The proposed legislation comes on the heels of President Obama's roughly $450 billion jobs bill that is scheduled to be sent to Congress later today
U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg is shown in this file photo. The senator today pushed for two jobs bills that he believes will help spur employment in the United States.NEWARK — Across the street from the Urban League of Essex County in Newark is an abandoned, boarded-up building with broken windows.
It’s an appropriate background for a jobs rally, said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League.
"I see that as an opportunity to put hundreds of people to work right here on Central Avenue in Newark," he shouted to raucous applause from the hundred or so people gathered to hear Morial and U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) discuss proposals to create more jobs.
Lautenberg touted two bills. He authored the first, The 21st century WPA Act, which is modeled after President Franklin Roosevelt’s depression-era program. The bill, to be paid for by a surtax on incomes exceeding $1 million — $2 million for joint filers — would create a new federal agency to provide $250 billion for job creation over the next two years. It would provide businesses unable to find a skilled employee with a WPA-sponsored worker, who would receive on-the-job training from the business and be paid by the WPA for up to 12 months.
"Establishing a 21st Century Works Progress Administration would immediately put Americans to work rebuilding our nation and strengthening our communities," Lautenberg said.
The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.1 percent. But urban areas like Newark and Irvington have been hit hard.
The White unemployment rate is 8.0% as of July 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Black unemployment was more than twice that at 16.7 percent. The rate for black teenagers is 46.5 percent.
And those with jobs are seeing wages cut and hours reduced.
Amelia Gamble, 75, used to work 40 hours per week at NJIT, which has cut her to 10.
"I’m trying to keep a roof over my head," she said. "It’s really bad. I don’t have any help."
She worries about her bills, property taxes, the costs of her prescriptions and her grandson, a 22-year-old pianist, who, she said, dropped out of Montclair State when he lost his job.
Lautenberg’s second bill, The Urban Jobs Act, which he is cosponsoring with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), is for people like the grandson, the senator said.
It would spend $20 million this year and another $10 million each year through 2016 on job training and programs that prepare young men and women for new job opportunities. Neither bill has yet attracted Republican support, which would be necessary to pass.
The announcement came the same day President Obama introduced his own jobs bill, which proposes to spend $447 billion on job creation. The bill calls for payroll tax cuts, spending for teachers and school construction and an extension of jobless benefits.
Lautenberg and Morial applauded the president, but said he did not go far enough. Not when there remain 14 million unemployed.
"I am one of those," said Yvette Eatman, 57, who has been unemployed for four years. She said she wants to work but hasn’t been able to find a job because she is handicapped.
"But I can still do desk work," she said.
Staff writer Frederick Kaimann contributed to this report.
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