'04 The Issues: Jobs And The Election: Can They Find a Good Employment Line?

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In an election year, or any other time, no one wants to hear that his or her job is gone forever. What makes the jobs issue particularly potent this year is the fact that the states with the biggest manufacturing job losses happen to be such swing states as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Administration officials tout Bush's plans to strengthen community colleges and career centers and provide up to $3,000 to help displaced workers find new jobs. But as Edwards likes to point out as he stumps for the Democratic nomination, that's little comfort if there are no jobs waiting in your community when you get out of school. A 2001 Labor Department audit found that only 1 in 5 who participated in programs for displaced workers found jobs for which they had been retrained; nearly 40% ended up working part time or for less than they had earned before; 28% had not yet found any work at the end of their training.

So how would the Democrats ease the pain of outsourcing? Both Kerry and Edwards have put forth a set of proposals that focus on the tax code--closing loopholes that make it more profitable to move jobs overseas, offering new incentives to keep them here. But no one believes that companies are moving overseas simply to save money on their taxes. So increasingly the nomination battle, which grew more intense last week with Edwards' surprisingly strong second-place finish in Wisconsin, is turning toward which candidate would do more to toughen trade agreements. It's a debate Bush campaign officials confidently predict will backfire on the Democrats. "We have a new economy, and they have yesterday's wrong ideas," said Bush campaign manager Ken Melhman. Maybe so, but if Bush can't convince voters he's got some ideas too, one job that might disappear come November is his. --With reporting by John F. Dickerson and Michael Duffy/Washington