By CHUCK RAASCH, Gannett National Writer
November 25. 2009 9:13AM
WASHINGTON — In the age of entitlement, nothing remains more valuable than a job.
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This Thanksgiving comes as Americans struggle with their highest unemployment since the early 1980s. In October, 10.2 percent of the active work force was out of a job, and millions more have given up looking for one. Additional millions are worried about hanging onto theirs.
Most American families gathering at Thanksgiving tables have been directly affected by the downturn.
President Barack Obama is holding a jobs summit Dec. 3 to discuss with business, labor and nonprofit leaders, academics and entrepreneurs ways to encourage hiring.
"Our economy is growing again for the first time in more than year, and we know that economic growth is a prerequisite for job growth," Obama said after a Cabinet meeting Monday. "But, having said that, what I emphasize today is that we cannot sit back and be satisfied given the extraordinarily high unemployment levels that we have seen."
Jobs have not always been Job One for Obama's administration.
Job creation was initially paramount with the February passage of the economic stimulus plan that borrowed $787 billion from future generations to prime economic activity today.
But health care reform has taken up most of Congress' attention since the testy town-hall meetings and tea-party protests of late summer. Obama next week is also expected to announce a new strategy on Afghanistan that will spark fresh debate about the war.
Recently, the economic debate has been consumed by fights over the accuracy of the White House's job-creation claims. Reports that federal prosecutors are investigating a dozen cases of suspected fraud in the use of stimulus funds have intensified the debate over whether Obama's strategy was the right one.
Even Obama's liberal supporters are clamoring for more action on jobs, while his conservative detractors are calling for tax cuts to spur business and are saying, "I told you so."
Jobs were not always this political.
When this country was more agrarian, Thanksgiving was in practice a holiday to celebrate jobs well done. It was the harvest table, the culmination of a year of work for millions of American farm families. You ate much of what you produced with your hands.
Today, the agricultural-industrial complex produces what's on the Thanksgiving table for a vast majority of Americans.
The point? As in so many industries, we are increasingly disconnected from the work that provides the safety, comfort and convenience of our lives.
Lost in the process is the dignity, worth and community that a decent job provides.
Need your computer fixed? Call overseas. Want a new sweater? Buy it on the Internet and have the UPS driver drop it at your door. We long ago stopped commiserating with butcher, baker and candlestick maker.
This lost connection is one reason why jobs have increasingly become abstract, statistical and political.
Many politicians, while often touting their own humble first jobs, also routinely attack entry-level work as demeaning and search for new ways to tax the most productive. With the rise of the professional political class, significant numbers of American politicians have little private job experience.
Americans would be well served to remember that politicians by and large do not create jobs; they merely create the legal and regulatory environment in which others do.
On this Thanksgiving, your table's bounty is the product of many workers, from the turkey farmer to the sweet potato grower to the cannery worker and the grocery clerk. They and millions of other Americans workers need not be anyone's political pawns.
Contact Chuck Raasch at craasch@gannett.com, follow him on Twitter or join in the Facebook conversation.
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About RaaschChuck Raasch is national political writer for Gannett. His column, New Politics, appears here and on USA TODAY.com. A native of South Dakota and a graduate of South Dakota State University, Raasch has covered political campaigns since 1978, including Tom Daschle's first race for Congress and George McGovern's last race for the Senate. He has covered presidential campaigns since 1988.
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