Creating Jobs and Reducing High Unemployment In Metro Areas
Adopted at the 78th Annual Meeting in 2010
WHEREAS, metropolitan areas have long been the engines of US economic growth over the previous decades, they have been hard hit by the recent recession which has left them with rapidly rising unemployment and declining revenues; and
WHEREAS, because local governments are prohibited by law from carrying a budget deficit, they have been forced to make severe cuts in critical public services such as police officers, fire fighters, teachers, medical and emergency workers and bus drivers; and
WHEREAS, there was a net loss of 4.16 million jobs last year sending the national unemployment rate from 7.7 percent to over 10 percent; and while unemployment rates seem to have peaked in the first quarter of 2010 averaging 10.2 percent between January-March, they remain drastically high in some regions-- topping 15 percent in 20 metro areas, 12 percent in 74 metro areas and 10 percent in 135 metro areas; and among the 25 areas with the highest unemployment rate in the country, eleven are in California, seven in Michigan and two in Illinois and Florida; and
WHEREAS, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) or the so called stimulus package has been successful in creating jobs nationally, unemployment rates have skyrocketed in many metro areas reaching 18 percent in Modesto, CA; 16.4 percent in Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI; 12.4 percent in Toledo, OH and 12.3 percent in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL; and
WHEREAS, during a time when critical local services have suffered from huge budget cuts, ARRA provided very little direct aid to local governments to help them with their budget shortfalls and avoid further layoffs; and
WHEREAS, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller worked closely with the leadership of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in crafting the Local Jobs for America Act, which would provide direct aid to local governments to help them avoid further layoffs of critical workers and hire new workers to help put America back to work, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the U.S. Conference of Mayors urges Congress and the President to pass HR 4812, the Local Jobs for America Act which will provide $75 billion over two years in direct funding to cities with populations over 50,000 to put millions of people to work by restoring services in local communities, in both public and private sector jobs; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the U.S. Conference of Mayors urges support for investments in our metro areas to improve infrastructures that have been under-funded relative to the reasonable measures of their economic contributions. Close attention must be paid to the relationship between the economic health of our nation's metro areas and the health of the nation as a whole. the national economy can recover more quickly by more directly delegating federal funds to cities and their metro economies.