An Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) analysis of the March employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth improved in February with 227,000 jobs added to nonfarm payrolls. In February women gained 86,000 jobs (almost 40 percent, above their share for the past year) and men gained 141,000. The gap between women’s and men’s employment in February is 1.9 million. IWPR released a new Quick Figures with two new graphics.

The unemployment rates remained largely steady from January to February declining for women aged 16 and older (to 8.2 percent from 8.3 percent) and unchanged for men (8.3 percent). Women’s employment growth was aided by strong growth in health care (49,000 jobs added overall) and food service and drinking places (40,800 jobs added overall).

In the last year, from February 2011 to February 2012, of the 2.1 million jobs added to payrolls, 672,000 or 31% were filled by women and 1,462,000 or 69 percent were filled by men. Since October of 2009 when men’s and women’s total jobs numbers were virtually equal, women have gained 648,000 jobs, whereas men have gained 2,544,000.

Since June 2009 when the recession officially ended, men have gained 88 percent (1.9 million) while women have gained only 273,000 (12 percent) of the jobs added to payrolls – primarily because jobs growth for women lagged men’s by nearly a year.

Women have regained nearly one out of three (855,000 or 31.4 percent) of the total jobs they lost in the recession (2.7 million from December 2007 to the trough for women’s employment in September 2010, which occurred more than one year after the recession officially ended). The picture looks somewhat better for men: men have gained 43.4 percent (2.6 million) of the jobs they lost since December 2007 (6.0 million).

In the first quarter of 2009, when President Obama began his term, employment was still falling steeply. With the passage of the President’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009, job losses abated and turned to job growth in early 2010. In 2011 and 2012 the gains in jobs added are being shared by women and men.

There is still a jobs deficit relative to before the recession, which was the most severe since the 1930s. At the pace of job gains in February (227,000), it would take until late 2016 just to employ those currently looking for work without considering additional workers entering the labor force. As of February 12.8 million workers remain unemployed.

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President Obama unveiled his eagerly awaited jobs plan recently, which might bring fresh hope and confidence to the economy and to the lives of people in America. The plan is mix of deliberate adjustment of expenditure and taxation, with a purpose to assist the ailing U.S. out of the recovery bed.

The President revealed what many have seen as a second stimulus package to lift the economy from recession. He proposed mild ramifications with fiscal tools, deductions in payroll taxes and extending the spendings on infrastructure and other alternatives to get the economy running again.

In order to increase activity, a mix of tax cuts and spendings on schools and roads, aid to teachers and assistance to the unemployed was announced. The total cost of the plan is $447 billion of which $253 billion will go to tax-cuts and $194 to new spendings. A select part of the bill could become law and provide a measure of support for the economy.

The best component to win the congress’ approval is the payroll tax cuts. Reduction in tax rates will give more purchasing power to the consumer, which eventually should push demands upwards. Currently employees normally pay 6 percent if their income in tax, but in the future, they may become liable to pay only 4.2 percent. A reduction of 2 percent.

Fundamentally, the Obama administration wants to put more people to work and increase spending so that a weakened demand may get strengthened and help bring back certainty in economic activity.

The $447 billion cost program is nearly half of the stimulus package announced by the President in 2009, and reflects the severity of the economic crisis. When the economy is weak, governments will often launch ambitious analysis to find out the root cause of the problem, and upon successfully finding it, they design policy to curb or mitigate its impact on the economy.

As in this case, Obama proposed a National Infrastructure bank which would cost $10 billion to establish, but which would pay for new public construction projects like local roads, bridges and mass transit systems.

Furthermore, the president outlined new spending program for school modernization (at least 35,000 public schools) with total spending of $25 billion. In an effort to provide benefits to jobless people, the plan sets aside $62 billion for unemployment insurance to continue supporting the jobless.

Many economists say that the American government must put billions of dollars into the economy to keep it from sinking into recession, but no proposal is ever be without criticism. Nigel Gault, Chief Economist with HIS Global Insight said “If you give somebody a tax cut and they just save it, then there no jobs created”.
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President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress and the nation on Thursday night, asking for $447 billion to focus on jobs creation. The proposal, titled the “American Jobs Act,” includes more than $250 billion in tax incentives for small businesses and employers.

The administration would spend the rest of the money on infrastructure spending, state aid, unemployment insurance and neighborhood rehabilitation. According to the President, the proposal will be paid for by spending cuts found by the super committee. Senior administration officials said that the White House plans to introduce the president’s proposal next week as a single piece of legislation.

“I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away,” Obama said in his evening speech. “There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans — including many who sit here tonight. And everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything.”

President Obama, clearly on the offensive, stated he would push this bill outside of D.C. as well. “I intend to take that message to every corner of this country,” Obama said. “I also ask every American who agrees to lift your voice and tell the people who are gathered here tonight that you want action now.

Tell Washington that doing nothing is not an option.” In all, Obama said the phrase “pass this jobs bill” eight times in his speech. In the end of his speech, Obama called for Congress to close special interest tax loopholes as one way to cover the cost of the jobs bill. “This isn’t political grandstanding,” he said. “This isn’t class warfare. This is simple math. These are real choices that we have to make.”

The president’s suggested spending totals are much smaller than the economy’s actual needs. The country faces a $2 trillion infrastructure deficit, according to Obama’s top advisers. There is an estimated $270 billion to $500 billion in backlogged school maintenance costs. The government has cut over 200,000 jobs, many of them teachers and emergency first responders.

The outlines were still heralded by Democrats as an important start, as well as a much-needed shift in a political conversation that has been dominated by budget cuts.

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Speaking to Congress in Washington yesterday, President Barack Obama outlined the centerpiece of his re-election campaign in the form of a $447bn jobs package designed to alleviate the deflated US economy.

Following the painful deadlock this summer over the debt crisis, Obama made sure to urge swift agreement between the Democrats and the Republicans: “The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy.”

In the televised joint session, Obama proposed a package of targeted tax cuts and government spending which aim at reviving the American job market. Unemployment rates has been steady at 9% or above for more than two years now, the voters are frustrated and the President saw fit to call the situation a ‘national crisis’.

Bloomberg reports that the package includes a $105 billion infrastructure proposal for school modernization, transportation projects and rehabilitation of vacant properties. Infrastructure spendings are expected to deliver most of its economic impact next year while some areas have to wait until 2013.

The president explained that he expects the recovery to be driven by businesses and workers — not by Washington. Instead, the administration is gearing up to help from the sideline. An estimated $35 billion is proposed as direct aid to state and local governments to stem layoffs of educators and emergency personnel, according to Bloomberg.

Furthermore, the main targets of the package will be the workers and small business owners who would be able to look forward to cuts in payroll taxes as an incentive for new hiring and development.

A final highlight proposes to grant states the authority to pay unemployment benefits to people who have been out of work for more than six months while they train for jobs at businesses for up to eight weeks. To encourage employers to take in these long-term unemployed, the unemployment-insurance funds will make sure the training will be at no cost to the business.

Obama’s proposal was met with both standing ovation and stony silence but some Republicans were willing to admit that the package promoted some common ground. Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader and a frequent critic of Obama, said that areas such as extending the payroll tax and especially the tax reduction for small businesses did appeal to Republican politics.

“That’s something we Republicans have been advocating for quite some time now,” he said to Bloomberg.

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