Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, today made the following statement on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicating that more than 500,000 American jobs disappeared last month, pushing the unemployment rate to its highest level in 15 years:

“In today’s economy, it is already hard enough for parents to put food on the table for their families, make their mortgage payments, and keep up with the rising costs of other everyday necessities.  And when a paycheck is taken away, it’s like the rug has been pulled out from under them.  In my home state of Connecticut, 125,000 people are out of jobs and the unemployment rate has risen to 6.5 percent. It is simply unfair that hard-working, middle class families are the victims of this crisis.

“Against that backdrop, we must first prevent additional job loss from occurring.  We cannot let the auto industry collapse, which would be catastrophic to our economy, and we must address the root cause of this crisis, the foreclosure crisis.  We must then change our economic policy to put people back to work, such as investing in public infrastructure. Unfortunately, this Administration has failed to stabilize our economy.  The good news is that our country has elected new leadership that will work to bring the changes we need.”

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