Jobs summit planned at White House

MarketWatch

WASHINGTON — Business groups, labor leaders, think tanks and lawmakers were lining up to offer President Barack Obama their ideas about creating jobs before today’s White House “jobs summit,” underscoring the pressure on the administration to address the grim U.S. employment outlook before the dawn of an election year.

Obama is convening the summit at the White House this morning amid a 26-year high for unemployment and aiming to draw proposals from more than 100 invited guests about putting Americans back to work.

“We are going to be bringing together people from all across the country — business, labor, academics, not-for-profits, entrepreneurs, small and large businesses — to explore how we can jump-start the hiring that typically lags behind economic growth, but we don’t want to wait,” Obama said last week. “We want to see if we can accelerate it.”

With unemployment at 10.2 percent, many aren’t waiting for the summit to offer their ideas.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, sent a letter to Obama on Monday, listing proposals including pouring private money into infrastructure projects and making it easier for small businesses to get credit.

The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, is urging measures including a tax credit for job creation and extending state and local budget relief by $150 billion over the next year and a half.

For its part, the Obama administration has been studying a range of job-creation proposals — but doesn’t want to add to the $1.4 trillion U.S. budget deficit. Ideas include growing energy-related jobs and incentives for small businesses to add to their work forces.