Statement on Today's Unemployment Data

NDN Globalization Initiative Chair Dr. Robert J. Shapiro, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs in the Clinton Administration, issued the following statement on today's new unemployment data: 

"The new unemployment data are sober reminders of the costs that tens of millions of American pay when their government ignores the country’s economic challenges.  We saw throughout the expansion of 2002-2007 how globalization is weakening our job-creating capacity, yet no action was taken or new policies formulated.  We also saw  the financial markets unravel in 2008, and how most of our leaders largely dismissed it until it threatened to overwhelm the entire economy.  Now the collateral damage from ignoring that crisis and our underlying problems with job creation are pushing unemployment towards record, postwar levels.  The United States needs a new economic strategy that will actively prevent another financial crisis and actively support both the capacity of American businesses to create new, 21st century jobs and the efforts of American workers to gain the skills to excel in those jobs."