Tom Corbett: The Jobs are Still There

By ONORATO FOR GOVERNOR

PITTSBURGH: Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Corbett today insisted for at least the third time in five months that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate – the highest in over 25 years – is actually the fault of out-of-work Pennsylvanians.

As reported on Philly.com this afternoon:

“Speaking to reporters after a campaign stop in Delaware County, the Republican nominee for governor noted that newspapers across the state are carrying line after line of help-wanted ads.

‘Are there jobs out there?… How would you interpret that?’ he asked.

Corbett reported seeing one newspaper page that he said promised thousands of jobs listings in print and online.

‘You guys asked me if there are jobs out there,’ he said to a pair of reporters. ‘If I am a common citizen, the average citizen, and I look at a newspaper . . . and I see jobs – what’s the answer to that question.’”

There are currently 591,000 Pennsylvanians who are out of work and looking for jobs. As the online news service Capitolwire noted: “The Republican nominee for governor is wrong, according to even the most respected government-shrinking, anti-tax-hike state think tank around, about whether the jobs are there.”

“Tom Corbett still doesn’t get it,” Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dan Onorato said. “Pennsylvania needs a Governor who can get our economy back on track, and Tom Corbett’s remarks prove once again that I am the only candidate with the understanding, the experience and the plan to turn this economy around.”

Corbett’s comments today follow withering criticism for his earlier repeated statements that unemployment benefits encourage out-of-work Pennsylvanians to stay home even though “the jobs are there.”

In March, following a visit to a job referral center in Lancaster, Corbett “provocatively suggested that Congress’ decision to extend unemployment benefits might be having the opposite of its intended effect and actually be serving as a disincentive to go back to work. ‘What I see here are people looking for jobs, but that’s only 10 percent [of the unemployed],’ he said. ‘What about the other 80 or 90 percent?’” [Capitol Ideas, March 18, 2010]

And earlier this month, Corbett told WITF public radio that: “People don’t want to come back to work while they still have unemployment…. The jobs are there, but if we keep extending unemployment the people are going to sit there…” [July 9, 2010]

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