Jim Hightower

Great news, Americans – our economy lost only 36,000 jobs in February!

Well, yes, that's still a loss, but economists, politicians, and other peers of the establishment are cheering the news that our monthly job decline is now smaller than it was a year ago. Hallelujah, they shout, claiming that the job market might finally be bottoming out.

Before you rush to buy a celebratory bottle of champagne, though, you might want to reflect on a sobering reality: Even if the job market has hit bottom, it's likely to say there for a long, long time.

This is because the Powers That Be have sunk America's workforce into a very deep hole. How deep? Since Wall Street crashed our economy, leading to the Great Recession that began in December 2007, 8.4 million American jobs have disappeared. Also, the workforce has increased by 2.7 million new job seekers in that period. This leaves us in a hole that is 11.1 million jobs deep – so far.

To get our economy out of this hole, and to absorb the millions of new people who'll be coming into the workforce, we must not merely stop losing jobs, but must create 400,000 new positions a month for the next three years.

Where's the plan to get us anyhere near that urgent need? Corporations continue to fire and move offshore, with no plans to increase jobs. Also, Wall Street adamantly refuses to invest in job-creating enterprises, despite being handed a multitrillion-dollar taxpayer bailout.

And Washington? Our priority, declared one house member, is "jobs, jobs, jobs," and Congress has indeed passed a bill to spur job growth. How many jobs can America expect from it? Get ready to be astounded: 250,000.

What a pathetic job performance on meeting America's job crisis! To kick Congress' butt and demand a real jobs bill, contact: aflcio.org.