Today is Labor Day. Officially, unemployment is about 9.1 percent. The real level of unemployment and under employment is probably over 20 percent. Many of those whether unemployed or under employed have been for more than a year.

The situation is dire.

This week, the President will unveil his jobs plan. This week many of the Republican Presidential candidates will also make their job plans available. None of the various Republican plans announced will make one iota of a difference to the unemployment rolls. Even if one of them is elected, it will not be until 2013, or later when their plan will have any chance of being enacted.

What’s more important is how the public will receive the President’s plan and more importantly how Congress will react. The rumblings have already begun. Those who oppose the President are categorizing his plan (we haven’t even heard it yet), as a political move. “He is just doing it to get re-elected.”

Many conservatives in Congress seem to be of the mind that anything proposed by this President is to be opposed. By this definition, any jobs plan of the President’s will be fought tooth and nail by conservatives regardless of its merit. Reducing unemployment in today’s economy is probably the most difficult thing for a government to do. There are just too many variables to consider. But any plan, whether the Presidents or someone else’s, should strive to improve the dire situation so many unemployed Americans face. It’s truly sad that there appears to be no real bi-partisan plan to get Americans back to work. If ever there was a problem that requires all hands of deck, it’s unemployment.

It seems to this writer, that the issue has become bigger than unemployment and the need for jobs. The jobs plan announcements next week and the hoopla surrounding them, will quickly overshadow the unemployed workers who desperately need the plan implemented quickly. We will once again forget the millions of Americans who want to work.

Today is Labor Day. While millions of Americans lament returning to work tomorrow after the long weekend, millions more will not have a job to return to.. Let’s hope the President, Congress and anyone else weighing in with a jobs plan, recognizes the severity of our unemployment problem. We need action now.