• After seven straight months of job declines, unemployment is now at its highest level since March 2004, and one in five unemployed workers has been looking for a job for more than six months.
• Hourly earnings grew just 3.4 percent over the last year, well below the pace of inflation, which is running at 5 percent.
• Foreclosure filings – default notices, auction sale notices, and bank repossessions – have soared 53 percent higher than June 2007.
• Food prices have continued their steady march upward, with the cost of groceries 6.1 percent higher than a year ago.
• Gas prices are at a national average of over $4 a gallon, having increased 33 percent since June 2007.

Those numbers do not paint a pretty picture for working families. What’s worse, the situation is unlikely to improve in the coming months. Data released last week by the Commerce Department suggests that the economic outlook remains bleak. Rebate checks from the stimulus package enacted in February served more to mitigate the impact of the slowing economy than to effect a boost. And some economists are concerned that growth will slow later in the year as the tax rebate money is spent.

For America’s working families, there is no relief in sight – in large part because Congress can’t get its act together to provide it. Leadership has been dangling a package of economic relief targeted at America's working families since February. That carrot has yet to materialize, and the stench of election year politics grows sharper by the day. When the congressman passes through town this month on his annual summer pilgrimage, the people of the United States would be wise to borrow a line from a man named Big Worm and say to him: “Playing with my money is like playing with my emotions.”

Democratic leadership could have - and should have - insisted upon provisions for low-income Americans in the stimulus package passed in February. At that time, both parties in Congress and the president were determined to enact an economic stimulus package, and Democrats could have demanded domestic relief provisions. Instead Democrats tossed aside a chit that could have been used to help working families and made room for.... business tax incentives? Whose party is this?

That might have been okay if leadership had followed through on their promise to enact a second economic relief package, but they haven’t yet. In part this is because Democrats can't get the package through Congress without support from Republicans, and Republicans are skeptical of the second package: they don't want to dole out more rebate checks until they're sure the first round didn't work, and they're not inclined to approve a package consisting solely of funding for programs that serve low-income people.

Alright, then blame the Republicans, you say. Not so fast. After squandering their first opportunity, Democrats had another chance in May around the supplemental war funding bill – another must-pass item. They secured an extension of unemployment insurance but abandoned efforts to boost funding for food and home energy assistance programs, leaving advocates saying: “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What's this? This ain't enough.” The quiet message back from Democrats? Make it enough - at least until after the election.

The latest promise from Democrats is that they'll move a package when they return from recess in September. Delay, delay, delay and what have you got but perfect timing for election year messaging about how the mean, stingy Republicans are preventing the saintly Democrats from helping working people. Then the Dems just sit back and ride their sanctitude all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue. Maybe that works, or maybe the electorate sees the Democrats stalling out on economic relief and thinks: these guys are supposed to be on our side, AND they're supposed to be in charge - what's going on here?

I’m as delighted as the next blue-minded person that Democrats have regained control of Congress and seem to be sitting pretty for the White House. But it’s no cause to celebrate if they can’t make good use of it. Because while Democrats have squandered opportunities to demand economic relief, millions of low-income Americans have been suffering. That is unconscionable. I expect more from my party than that. I know it's no small task to win Republican support for social programs, especially in an election year. And with a slim majority in Congress and a Republican in the White House, that task is near impossible. But Dems need to show they're really trying, and not just using economic hardship for election year messaging.

Perhaps the strategy is to walk a thin line between the politics and reality of hardship until election day when - if things go well - they'll gain more seats in Congress, take back the White House, and then proceed with their agenda. But if Democrats aren’t careful, voters may lose faith. A tried and true Dem won’t vote for McCain this fall, but he might stay home. And then come that first Friday in November, Democrats may find, they ain’t got no job…