John McCain was right about one thing. Jobs are being lost. This week the Department of Labor reported that 159,000 American workers lost their jobs in September, a five-year record. The Labor Department reported the ninth straight month of job losses, approaching 800,000 lost jobs in 2008.

Why was McCain right? During his Republican presidential primary campaign, he asked one audience, “Have people lost jobs” due to the economic policies of free trade and low taxes for companies that move jobs out of the country which he has supported? “Yes,” he inexplicably continued, “they have, and they’re gonna lose jobs.” But McCain offered no solutions and appeared to suggest ignoring with the pain.

The Economic Policy Institute reported this week that weakening job numbers did not begin in 2008, despite Labor Department data. Bush administration trade policies, which McCain has steadfastly supported, 5.6 million jobs were lost or displaced, with 4 million of those lost jobs in manufacturing. Hardest hit were Michigan, Ohio, Texas, California and New York. But South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and North Carolina were among the biggest job losers as well.

This month’s jobs numbers don’t tell the whole story, however. The AFL-CIO reported this week that long-term unemployment has steadily worsened over the past few years. According to Labor Department estimates, the number of long-term unemployed people grew by 167,000 last month.

This is an immediate problem because about 750,000 unemployed workers are about to lose their unemployment benefits, throwing thousands of families into deeper crisis.

The labor movement has called for investing in job creation, helping working families renegotiate their mortgages, make their payments, and keep their homes, and for extending unemployment benefits for the jobless.

“Working people are suffering real economic pain, and if there is money enough for Wall Street, Congress and the president need to dig a little deeper and find the funds to take care of people who are shouldering the burden of this economy,” Sweeney concluded.

Emphasizing that no economic recovery can happen without addressing the needs fo working families, Barack Obama, in a statement this week, said, “I also call on Congress to pass an immediate rescue plan for our middle-class that will provide tax relief, save one million jobs, and save our local communities from harmful budget cuts and painful tax increases.”