Soss Says U.S. Needs `Dramatic' Infrastructure Investment to Create Jobs

Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Holdings USA Inc. in New York, advocated a “dramatic” program of public works in the U.S. to reduce unemployment and repair the nation’s infrastructure.

“You’ve just got to get the economy going,” Soss said today in a radio interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene. As an example, he said power lines could be buried “so hurricanes can’t disrupt the grid.”

Temporary programs, such as last year’s “cash for clunkers” auto-buying incentive, had little lasting impact on an economy recovering from the deepest recession since the 1930s, he said.

With the unemployment rate close to 10 percent, and many jobless people receiving extended and emergency assistance, “it’s looking much more regrettably like the European labor market,” Soss said.

“There comes a point where unemployment is structural, not cyclical,” he said of an economy that lost more than 8 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007.

(In the U.S., hear Bloomberg Radio on satellite radio: Sirius Channel 130 and XM Channel 129. In New York City, tune to WBBR 1130 on the AM dial.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Vincent Del Giudice in Washington vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net; Thomas R. Keene in New York tkeene@bloomberg.net.

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