In November, 533,000 people lost their jobs. It's the largest one month loss of jobs since 1974, and our current recession is now the longest since the Great Depression. Luckily, economists know what to do, and there exists a plan:
Under [Obama's] stimulus plan, more than half the money would probably be channeled into public infrastructure spending. Many economists consider such investments an effective way to counteract, through federally financed employment, the layoffs and hiring freezes spreading through the private sector.
“Basically $100 billion of public investment in such things as roads, bridges and levees would generate two million jobs,” Robert N. Pollin, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, said. “That would offset the two million jobs that we are now on track to lose by early next year.”
Or we could just do nothing.
--Tim Fernholz
