Republicans blocked his $447 billion jobs plan in the Senate, Obama is continuing an aggressive effort to rally public support for his ideas and to portray Republicans as the ones standing in the way of creating jobs at a time of high unemployment.

“We don’t need a Republican jobs act or a Democratic jobs act. We need a jobs act,” the president said. “We need to put people back to work right now.” He has said that lawmakers will break up the bill and vote on its individual components.

Obama said the ideas in his jobs bill previously have been supported by lawmakers in both parties. “What makes it different this time other than that I proposed it,” he asked.

Obama’s ride for this trip through winding mountain roads isn’t his usual mode of transportation, the modified aircraft known as Air Force Once. Rather, it’s a sleek, million-dollar Secret Service-approved bus that’s giving the president a chance to sit back, admire the colorful fall foliage and bask in some small-town Southern hospitality.

“Saw the mountains, saw some lakes, saw all the wonderful people in this part of the country,” Obama said Monday during a speech in rural Millers Creek.

“Even the folks who don’t vote for me are nice,” he added.

At the heart of Obama’s three-day bus trip through North Carolina and Virginia is the sales pitch for elements of the jobs bill.

But the president is also selling himself, an incumbent running for re-election, trying to re-energize voters whose enthusiasm may have waned. That’s particularly important in North Carolina, a state Obama wrested from Republicans in 2008, but which could slip out of his grasp next November.

To try to recapture some of his electoral appeal, Obama turned to campaign staples: barbecue, babies and barrels of candy.

Obama spent more than four hours Monday driving through the Blue Ridge Mountains, which were bright with red and orange fall leaves. He stopped off in Marion, population 8,075, for lunch at Countryside Barbeque. He ordered at the counter – the barbecue platter and sweet tea – then spent more than half an hour shaking hands and having his picture taken with the lunchtime crowd.

The tech-savvy president even helped one woman figure out how to take a photo on her smartphone.

Obama had a close encounter with one baby boy: “I think you got some biscuit on me,” he said as he handed the child back to his mother.

And he made personal appeals for his economic policies, telling one table of local businessmen about his call for $50 billion more in new infrastructure spending. He said, “We’re going to have to do it eventually, so why not do it now?”

Obama’s unscheduled stops aren’t wholly impromptu. White House staffers typically scope out areas in advance and Secret Service officers arrive well ahead of the president.

But they’re about as spontaneous as it gets for the president, and afford him the freedom of personal, retail politics that’s often missing in the highly scripted White House.

Obama’s bus, as well as the staff and press vans that followed behind, passed crowds of people lined up on the sidewalks of small towns and residents sitting on lawn chairs in their front yards. A group of schoolchildren gathered outside their classrooms, waving small American flags. A man pulled his car over to the side of the road and saluted as the commander in chief sped by.

One woman held a sign reading “We believe. We voted. Now What?” That message underscored the challenge Obama faces as he seeks to rally his supporters ahead of the 2012 election.

Key to Obama’s 2008 success in North Carolina was his campaign’s ability to boost voter turnout among young people. And there were plenty of them in Boone, home to Appalachian State University, when Obama stopped Monday at Mast General Store.

The store was filled with barrels of candy, which Obama started grabbing by the handful – to help the White House prepare for Halloween, he said.

“On Halloween, the first lady doesn’t mind,” Obama said of his health-conscious wife.

Day two of Obama’s bus trip was ending in Hampton, Va., with hours of drive time in between to give Obama plenty more chances for unscheduled stops.

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The two-state swing, which kicks off Monday in Asheville, N.C., is Obama’s latest attempt to combine campaigning for his jobs bill with campaigning for his re-election. While he has pledged to travel the country pitching his plans to get Americans back to work, his stops have focused heavily on political swing states, underscoring the degree to which what happens with the economy is tied to Obama’s re-election prospects.

The bus tour comes as the fight over Obama’s jobs proposals enters a new phase. The president’s efforts to get his entire $447 billion bill passed were blocked by Senate Republicans, leaving Obama and his Democratic allies to push for the proposals contained in the bill to be passed piece by piece.

That means the president’s rallying cry this week could go from “Pass this bill” to “Pass these bills.”

“Although Congress is adopting a piece-by-piece approach, the president believes that every single piece should pass, and that at the end of the day we should have all of the components of the American Jobs Act passed through the Congress so the president can sign them, even if that means that he has to sign multiple pieces of legislation,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Despite Obama’s calls for urgency, it appears the lawmakers may not take up individual components of the president’s bill until November, at the earliest. The Senate is set to debate appropriations bills this week, and lawmakers have a scheduled vacation at the end of the month.

Earnest said Obama wants Congress to first act on a provision calling for $35 billion in assistance to states and local governments to hire or prevent laying off teachers and first responders. He also wants lawmakers to pass $50 billion in new spending on infrastructure.

Obama’s stops on the bus trip are designed to highlight those aspects of his plan, including his first stop at the Ashville Regional Airport, where the White House says government funds could be used to renovate a runway and create construction jobs.

The president will also speak at community colleges, high schools and a firehouse as he travels through North Carolina and Virginia this week.

Both states are traditionally Republican leaning, but changing demographics and a boost in voter turnout among young people and African-Americans helped Obama carry them in 2008.

But nearly three years after his historic election, the president’s approval ratings in both states are sagging, in line with the national trend.

A Quinnipiac University poll out earlier this month put Obama’s approval rating in Virginia at 45 percent, with 52 percent disapproving. The same poll showed 83 percent of Virginians were dissatisfied with the direction of the country. In North Carolina, Obama has a 42 percent approval rating, according to an Elon University poll conducted this month. Most national polls put Obama’s approval rating in the mid- to low-40s.

The president will be ditching Air Force One for much of his trip this week, traveling instead on a $1.1 million bus purchased by the Secret Service. The impenetrable-looking bus is painted all black, with dark tinted windows and flashing red and blue lights. Obama first used the custom-made bus during a similar road trip in August, when he traveled through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.

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Let’s start with this premise: We must march for jobs and justice because we are in catastrophic times. My peers are jobless. Our elders and the working class and poor are under attack in extraordinary and systematic ways. And we are living in one of the most unpredictable and capricious times in our nation’s history.

Many of my peers seem to only know of segregation through stories of relatives or by reading it in the history books and appear disengaged from the process. When you have an African American president, elected officials from all backgrounds, people of color in various businesses, a society where open discrimination is illegal and the reality of a diverse mix of entertainers in the limelight, a lot of them have difficulties seeing beyond the surface. But while there are clear advances we have made, the remnants of institutional barriers are as thick as ever.

When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was delivering his infamous “I Have a Dream” speech, his fundamental call to action was for everyone — Black, white, brown, yellow, purple — to unite in an effort to secure social and political equality across the board. It was his work for civil rights and labor rights that made him the historic figure he has become. It was near the grounds of his monument that will be unveiled this weekend that he was planning a tent city for poor people when he was killed. Decades later, that core vision is sadly unrealized. When students of color and the poor still receive inadequate education, we have not realized the dream. When there’s a staggering 50 percent unemployment rate among young Black men in many cities across the nation, we have not realized the dream. When gun violence is rampant and more of our children are dying unnecessarily each and every day, we have not realized the dream. When the imprisonment rate for minorities is disproportionate to our percentage in society, we have not realized the dream. And when people continually attempt to dismantle unions and attack American workers, we have not realized the dream.

This weekend in Washington, D.C., the National Action Network, under the leadership of Rev. Al Sharpton, will once again convene our annual MLK march for justice. This year’s theme is titled: “From the Emancipator (Abraham Lincoln) to the Liberator (MLK Jr.): The Collective Journey of Civil Rights to be Reaffirmed.” As we welcome the support of esteemed individuals like Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, Secretary Treasury of AFSCME, we call on everyone concerned about the plight of this nation’s disparity to join us. We will conduct a rally at noon on Saturday and then march — yes march — along Independence Ave.

In the spirit of our ancestors, in the spirit of Dr. King, and in the spirit of all those that died for freedom’s cause, we will march. We will march for some of my peers who are disengaged and we will continue marching until every man, woman and child truly has an equal shot at this American dream — for that is, after all, the dream each and every one of us should have.

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Obama has been waging a campaign-style effort seeking to rally public support behind the $447 billion measure, which will be the subject of a Senate vote Tuesday. The plan combines payroll tax cuts for workers and businesses with $175 billion in spending on roads, school repairs and other infrastructure, as well as unemployment assistance and help to local governments to avoid layoffs of teachers, firefighters and police officers.

The key elements of the jobs package reprise parts of Obama’s $800 billion-plus 2009 stimulus measure and a Social Security payroll tax cut enacted last year. Unlike the controversial deficit-financed stimulus bill, the jobs measure would be paid for by a 5.6 percent surcharge on income exceeding $1 million that raises more than $450 billion over a decade.

In making the case for the bill, the White House cites economists like Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics, who predicts that the measure would add 2 percentage points of growth to the economy, add 1.9 million payroll jobs, and reduce unemployment by a percentage point. But Republicans point to optimistic predictions about the 2009 measure that didn’t come to pass; unemployment hovers just above 9 percent nationwide.

Republicans say the 2009 stimulus measure was an expensive failure and that the current plan is just like it.

The president has been struggling in opinion polls and his crusade for the measure has always been a long shot given that Republicans control the House and can filibuster at will in the Senate. Obama has nonetheless pressed for the bitterly divided Congress to pass the measure in its entirety rather than seek compromise with his GOP rivals.

“This is not the time for the usual games or political gridlock in Washington,” Obama said in his weekend radio and Internet address. “Any senator out there who’s thinking about voting against this jobs bill needs to explain why they would oppose something that we know would improve our economic situation.”

While Republicans backed the payroll tax cut last year and support elements like continued tax breaks for investments in business equipment, they’re adamantly opposed to further spending and say the tax surcharge would strike at small businesses, which, in total, employ more than 300,000 people.

“It’s not a jobs bill. In our view, it’s another stimulus bill,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Fox News last week. “I don’t think it’ll pass and I don’t think it should.” House GOP leaders say they won’t bring the measure to the floor.

Democratic unanimity is not assured. Moderates like Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. – both are up for re-election next year in states where Obama figures to lose – may abandon the party, even as oil-state Democrats have been assuaged by a decision to get rid of an Obama proposal to have oil companies give up tax breaks.

Top Democratic vote counter Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said in an interview Monday on the Chicago television station WTTW that the party could lose up to four Democrats on the vote. That would leave the measure short of a simple majority, much less the 60 votes needed to cut off a GOP filibuster on a motion to simply begin debate on the measure. If Democrats fail as expected – they control 53 votes in the 100-member Senate – it’ll start up a fresh wave of partisan finger-pointing.

Both the House and Senate are then expected to turn this week to approving U.S. trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, one of the few areas of agreement between Republicans and the administration on boosting the economy.

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I agree that this topic needs to be discussed but it needs to be discussed from a viewpoint that takes the children’s needs into effect instead of just looking at the issue based on dollars and cents and a skewed perspective on percentages. If you read this article, you would believe that these software programs offer moderate improvement at best, and are not cost efficient in most cases. The point that this article does not discuss is that these programs are looking to fill the gap of the lack of skill reinforcement that is not available in most public schools, and how most of those schools are mostly comprised of people of color. Articles like this that just lay out data points in a casual way do more to continue people’s misconceptions about how technology can improve and supplement learning to the benefit of students, especially students in areas with low resources. What was even more disturbing than the myopic approach the writer used to communicate issues, were the images that were used.

When I was first presented with the article this was the image I was presented with:

Now the first question I ask is what does this image convey to you? Some of you would say confusion, lack of understanding or an overall inability to utilize and understand the technology. Now imagine what the image would convey to some teenage African Americans who are on the fence about whether to take the leap to become computer literate. The image is a grave contrast to the image I found that they used on an earlier story.

What’s even more interesting is the story that image was used for painted a more dire picture that the article I found. Its title was ”In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores,” but imagery of these children ( not people of color) is upbeat and full of promise. Why the difference? We could spend months trying to get an explanation but regardless of that reason the result is no less damaging.What the writers of these pieces may or may not realize is that even though these  programs may not have ideal results, they are doing some things that are core to solving some key issues that contribute to the digital divide.

These programs help students develop a real comfort level with using computers and the internet. By using the software the kids develop  an understanding the repetitive learning is key to skill development.  This will also give the students the urge to want to have computer and internet access at home, which is key to adoption.

What most people don’t realize is that the biggest roadblock in closing the digital divide is not cost but digital literacy. Many African Americans and Hispanics see digital literacy as an impossible goal for them mainly because they don’t see the value in it for them. Stories and images like these only help to continue to discourage people against making the effort to adopt technology. We need more examples of minorities utilizing and succeeding with technology to change the perception that technology is not “for us”  Let me know what you think of how the two images were used below in the comments .

You can follow Navarrow Wright on twitter @navarrowwright

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Obama also asked listeners to Saturday’s address to tell their senators to support the bill, which he’s been lobbying for aggressively against Republican opposition since unveiling it a month ago.

With the economy listless and unemployment stuck above 9 percent moving into the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama said the bill “can help guard against another downturn here in America.”

“But if we don’t act, the opposite will be true,” the president said. “There will be fewer jobs and weaker growth. So any senator out there who’s thinking about voting against this jobs bill needs to explain why they would oppose something that we know would improve our economic situation.”

Obama’s jobs plan would reduce payroll taxes on workers and employers, extend benefits to long-term unemployed people, spend money on public works projects and help states and local governments keep teachers, police officers and firefighters on the job.

He proposed paying for the plan mainly by closing tax loopholes for oil and gas companies and raising taxes on individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000. Those proposals were rejected by Senate Democrats who substituted a tax on millionaires, with Obama’s agreement.

But with Republicans opposed to much of the new spending in the bill and to tax hikes even on millionaires, the legislation stands no chance of getting through the Republican-controlled House in its current form, even if Senate Democrats were able to muster the necessary Republican support for Senate passage.

Despite the opposition Obama intends to keep pushing for the plan in an effort to show the public that Republicans are standing in the way.

“The proposals in this bill are steps we have to take if we want to build an economy that lasts; if we want to be able to compete with other countries for jobs that restore a sense of security for the middle-class,” Obama said.

“There are too many people hurting in this country for us to simply do nothing,” he said. “The economy is too fragile for us to let politics get in the way of action.” Despite opposition to the overall bill, individual elements of it may well get through Congress, particularly an extension and expansion of a payroll tax cut that took effect Jan. 1.

Republicans used their weekly address to criticize the plan.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., called it “nothing but a rehash of the same failed ideas he’s already tried, combined with a huge tax increase.”

“This is a cynical political ploy that’s designed not to create jobs for struggling Americans, but to save the president’s own job,” Thune said.

He also accused Obama of promulgating excessive regulations and too much red tape, to the detriment of business.

“We’re calling for a regulatory time-out, an affordable energy plan, broad-based tax reform including lower rates, and policies that provide the certainty and stability our economy desperately needs,” Thune said.

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Obama: Congress Should Vote On Jobs Bill In October

The president used a White House news conference to attempt to heighten the pressure he’s sought to create on the GOP by traveling around the country, into swing states and onto the home turf of key Republican foes including House Speaker John Boehner and Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Giving a bit of ground on his own plan, he endorsed a new proposal by Senate Democrats to tax millionaires to pay for his jobs program. “This is not a game,” he said.

Obama made no apologies for his decision to abandon seeking compromise with Republicans in favor of assailing them, sometimes by name. He contended that he’d gone out of his way to try to work with the GOP since becoming president, reaching hard-fought deals to raise the government’s borrowing limit and avert a government shutdown, and had gotten nothing in return.

“Each time, we have seen game playing,” the president said. “I am always open to negotiations. What is also true is they need to do something.”

He predicted dire political consequences for his opponents if they don’t go along.

“I think the American people will run them out of town because they are frustrated and they know we need to do something big.”

Yet Obama’s campaign has not swayed Capitol Hill Republicans who oppose the higher taxes he and other Democrats want to use to pay for his proposal. They accuse Obama of playing “campaigner in chief” instead of working with them.

“If the goal is to create jobs, then why are we even talking about tax hikes?” Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday.

RELATED: Some democrats criticize Obama’s Jobs Bill

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Republicans are resolutely opposed to much of Obama’s jobs initiative, both for its tax increases for wealthier people and small businesses and its reprise of stimulus spending on roads, bridges and schools and grants to local governments to pay the salaries of teachers and first responders. They criticize his bill as another version of his $825 billion stimulus of 2009, one that this time would rely on raising taxes.

Obama did say he would support a new approach by Senate Democrats for paying for his jobs bill with a tax on millionaires rather than his plan to raise taxes on couples making more than $250,000.

The president’s strident tone underscored a difficult political predicament as he seeks re-election with the economy slowing and unemployment stuck above 9 percent. “Our economy really needs a jolt right now,” he said.

The president said that without his nearly $450 billion package of tax cuts and public works spending there will be fewer jobs and weaker growth. He said the bill could guard against another economic downturn if the situation in debt-laden Europe worsens.

With the plan expected to come up for debate in the Senate next week, he urged every senator to think “long and hard about what’s at stake.”

“If it turns out that Republicans are opposed to the bill, they need to explain to me, and mostly importantly their constituents, what they would do,” Obama said.

“What I’ve done over the last several weeks is take the case to the American people so they know what is going on.”

Obama said the economy is weaker now than at the beginning of the year. Citing economists’ estimates, he said his $447 billion jobs bill would help the economy grow by 2 percent and create 1.9 million jobs.

“At a time when people are having such a hard time, we need to have an approach that is big enough to meet the moment,” he said.

Obama addressed the disaffection with politics pervasive among the public that’s driven down his approval ratings – and even more so, Congress’ – as he seeks a second term.

Appearing fed up, Obama blamed it on Republicans who he said refuse to cooperate with him even on issues where he said they once agreed with him. He talked about the ugly debate over raising the government’s borrowing limit that consumed Capitol Hill and the White House over the summer, until Obama gave in to Republican demands for deep spending cuts without new taxes.

“They don’t get a sense that folks in this town are looking for their best interests,” Obama said of Americans in general. “So if they see that over and over again, that cynicism is not going to be proven wrong unless Congress does something different.”

“What the American people saw is that Congress just didn’t care.”

Obama also said the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators protesting against Wall Street and economic inequality are expressing the frustrations of the American public.

He said he understands the public’s concerns about how the nation’s financial system works. And he said Americans see Wall Street as an example of the financial industry not always following the rules.

These days in our country, people are mad as hell. And I don’t blame them: They are frustrated that millionaires and billionaires in our country are not paying their fair share. They are upset that we bailed out the banks yet have failed them. They are angry that they can no longer pay for their housing, healthcare, education, and have to live with constant fear. Today nearly 14 million Americans are unemployed yet we’re unable to take action to help them because some in Congress are more concerned with cutting vital programs than creating jobs and hopes for the American people. This is morally wrong and cannot continue.

I am very glad I visited Liberty Plaza this past Saturday to lend my moral support to the Occupy Wall Street protesters and witness firsthand the growing movement by the people in America who are “getting kicked out of [their] homes,” “forced to choose between groceries and rent,” and are “denied quality medical care,” ” suffering from environmental pollution,” “working long hours for little pay and no rights,” and are “getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything.” In sum, I met the 99 percent of Americans who are bearing the brunt of the recession caused by tax breaks and loopholes for millionaires and corporations, two unfunded wars, and the financial meltdown due to Republican deregulation.

I am very proud to see that they have started to mobilize and speak up because often in our history, people’s protests have pushed America to become greater. I have lived through the Civil Rights movement, marched from Selma to Washington, and know the power of the people. Together, we can take back our country from a handful of people who are holding us hostage.

Republicans have now spent 272 days in the House Majority without passing any legislation to create jobs. Instead, they have merely threatened to shut down the government, gambled the good faith in credit of the United States, and attacked healthcare reform, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, attempted to repeal environmental and labor regulations. Now they are opposing the American Jobs Act that will put people back to work, puts more money in workers’ pockets and is fully paid for. They have made it clear that they are more focused on defeating President Barack Obama than to help America get back on track.

Now is not the time for cuts that leave Americans without a home or job. The Occupy Wall Street protests are a sign the American people have had enough. They demand their government’s help.

“We’re angry, we feel helpless, we’re confused, and we’re desperate” – this is what people are saying. What they are ultimately angry about is the empty hope for their future. The percentage of Americans living below the povertyline last year, 15.1 percent, was the highest level since 1993. The mental toll of extended unemployment looms large: About 9 percent of Americans were defined as clinically depressed in data released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is a serious problem. Many are confused; they know they’re out of a job, yet they see no help in sight.

When you see the hope for the middle class just dropping, squeezing and pushing people into poverty, we have a responsibility to take action. So yesterday morning I spoke on the House floor to encourage my Colleagues in Congress and the spiritual community to join the Occupy Wall Street protesters to lend our moral support, amplify their message, and help them.

I am glad to see that the union groups, my good friends including Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and House Democratic Caucus Chairman John B. Larson, and fellow Members in the Congressional Progressive Caucus have formally applauded the Occupy movement, which I hope would deafen the Tea Party and instead help America progress forward, not backward.

At this critical time in our nation when there are so many people suffering, we need more people to speak out. We need the spiritual leaders from the mosques, churches, and temples to join them. We have a moral obligation to help the poor, the aged, the sick, and those who are hurting and completely helpless.

The American people have made their voices heard. They want jobs. They need assistance. They yearn to reclaim the American Dream. I urge my Republican Colleagues to join us to work together in working to improve the economy, put America back to work, and pump hope back into the hearts of the people who are clamoring for our help.

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A leading House Republican, however, says that while lawmakers will vote on elements of the president’s jobs bill, his broad $447 billion proposal will not be considered in its entirety.

“This all or nothing approach is unreasonable,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.

The White House says it is not prepared to bargain away aspects of the bill at this point, and senior administration officials seemed intent on putting Republicans on the spot by insisting on a vote on the complete Obama bill. Since introducing the bill three weeks ago, the president has mounted a steady public campaign on behalf of his bill, trying to cast Congress and Republicans in particular as obstacles.

“What we don’t see the need to do is negotiate away aspects of the bill that are non-controversial, are broadly supported by the American public, broadly supported by Democrats and Republicans, before there is a chance to vote on the bill,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Underscoring that point, Obama told reporters at the start of a Cabinet meeting Monday that Republicans must spell out what aspects of his plan they agree with and which they reject. “They should tell us what it is that they’re not willing to go for,” he said.

Republicans did detail what elements of Obama’s plan they would support in a Sept. 16 memorandum. And on Monday, Cantor identified legislation that the House would act on this month, including repealing a law requiring the government to withhold 3 percent of nearly all payments made to contractors, ratifying trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, eliminating burdensome regulations and boosting the ability of small businesses to obtain capital.

In a letter to the president Monday, House Republican leaders said Obama’s jobs bill “represents opportunities for common ground between Democrats and Republicans.” The letter asked Obama to consider their regulatory measures and “that in the spirit of putting country before party, you will call on the Senate to follow the House in passing these measures, and commit to signing them into law should they reach your desk.”

Obama’s jobs plan would reduce payroll taxes on workers and employers, extend benefits to long-term unemployed people, spend money on public works projects and help states and local governments keep teachers, police officers and firefighters on the job. He would pay for the plan with tax increases on wealthier Americans and by closing corporate loopholes.

But officials said there have been no high-level discussions to narrow the bill to areas of common ground.

Republicans have opposed the spending initiatives and, along with even some Democrats, have rejected the tax increases that Obama would use to pay for the expense of the bill.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said the president’s bill lacked the 60 votes that are typically needed to overcome procedural obstacles. The Illinois senator said some of the tax measures faced resistance within his own party. And some Senate Democrats, including West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, have raised questions about the size of the $447 billion package.

Manchin and Casey face re-election next year.

Senior administration officials dismissed those concerns, however, saying it was unclear how those Democrats would eventually vote.

Those officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, said that while the White House may not be able control the actions of congressional Republicans, they can try to portray the GOP as a scapegoat if the jobs bill doesn’t pass.

The administration’s goal, they said, it to present a picture of the Democrats unified in pushing for the jobs bill and the Republicans in opposition.

Asked whether the president would also share in the responsibility if his bill didn’t pass, the officials argued that the public separates the president from Congress, and sees him as someone who is willing to work with the other party.

“I have to tell you that I can’t imagine any American that I’ve been talking to that’s not interested in seeing construction workers back on the job rebuilding roads and bridges, schools, airports; putting teachers back in the classroom to make sure that our kids are getting the very best education; making sure our vets get help when they come home and that small businesses have further incentive to hire them,” Obama said Monday.

In an interview with ABC Monday, he added: “What I think the American people cannot abide by is us doing nothing.”

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Why? Because the 1.9 million new jobs the White House says the bill would produce in 2012 falls short of what it’s needed to put the economy back on track to return to pre-recession jobless levels of under 6 percent, from today’s rate of 9.1 percent.

That’s how deep the jobs hole is. The persistent weakness of the U.S. economy has left 14 million people unemployed and more than 25 million unable to find full-time work.

Economists of all stripes pretty much agree that it will be a long, hard road no matter what Congress does. Right now, the Republicans who run the House and the Democrats who lead the Senate aren’t finding much common ground.

Obama estimates his American Jobs Act would lower unemployment by just a single percentage point by next year, to just over 8 percent, heading into the 2012 presidential election.

Burned before by making overly optimistic job-creation predictions, the White House turned to prominent outside economists to crunch the numbers.

The projection of 1.9 million new jobs, a 1 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate and a 2 percentage point increase in the gross domestic product under Obama’s plan came from Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.

But Zandi said in an interview his forecast also is based on an assumption that “the president’s entire package is passed by the end of the year,” a slim prospect given the current divided leadership in Congress, and that there are no other budgetary policy changes.

“I assumed that it would be paid for,” Zandi said. “I didn’t know when I did that simulation how the president proposed to pay for it.”

Since then, Obama has said he would pay for his $447 billion package with permanent income tax increases of about $150 billion a year, mostly on wealthy individuals and corporations, in addition to spending cuts. That’s drawn criticism from Republicans, who say any tax increases could further stall the fragile recovery.

Zandi, who has advised both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, said he’s still sticking with his forecast, mainly because the stimulus in the plan, including a temporary reduction in Social Security taxes for both employees and employers and infrastructure spending, would come in 2012 and be paid for later.

But there is one feature Obama doesn’t emphasize.

Zandi said his job-creation figure only applies to 2012.

“Beginning in 2013, and certainly into 2014, the plan is a drag on the economy because the stimulus starts fading away,” he said. “So by 2015, the economy is in the same place as now, as if there were no jobs package.”

Also, Zandi said, his forecast does not leave any room for a new recession. If that happens, all bets are off.

“So it’s very important to get as many people working as fast as possible,” he said. “If we go back into recession, it is going to be very difficult to get out. And it’s going to cost taxpayers tremendously.”

Job creation has ground to a virtual standstill. The economy produced a scant 20,000 net new jobs in June, 85,000 in July and none in August. Economic output, as measured by the GDP, has been growing this year at an anemic annual rate below 1 percent.

The global economy is showing no signs of strengthening. A divided Federal Reserve is nearly out of ammunition for additional stimulus. And the U.S. is once again facing the possibility of a government shutdown at the end of next week.

The Obama-Zandi target of 1.9 million new jobs next year, or 158,000 a month, is somewhat higher than private analyses that suggest the plan would create 100,000 to 150,000 jobs a month.

Heidi Shierholz, economist for the labor-leaning Economic Policy Institute, calculates it would take job growth of 400,000 every month for three years in a row to get back to the 5 percent jobless rate last seen in December 2007, at the recession’s outset.

“To get down to 5 percent in five years, we need around 280,000 jobs every month,” she added. “Right now, we’re more than two years into the official recovery, and we’re still bumping along at extremely low levels.”

What if Obama gets none of what he requested? She said failure to renew some current anti-recessionary programs such as extended unemployment insurance and the existing Social Security tax break for employees “will be a big blow” both to the economy and to the employment picture.

More likely, Congress will probably produce a watered-down version.

As long as the GDP grows at an annual rate beneath 2.5 percent, it cannot create enough jobs for new entrants into the workforce, let alone to re-employ those laid off during the downturn, said Martin Regalia, chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s biggest business lobby.

The chamber estimates it will take 20 million jobs over the next decade to get the economy back to pre-recession levels. It has its own jobs plan, which includes increased trade, greater oil drilling, quicker road and bridge construction and temporary corporate tax breaks.

“If you want to go from 9.1 percent down to 5.5 or 6 percent unemployment, you’re going to have to grow roughly at 4.5 percent (GDP) for three years,” Regalia said. “I don’t see that in the forecast.”

In the first six months of this year, the GDP grew at a scant 0.7 percent rate. Private forecasters see it growing about 2 percent in the final six months of 2011, about 2.5 percent throughout 2012, and increasing to about 3.2 percent in 2013.

Obama is quick to acknowledge a rocky road ahead.

“For a decade now, incomes and wages have flat-lined for the American people – for ordinary Americans, for working families,” he says. “They are working harder, making less, with higher expenses. And that’s been going on for a long, long time.”

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Some Democrats Criticize Obama’s Jobs Bill

WASHINGTON-As President Obama tries to push his highly touted jobs bill through congress, several Democrats are expressing displeasure with the bill.

Some are upset at the tax cuts the jobs bill would bring, and others are upset at the tax cuts some companies would lose.

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The New York Times reports:

Some are unhappy about the specific types of companies, particularly the oil industry, that would lose tax benefits. “I have said for months that I am not supporting a repeal of tax cuts for the oil industry unless there are other industries that contribute,” said Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana.

A small but vocal group dislikes the payroll tax cuts for employees and small businesses. “I have been very unequivocal,” said Representative Peter A. DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon. “No more tax cuts.”

Read More At The New York Times

On Thursday, President Obama spoke to the Joint Session of Congress on his job creation bill where he urged both Democrats and Republicans to “pass this jobs bill.”

In a letter to the president The Alliance for Equity in Higher Education, a collaborative effort of the American Indian Higher Education Coalition (AIHEC), Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) and National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) urged President Obama to include a critical role in the jobs training program for HBCUs, Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Tribal Colleges.

RELATED: Top 5 ways Obama’s jobs bill will positively impact African Americans

With the disparaging rates of unemployment for the nation vs. minority groups the motive for the letter seems warranted.

The troika stated, “We are especially hopeful that your proposal will include a central role for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), that will better equip our institutions to continue to train and place persons who are chronically unemployed and hard to employ in gainful employment. As you know, many Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) have since their founding served as training grounds for persons traditionally underrepresented in the American labor force. Our technical and community colleges are certifying persons in health professions, in green and energy positions and for technology careers in as few as twelve months. They are also serving as the laboratories and training grounds for partnerships with industry and community-based organizations that operate training programs.

Our four-year  institutions  are providing sustainable career pathways that lead to a brighter future for tens of thousands of  youth and adults annually by preparing them for well-paying jobs especially in the sciences, technology engineering, and mathematics, and in the emerging green, energy, and security economies. Our diverse institutions are preparing disproportionate numbers of African American, Hispanic, and American Indian workers with cutting edge expertise that is critical to retooling and revitalizing the nation’s infrastructure. Without intervention, which must include MSIs, the nation will experience extensive worker shortages at all technical and professional levels and the nation’s ability to maintain its economic leadership will be jeopardized.”

Read the full story on HBCU Digest.

The president said he wanted things to move twice as fast in order to put more money in their pockets quicker so they can begin hiring unemployed Americans.

“Currently payments must be made within 30 days of receipt of proper documentation by the federal agency,” Carney said. “Under this new policy, we are cutting the goal in half, to 15 days.”

Read more at USA Today.

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Obama Gives $6.2 Million Towards Minority Job Training

Four days after President Obama laid out the American Jobs Act for Congress, he took his message to a public forum attended by over 100 African Americans at the White House and live-streamed over the Internet, imploring them to help get the bill passed.

“We are at a critical juncture in our country and this Jobs Act can deliver,” said Obama. “I need people to get out there and support this. If Congress doesn’t get it done, we know exactly who is holding this up.”

With Black unemployment at a 27-year-high of 16.7 percent, the President laid out specifics of his plan and how it would help to get the African-American community back to work.

The plan would provide summer jobs for youth (45 percent unemployment for Black youth) and boost the paychecks of 20 million Black workers through an extension and expansion of the payroll tax. It would also extend unemployment insurance for nearly 1.4 million African Americans who have been unemployed six months or longer.

The forum, titled “Open for Questions with InteractiveOne,” featured various administration officials discussing how the administration’s polices have affected and will affect the Black community, taking questions from NewsOne.com and its sister sites in the InteractiveOne network, TheGrio.com, TheUrbanDaily.com, HelloBeautiful.com, and BlackPlanet.com.

The featured speakers included Director of Domestic Policy Council Melody Barnes, US Secretary for Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, Deputy Administrator of the US Small Business Administration Marie Johns, Ambassador and US Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

For over two hours, panelists and audience members peppered administration officials such as Valerie Jarrett with comments and questions from Twitter and social networking site, BlackPlanet.com.

The president urged the panelists and audience members to knock on doors to help educate the American public about the benefits of this bill.

“We must pump it up to pass this Jobs Act,” said Obama.

Below is a video of the event:

Our Atlanta radio station, Majic 107.5, recently had an interview with White House senior advisor and  assistant to the president for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, Valerie Jarrett.

Jarrett called into the Steve Harvey Morning Show today to discuss the American Jobs Act, which President Obama unveiled to America in a televised speech to Congress last night.

Go here to listen to the audio

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Top 5 ways Obama’s Jobs Bill will positively affect African Americans

“Pass This Right Away!” Obama’s unveils sweeping Jobs plan

Last night, President Obama gave his long awaited speech on the $450 billion jobs bill that he is looking to pass through Congress.

The reception to his speech was positive from both Democratic and Republican commentators.

Now all the president has to worry about is whether Republicans will help him out on this bill, or simply blockade him as they’ve done on various other bills throughout his presidency.

Below, we have a Top 5 list of how Obama’s jobs bill will positively affect African Americans.

1. The extension of unemployment insurance will benefit 1.4 million African- Americans and their families. At the same time, the President is proposing bipartisan reforms that will enable that – as these families continue to receive UI benefits – the program is better tailored to support reemployment for the long-term unemployed.

2. Targeted support for the long-term unemployed could help the 1.4 million African- Americans who have been looking for work for more than six months: To help them in their search for work, the President is calling for a new tax credit for hiring the long- term unemployed.

3. A commitment to rebuilding and revitalizing communities across the country will target investments to the communities hardest-hit by the recession. The President’s investments in infrastructure include a school construction initiative with a significant commitment to the largest urban school districts, an investment in revitalizing communities that have been devastated by foreclosures, and a new initiative to expand infrastructure employment opportunities for minorities, women, and socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.

4. Support for subsidized jobs and summer/year-round jobs for African-American youth – for whom unemployment is above 30%. In an environment with an unemployment rate of 32.4% for African-American youths, the President is proposing to build on successful programs like the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund to create jobs and provide training for those hardest-hit by the recession.

5. An extension and expansion of the payroll tax cut for nearly 20 million African- American workers. By extending the payroll tax cut for employees next year and expanding it to cut payroll taxes in half, the President’s plan will help increase the paychecks of nearly 20 million African-American workers – providing them with more money to spend in their communities.

Read the rest of the act here: American Jobs Act’s Impact On African Americans

Read a break down of  the facts of Obama’s American Jobs Act –  Fact Sheet Of The American Jobs Act

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In a partial preview of the jobs speech he’s delivering to Congress Thursday night, Obama said roads and bridges nationwide need rebuilding and more than 1 million unemployed construction workers are itching to “get dirty” making the repairs. He portrayed Congress as an obstacle to getting that work done.

I’m going to propose ways to put America back to work that both parties can agree to, because I still believe both parties can work together to solve our problems,” Obama said at an annual Labor Day rally sponsored by the Detroit-area AFL-CIO. “Given the urgency of this moment, given the hardship that many people are facing, folks have got to get together. But we’re not going to wait for them.”

“We’re going to see if we’ve got some straight shooters in Congress. We’re going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before party,” he said.

Congress returns from its summer recess this week and the faltering economy and jobs shortage are expected to be a dominant theme.

Besides spending on public works, Obama said he wants pending trade deals passed to open new markets for U.S. goods. He also said he wants Republicans to prove they’ll fight as hard to cut taxes for the middle class as they do for profitable oil companies and the wealthiest Americans.

The president is expected to call for continuing a payroll tax cut for workers and jobless benefits for the unemployed. Some Republicans oppose extending the payroll tax cut, calling it an unproven job creator that will only add to the nation’s massive debt. The tax cut extension is set to expire Jan. 1.

Republicans also cite huge federal budget deficits in expressing opposition to vast new spending on jobs programs.

But Obama said lawmakers need to act – and act quickly. “The time for Washington games is over. The time for action is now,” he told a supportive union crowd that Detroit police said was in the thousands. The event at a General Motors Corp. parking lot in the shadow of the automaker’s headquarters building had the sound and feel of a campaign event, with the union audience breaking into chants of “Four More Years” throughout the president’s 25-minute speech.

Obama could be including himself in that call for action. His remarks came as he’s facing biting criticism from the GOP for presiding over a persistently weak economy and high unemployment. Republicans dubbed him “President Zero” after a dismal jobs report last Friday showed that employers added no jobs in August – which hasn’t happened since 1945. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, remained unchanged at 9.1 percent.

The report sparked new fears of a second recession and injected fresh urgency into Obama’s efforts to help get the unemployed back into the labor market – and improve his re-election chances. No incumbent in recent times has been re-elected with a jobless rate that high, and polls show the public is losing confidence in Obama’s handling of the economy. His approval rating on that issue dropped to a new low of 26 percent in a recent Gallup survey.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the report was disappointing, unacceptable and “further proof that President Obama has failed.” Romney is scheduled to get ahead of Obama by outlining his job-creation plan in a speech Tuesday in Nevada, two days before the president addresses Congress.

Tax credits for businesses that hire and spending on school construction and renovation also are expected to be part of Obama’s proposal.

Underscoring the political dueling under way over the economy, Obama plans to visit Richmond, Va., on Friday, the day after his speech, on the first of many trips he’ll make to rally the public behind his plan. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., one of Obama’s fiercest critics, represents part of Richmond.

Obama’s broader goal with the speech is to make a sweeping appeal for bipartisan action on the economy by speaking not just to the lawmakers in front of him but also to the public at large. In that sense, the speech will mark a pivot from dealing with long-term deficit reduction to spurring an economic recovery.

Aides say Obama will mount a fall campaign centered on the economy, unveiling different elements of his agenda heading into 2012. If Republicans reject his ideas, the White House wants to use the megaphone of his presidency to enlist the public as an ally, pressure Congress and make the case for his re-election.

“People will see a president who will be laying very significant proposals throughout the fall leading up this next State of the Union” address, Gene Sperling, director of Obama’s National Economic Council, told The Associated Press in an interview.

While Obama has said any short-term spending proposals will be paid for over the long term, aides say the speech will not offer details on what deficit reduction measures would be used to offset such spending. The speech also is not expected to include a detailed plan to resolve the housing crisis, a central cause behind the weak economy that has vexed the White House since the beginning of Obama’s administration.

Sperling suggested that Obama would address the housing issue separately during the fall.

Meanwhile, the Chamber of Commerce unveiled its own jobs plan on Monday. In an open letter to the White House and Congress, the business lobby called for measures to immediately boost employment, including stepped-up road and bridge construction, more domestic oil drilling and temporary tax breaks for corporations.

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will lay out his jobs plan in a prime television time address next week to a rare joint session of Congress, the White House said Wednesday.

Obama sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking to speak to both chambers on Sept. 7 at 8 p.m (midnight GMT).

With the U.S. economy on the rails and opposition Republicans on the attack, the much-anticipated speech is expected to include proposals for economic growth such as tax credits and infrastructure spending along with calls for shrinking the deficit.

WATCH MSNBC COVERAGE OF THE OBAMA SPEECH ON JOBS:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In his letter to the lawmakers, Obama said Washington must answer the call to put aside politics and do what’s best for the country to grow the economy and create jobs.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Obama decided to seek to speak to a joint session of Congress because congressional action is needed to carry out his plans. Lawmakers will have just returned from their annual summer recess.

“He believes the venue is appropriate because of the actions that need to be taken,” Carney said.

The speech will conflict with a Republican presidential debate happening at the same time in California, but Carney said that was not a consideration. “It is coincidental,” he said.

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The number of liberal Democrats who strongly support Obama’s record has plummeted from 53 percent to 31 percent. The number of African-Americans who support Obama’s performance on the economy once stood at 77 percent — that number now sits at just over half of those surveyed.

Obama’s shrinking approval comes on the heels of a recent study which showed a surge in the wealth gap between Whites and minorities, an unprecedented Black unemployment rate of 16.2 percent, and a collective attitude from the Black community that the Obama Administration’s policies do little to nothing to aid the compounded scarcities that plague Black Americans.

Read more at Huffington Post

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Unemployment is already scathing the country, and now it could be far more difficult for those who have been unemployed for a considerably long time.

Though legal experts say the practice does not violate discrimination laws, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission held a hearing on whether discriminating against the jobless might be illegal.

Read More At NYTimes.com

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From RebuildtheDream.com:

Van Jones called this new wave of energy the “American Dream Movement.” It’s growing stronger by the day, and it’s not going away until Americans can find jobs, afford to go to college, retire with dignity, and secure a future for their children and their communities.

TJMS: Van Jones' New Initiative Looks To Get Americans Back To Work And 'Rebuild The Dream' by Roland S Martin on Mixcloud

]]> http://newsone.com/nation/washington-watch/rolandsmartin/tjms-van-jones-discusses-new-initiative-rebuild-the-dream/feed/ 3 http://newsone.com/nation/good-news-nation/ggaynor/magic-johnson-announces-big-announcement-via-twitter/ http://newsone.com/nation/good-news-nation/ggaynor/magic-johnson-announces-big-announcement-via-twitter/#comments Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:55:30 +0000 Gerren Keith Gaynor http://newsone.com/?p=1406065 DETROIT--Magic Johnson said via Twitter that he plans to create jobs in his hometown Detroit. He teased that he will also be making a "big announcement" in the near future. A second tweet read, “Look forward to help putting people back to work in my home state.” ... Read more..]]> DETROIT–Magic Johnson said via Twitter that he plans to create jobs in his hometown Detroit. He teased that he will also be making a “big announcement” in the near future.

A second tweet read, “Look forward to help putting people back to work in my home state.”

Read More At WchbnewsDetroit.com

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WASHINGTON — Employers in May added the fewest jobs in eight months, and the unemployment rate inched up to 9.1 percent. The weakening job market raised concerns about an economy hampered by gas prices and the Japanese nuclear disaster.

The key question is whether the meager 54,000 jobs added last month mark a temporary setback or are evidence of a more chronic problem. That total is far lower than the previous three months’ average of 220,000 new jobs per month.

Private companies hired only 83,000 new workers in May – the fewest in nearly a year.

Stocks on Wall Street fell for the third straight day. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 94 points in the first hour of trading. Broader indexes also opened lower.

Local governments cut 28,000 jobs last month, the most since November. Nearly 18,000 of those jobs were in education.

Cities and counties have cut jobs for 22 straight months and have shed 446,000 positions since September 2008.

The anemic pace of job creation presents a huge challenge to President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects next year. And it followed a string of disappointing economic data in the past month that suggest the economy is hitting a soft patch.

The manufacturing sector, a key driver of the economic recovery, grew at its slowest pace in 20 months in May. Home prices are still falling and reached their lowest level since 2002 in March.

Higher gas prices have left less money for consumers to spend on other purchases. And average wages aren’t even keeping up with inflation. As a result, consumer spending, which fuels about 70 percent of the economy, is growing sluggishly.

Economists have said that most of the factors slowing the economy are temporary. But some are now concerned that the impact is greater than they first envisioned.

“Economic activity has clearly hit a soft patch,” said Steven Wood, chief economist for Insight Economics. “The open question is whether this is temporary and will quickly reverse itself over the next couple of months or whether this is an adjustment to a slower permanent growth rate.”

Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at HIS, called it a “pretty bad report. It’s tempting to say it’s an outlier, but I’m a little worried.”

More people entered the work force in May. But most of the new entrants couldn’t find work. That pushed the unemployment rate up from 9.0 percent in April. The number of unemployed rose to 13.9 million.

And the government revised the previous months’ job totals to show 39,000 fewer jobs were created in March and April than first thought.

The weakness in hiring was widespread. Manufacturers cut 5,000 jobs, the first job loss in that sector in seven months. That included a drop of 3,400 jobs in the auto sector.

Car makers are cutting back on production because they are having a difficult time purchasing parts. Many auto parts, including some key electronic components, are manufactured in Japan and the March 11 earthquake in that country has disrupted supply chains.

Parts of the economy most dependent on consumer spending saw some of the steepest job losses. Retailers cut 8,500 positions, after adding 64,000 in April. And leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurants and hotels, cut 6,000 jobs. That came after they added an average of 43,000 in the previous three months.

There were some bright spots in May. Professional and business services added 44,000 new positions, most of them in accounting, information technology services, and management.

Still, the economy needs to generate at least 100,000 jobs each month just to keep up with population growth and prevent the unemployment rate from rising. And economists say the gains need to be at least double that total to drive down the rate.

About 8.5 million Americans worked part time, even though they would have preferred full-time jobs. Another 2.2 million have stopped looking in the past year. All told, the “under-employment” rate was 15.8 percent, down from 15.9 percent the previous month.

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But with BlackPlanet.com and Monster’s partnership for diversity jobs, many African Americans have been able to get in touch with companies who are looking for different faces and perspectives in their offices.

Monster, which has a diversity and inclusion section on their website, has been committed to not only serving minorities, but all Americans. Within the jobs section on BlackPlanet.com, you will find job listings from Monster in all fields that are looking specifically for diverse candidates.

Click here to see Monster’s diversity job openings on BlackPlanet.com

Today, he took on the American job market and how “dry” it is. Check it out for yourself.

Kevin Eason is a freelance editorial cartoonist and illustrator from New Jersey. His brand of satire covers news events in politics, entertainment, sports and much more. Follow him on Facebook

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Roland Martin talk with Harold Lewis a franchisee and a member of the BMOA (Black McDonald’s Operators Association) about McDonald’s announcement to fill 50,000 jobs on April 19th, 2011. According to Lewis McDonald’s hopes to fill a wide variety of positions ranging from entry level to management and corporate positions.

LISTEN:

CNN Money’s Poppy Harlow joins Roland Martin on the Tom Joyner Morning Show to discuss comments made by the head of industrial conglomerate 3M (MMM, Fortune 500).

3M CEO George Buckley blasted the president as being “anti-business,” saying that the policies of this administration make business want to do business elsewhere.

It turns out the recession ended more than a year ago.

Feeling better now?

The panel that determines the timing of recessions concluded Monday that this one ended — technically, anyway — in June 2009, and lasted 18 months. The duration makes it the longest since World War II.

It may be over, but you won’t be hearing any cheers from the millions of Americans who are struggling to find a job. Or are worried about the ones they have. Or have lost their homes. Or are behind on the mortgage.

“Every single one of the individuals who wrote the report needs a serious reality check,” said Bob Johnson of the Queens borough of New York, who is 46, had worked in communications and has been looking for a job for more than three years.

Not that it’s the fault of the academics — in this case the National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of economists based in Cambridge, Mass. It’s their job to declare when recessions officially begin and end.

Their finding is one that economic historians spend a lot of time pondering. Politicians care, too. They don’t want to be blamed for downturns that happen on their watch.

One of those politicians is President Barack Obama, who inherited the recession — it began in December 2007, according to the bureau. Obama found little reason Monday to celebrate that it had officially ended.

“The hole was so deep that a lot of people out there are still hurting,” the president, whose Democratic Party faces a likely setback in the midterm elections, said at a town-hall meeting sponsored by CNBC.

Obama has made a point of noting small signs of progress in the economy, which is growing slowly. Some Democrats have urged him to stop boasting about any progress at all, for fear that it irks people who feel things aren’t getting better and makes politicians seem out of touch.

For Melody Brooke, a 55-year-old marriage and family counselor in Lewisville, Texas, it didn’t feel in her household as if the recession ended 15 months ago. Her household finances were in shambles at the time.

“It felt like the heat of it for us,” Brooke said.

Her outlook is starting to brighten. Her husband finally found full-time work about a month ago. And Brooke’s counseling business is picking up: She’s on track to make about $35,000 for the year.

For the rest of the country, the statistics are familiar and grim. Since the recession began, 7.3 million jobs have disappeared. Nearly 2.5 million homes have been repossessed. Unemployment is at 9.6 percent.

Since the technical end of the recession, the economy has been growing. But the growth has been painfully slow.

How slow? The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development figures the U.S. economy will grow 2.6 percent this year. It would take growth twice that fast to drive down unemployment by a single percentage point.

Unemployment usually keeps rising well after a recession ends. That’s because it takes time for companies to gain confidence in the economy, know that customer demand will last, and add jobs.

But for the past few recessions, it’s taken longer and longer for unemployment to come down. In 1982, for example, unemployment peaked the same month the recession ended. After the 2001 recession, the gap was 19 months.

This time around, it’s been 15 months, and economists don’t expect unemployment to come down significantly anytime soon.

In part, that’s because of how the unemployment rate is calculated. It’s based on a survey of households. Only out-of-work people who are looking for jobs are counted as unemployed. Those who have quit looking out of discouragement aren’t included. As the economy improves, more of these people will start looking for jobs and will be counted again as unemployed. That will drive up the unemployment rate, at least for a while.

To make its call on the end of a recession, the bureau looks at the stats behind the gross domestic product, which measures the total value of the economy. Plus, it reviews incomes, employment and industrial activity.

The bureau pointed out that a downturn in the economy anytime soon would now mark the start of a new recession. The last time that happened was in 1981 and 1982, most economists believe.

The last recession that lasted longer than this one was, well, something far worse than a recession: The Great Depression. It included a downturn of three and a half years, ending in 1933, and another lasting more than a year, ending in 1938.

Click here to view photos:

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Dear Mr. President,

I write this letter with all due respect to yourself, as well as the office of the presidency. Your historic rise up the political ladder has been nothing short of inspirational, and your extraordinary vision has positioned you as one of the most celebrated leaders in the history of the United States. As a fellow scholar and African American male, I applaud your achievements. I am especially excited about how you, Michelle and your beautiful daughters present such a magnificent image of the African American family.

While the black community remains inspired by your achievements and overwhelmingly sympathetic to your challenges from conservatives, there are concerns that the economic plight of black Americans has not been a priority for the Obama Administration. To be sure, opinions on this matter are far from unanimous. But the numbers tell a story that needs to be heard.

Read more at Black Voices

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Black men continued to get hit hard by unemployment

Black women see consecutive unemployment decrease in June

As the nation’s largest peacetime jobs program – the U.S. Census 2010 effort – winds down and its temporary workforce continues to join the ranks of the unemployed, a growth in private sector jobs was not enough to keep the unemployment rate from climbing slightly – one-tenth of a percentage point to 9.6 percent – in August.
The hardest hit group of workers – African-American men – were hit hardest again. Their unemployment rate is 17.3 percent, up from 16.7 percent, nearly double the 8.9 percent unemployment rate for white men.

Women of both races fared better – 7.1 percent unemployment for whites, 13.2 percent unemployment for African Americans.

“Jobs are being created. They’re just not being created as fast as they need to,” President Barack Obama told reporters on Friday.

Christina Romer, the chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, said the employment report released by the U.S. Department of Labor on Friday was “better than expected.” Private sector payrolls increased by 67,000 in August – the eighth consecutive month of private sector job growth. Since last December, private sector employment has risen by 763,000.

Read more at St.Louis American

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Unemployment affects three out of four Americans

Another month, another grim jobs report. We lot 54,000 jobs in July. Most of those — in fact, 114,000 of them — were expiring census jobs. The private sector added jobs slowly but steadily, posting 67,000 in gains. This report doesn’t really tell a story of recovery nor of recession. It’s just stagnation: We’re not falling back into the hole, but nor are we getting out of it. No wonder the White House is looking for further stimulus measures.

The unemployment rate rose slightly to 9.6 percent, from 9.5 percent, the Labor Department said, as hundreds of thousands of people rejoined the labor force.

Private employers, meanwhile, created a net of 67,000 jobs, better than expected but below the 107,000 positions they added to payrolls in July. Overall, the nation shed 54,000 positions, but that was driven by the elimination of temporary Census jobs, which was widely anticipated.

Read more at WashPost

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President Obama’s Oval Office speech last night the end of combat in Iraq was also in part a message about job creation, and improving the economy. In this interview, NAACP president Benjamin Jealous analyzes the president’s speech, while discussing in what ways the US can move beyond these economic struggles.

Jealous also talks about One Nation, a coalition of 170 organizations which launches today, and is expected to have a march in two weeks, one of many coming up. The coalition’s march’s main focus says Jealous is “bringing people back together”.

Read more at TheGrio

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New applications for unemployment insurance reached the half-million mark last week for the first time since November, a sign that employers are likely cutting jobs again as the economy slows.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 12,000 last week to 500,000, the fourth increase in the past five weeks. Wall Street economists forecast that claims would drop.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose by 8,000 to 482,500, the highest since December. There were no special factors that distorted the numbers, a Labor Department analyst said.

RELATED: Black Women See Consecutive Unemployment Decrease In June

The increase suggests the economy is creating even fewer jobs than in the first half of this year, when private employers added an average of about 100,000 jobs per month. That’s barely enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising. The jobless rate has been stuck at 9.5 percent for two months.

Stock futures fell on the news. The Dow Jones industrial average futures had risen more than 50 points before the report was released. They dropped quickly and were down as much as 20 points afterward.

Jobless claims declined steadily last year from a peak of 651,000 in March 2009 as the economy recovered from the worst downturn since the 1930s. After flattening out earlier this year claims have begun to grow again.

The number of people continuing to receive benefits fell by 13,000 to 4.5 million, the department said. The continuing claims data lags initial claims by one week.

But that doesn’t include millions of people receiving extended unemployment insurance, paid for by the federal government. About 5.6 million unemployed workers were on the extended unemployment benefit rolls, as of the week ending July 31, the latest data available. That’s an increase of about 300,000 from the previous week.

During the recession, Congress added up to 73 extra weeks of benefits on top of the 26 weeks customarily provided by the states. The number of people on the extended rolls has increased sharply in recent weeks after Congress renewed the extended program last month. It had expired in June.

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Private employers added only 71,000 jobs in July. But that increase was offset by the loss of 202,000 government jobs, including 143,000 temporary census positions.

July marked the third straight month that the private sector hired cautiously. Economists are concerned that the unemployment rate will start rising again because overall economic growth has weakened significantly since the start of the year.

In a healthy economy, jobless claims usually drop below 400,000. But the recent increases in claims provide further evidence that the economy has slowed and could slip back into a recession. Many analysts are worried that economic growth will ebb further in the second half of this year.

After growing at a 3.7 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the economy’s growth slowed to 2.4 percent in the April-to-June period. Some economists forecast it will drop to as low as 1.5 percent in the second half of this year.

Click here to view photos:

The House passed a bill Tuesday afternoon providing $26.1 billion to cash-strapped state governments, and preventing roughly 161,000 teachers and 158,000 public works employees from being laid off. The vote was 247-161.

Democratic leadership has been under tremendous pressure to pass legislation before the start of the school year policy-wise, and before the November elections politics-wise.

“The frustration of course has been that the Republicans have a two-step strategy: First of all, obstruct anything from getting better, and then point out that things aren’t getting better,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). “I mean the bill that’s being passed today, if it were passed a month ago, we wouldn’t have had the job loss report last week and I think they’re fine with that.”

Technically, the bill provides $10 billion to fund education and $16 billion to fund Medicaid, but states have been expecting to get the federal assistance and a majority have already budgeted for it, meaning that if the funds were blocked, cuts would have to be made elsewhere — costing the jobs of firefighters, cops and other state employees. The House was already in recess last Thursday when the Senate passed the jobs bill. But lawmakers were more than willing to sacrifice a couple of days at home in their districts to get the bill passed, according to Frank who supports the bill.

Read more at Huffpo

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