WILL BUSH’S PLAN KEEP HIS PROMISE ON JOBS? EPI Proposes Yardstick for Measuring Success/Failure Mishel to Testify in Senate Hearing on Monday
With the economy continuing to lose jobs, unemployment above 6 percent and periods of joblessness growing longer for more and more working people, Americans are counting on Washington to get the economy growing fast enough to get people back to work. The administration’s “jobs and growth” tax cut plan was sold to the public with the promise that it will add 1.4 million more new jobs by the end of 2004 – over and above the 4.1 million new jobs the administration projects the economy would generate without any tax cuts.
Speaking at a Senate hearing Monday morning, Economic Policy Institute President Lawrence Mishel will present an analysis of the current jobs situation and offer a method and plan that EPI will use to track the Bush administration’s progress toward its goal of 5.5 million jobs by the end of next year.
“This recession has brought a bigger contraction of private jobs than any other postwar recession,” Mishel said. “With private sector jobs down 2.8 percent, it is crucial to evaluate the administration’s claims that its tax cuts will create 1.4 million additional jobs. EPI will track job creation and report the success or failure of the administration’s tax cut plan, measuring its performance against the administration’s own promises.”
EPI’s blueprint on how to evaluate the Bush tax cuts is contained in a new publication, “Grading the ‘Jobs and Growth Plan,” issued today by EPI and found on our web site at: http://www.epinet.org/newsroom/releases/03/06/grading_jobs_and_growth_plan_2 003_06.pdf
For further information about Lawrence Mishel’s testimony or EPI’s monitoring
of jobs creation, contact EPI’s communications staff - Nancy Coleman, Karen Conner, or Stephaan Harris – at 202-775-8810.
For further information on Monday’s Senate hearing, contact Barry Piatt at 202-224-1191.