<\/p>\n
Washington, DC<\/strong> – Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley released a <\/p>\n “The loss of nearly 350,000 jobs last month is “As long as Americans are facing unemployment, we must “Congress still has a lot of work to do in retooling our <\/p>\n The Department of Labor reported today that the nation’s <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Washington, DC – Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley released a statement today following the announcement by the Department of Labor that job losses were lower than expected even though the national unemployment rate climbed to 9.4 percent. “The loss of nearly 350,000 jobs last month is unacceptable. While some experts predicted that the numbers would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-7113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases","tag-jobs-and-the-economy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nstatement today following the announcement by the Department of Labor that job
\nlosses were lower than expected even though the national unemployment rate
\nclimbed to 9.4 percent.<\/p>\n\n
\nunacceptable. While some experts predicted that the numbers would be
\nworse, ‘not as bad as we feared’ is not good enough. The fact remains
\nthat more Americans are out of work than any point in the last quarter-century.
\nOregon has been hit particularly hard, with the second-highest unemployment
\nrate in the nation.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\ncontinue pushing for economic recovery. As funding from the
\nRecovery Act has come to Oregon for infrastructure projects, the state’s
\nunemployment rate has leveled off. It is my hope that additional recovery
\nfunding, combined with thawing of the credit markets and plans for a shift to a
\nclean energy economy, will generate real economic growth for our state.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\neconomy, including restoring sound regulation to Wall Street and beginning the
\nshift to a clean energy economy that will produce the jobs of the future.
\nWe must also reform our health care system to cut costs for businesses and
\nfamilies and provide every American with access to affordable care. The
\neconomic crisis before us is a multifaceted problem that can only be addressed
\nby taking on massive job loss in the short term and investing in a solid
\ninfrastructure and healthy economy over the long term.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nunemployment rate rose to 9.4 percent, the highest since 1983. However,
\nthe pace of job losses slowed to 345,000, less than analysts expected.
\nThe number of Americans unemployed stands at 14.5 million, including more than
\n250,000 Oregonians.<\/p>\n