Do we need more jobs at any wage?

Subscriber 007,  what you say makes a certain kind of short-term sense, but you're missing the big picture, which is that our wage and work-condition standards are getting trashed in this depression, and it's driving millions of people and even the whole economy ever closer to a bigger disaster.

Median income is down 7% already nationally.  Millions of unemployed have been forced back to work for below-subsistence wages.  Millions have lost all benefits.  The economy is being "hollowed out", with a disappearing middle class and not enough money in people's hands to drive a sustainable expansion.  Creating more near-minimum-wage jobs is just setting the stage for the next round of the economic collapse.

All of the unemployed workers in our group agree that we don't just need jobs, we need GOOD jobs.  At $8, $9, $10 an hour, even full time, you're just staving off disaster, with not enough to ever start pulling yourself out of the pit.  Plus, many of these jobs are temporary or part time.  It's common now for these jobs to have random hours so if you try to hold two jobs you lose them.  And if you call in sick you lose your job.  (Think about that the next time you eat out at a fancy restaurant!)

Many of us will take those jobs when we can get them because we have to, but they're no solution.  Certainly we all agree we shouldn't be spending City tax dollars to get more of them!