Congressman Jim Clyburn, D-SC, was in Florence Tuesday
Congressman Jim Clyburn, D-SC, was in Florence Tuesday touring a healthcare clinic that was able to expand and hire workers due to stimulus money. We caught up with the House Majority Whip to find out why he thinks the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is working.
Wednesday marks the one year anniversary of the stimulus and one day before, Congressman Jim Clyburn said it's working in every state and pulling our economy back from the brink.
Clyburn says proof of the stimulus act's positive effect on the economy is evident in the nation's most recent unemployment numbers. The national unemployment rate eased to 9.7% from a high of 10.2% back in October.
He says that shows how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus act, is fulfilling its goal of creating and saving jobs. "If you look at South Carolina, 5,000 jobs have come out of this American Recovery Act," Clyburn said.
He says it's saved or created two million jobs across the country. But on the eve of the anniversary of the signing of the stimulus act into law, Republicans are blasting Democrats saying they're inflating the number of jobs the spending plan has created.
The government estimates there are six unemployed workers for each job opening in this country. To which Clyburn said, "For each job opening, you would have had 10 unemployed if we would have kept going the way we were going a little over a year ago. We were hemorrhaging at 750,000 jobs a month."
He does agree with critics who say unemployment rates could be high for years. Clyburn says these problems were years in the making and won't be fixed overnight. "It's not a question as to if we will have unemployment. We will have unemployment. The only question is what will it be and we're trying to make sure unemployment is low and we're trying to keep it low."
Clyburn asks critics to talk with people who were able to keep their jobs or get jobs because of the stimulus act. He says they can tell them if it's working.
Today in Washington, Congress went to work on a job creation bill. Clyburn says he'll find out more about the bill when he heads back to DC.
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