President Barack Obama tours the Great Wall in Badaling, China, on Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009. (AP)

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Who knew mammograms and Pap smears could headline a week? But here they are this week, shoved into the health care debate just as everything is on the line for reform.

We’ve got the president in China, where the U.S. no longer towers. 9/11 trials coming to New York. The Fed chief warning of another year of high unemployment. Crunch time in the Senate on health care.

And women. Sarah Palin in the news. Oprah, signing off for cable. Hillary Clinton, in Kabul for Hamid Karzai’s inauguration.

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Matt Continetti, staff writer at The Weekly Standard. He’s author of the new book, “The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star.”

Jill Lawrence, columnist for Politics Daily.com and longtime reporter for USA Today.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation. She writes the “Editor’s Cut” blog. She’s also a contributor to the Nation’s own take on Sarah Palin, “Going Rouge: An American Nightmare.”

People check job listings on computers at JobTrain in Menlo Park, Calif., on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009. The unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since June 1983. (AP)

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In all the years since World War II, the United States has not seen job losses like it’s seen in the last two years.

Unemployment is now just under 10 percent, and expected to go higher next year. Long-term unemployment, the highest since records were launched in 1948. Economists are talking “jobless recovery,” which for millions will not seem like recovery at all.

This hour, On Point: We’re getting up close with America’s unemployment epidemic, and asking whether, when, and how the jobs will come back.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Massimo Calabresi, Washington correspondent for Time magazine. His article in this week’s issue, “The Ripple Effect,” looks at how unemployment has affected the community of Roxboro, NC. His piece appears as part of the cover story package, “Jobless in America: Is Double-Digit Unemployment Here to Stay?”

Also from Washington, we’re joined by Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute focusing on labor markets.

And from New York we’re joined by Richard Sennett, professor of sociology at New York University and the London School of Economics.  He’s written several books on work-life dynamics, including “The Corrosion of Character” and “The Culture of the New Capitalism.”

A line winds through the Cleveland Convention Center as people wait at a recent job fair. (AP)

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As the Great Recession rolls on, American jobs and wages keep taking the hit. But workplace by workplace, the way that hit is shared is all over the map.

Headlines just today: Methodist bishops take pay cut. The publisher Gannett will shed 1400 jobs – those staffers just gone. University of California will have furloughs.

Economists say layoffs may be best for the bottom line. They get the pain “out the door.” But in times this bad, many Americans are ready to share the pain to save jobs. To a point.

This hour, On Point: how the pain is shared – or not – when cutbacks hit the workplace.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Greg Ip, U.S. economics editor for The Economist. His recent piece, “The Quiet Americans,” looked at employees, pay cuts and unpaid leave in the recession.

Truman Bewley, professor of economics at Yale University and author of the book “Why Wages Don’t Fall During a Recession.”

Katherine Newman, professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University and author of several books on work and the American economic landscape, including “The Missing Class” and “Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market.”

Graduates at the University of Pennsylvania's commencement ceremonies in Philadelphia on Monday, May 18, 2009. (AP)

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It takes nerves of steel to be a member of the graduating class of 2009, walking away from school and into the world of work.

It‘s the toughest job market in years out there. Unemployment at 8.9 percent, 600,000 of your elders losing their jobs every month and scrambling for any job in sight — even the ones you’d normally be taking.

A third or more of new grads, by one estimate, are without jobs or even plans. Many more are going to Plan B. Survival mode. Whatever it takes. Maybe home again.

This hour, On Point: The class of 2009 steps into America’s economic crisis.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Sara Lipka, a reporter covering student life for the The Chronicle of Higher Education.

From New York we’re joined by Ashley Barton, a journalism major graduating Friday from Stony Brook University, where she will give the student commencement address. She is 22 years old and looking for a job in media.

From Wyckoff, N.J., we’re joined by Michael Madormo. He graduated Monday from Boston College, where he majored in international studies. He will be joining Teach for America as an English teacher in Hawaii next year. He is 22 years old.

And from Washington we’re joined by Mike Schaub, executive director of the Career Education Center at Georgetown University.

A sign for a Bank of America branch is shown in downtown Philadelphia, Thursday, May 7, 2009. (AP)

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Stress tests, infidelity, job loss and Manny Ramirez in the news this week.

The Obama administration put a positive spin on what they found in the big banks’ books. But losses could still hit $600 billion. Job losses last month: another half million-plus. But that’s a lot better than the month before.

Afghan and Pakistani presidents in Washington. Elizabeth Edwards on Oprah with John’s wayward ways. Santa Barbara burns. And another Major League Baseball slugger up on drug allegations and out for 50 games.

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

What’s your top story this week? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is David Leonhardt, economics columnist for The New York Times and staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. His recent interview with President Obama was the magazine’s cover story last Sunday.

Also from Washington we’re joined by Perry Bacon, national political reporter for The Washington Post.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic.

Brush Cat

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American myth loves the lumberjack. Paul Bunyan. His blue ox, Babe. A big axe swinging and tall forests without end.

Well, the lumberjacks are still out there. But the world has changed around them. They’re not forty feet tall anymore. It’s a chain saw, not an axe. Kevlar over the blue jeans. And forests that are certainly not without end.

They’re not even the same forests, as climate change moves in. And still, Americans want the wood.

Jack McEnany has gone deep in one corner of the American woods to bring out the story of today’s loggers. He calls them “brush cats.”

This hour, On Point: Brush cat, in the woods.

You can join the conversation. Have you worked the woods? Have you done it lately? What do you see out there?

Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us in our studio is Jack McEnany, author of “Brush Cat: On Trees, The Wood Economy, and the Most Dangerous Job In America.” He’s lived in northern New Hampshire for over twenty years and is co-author of world champion skier Bode Miller’s autobiography, “Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun.”

From Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, we’re joined by Bob Benson, an independent logger in New Hampshire since 1988.

From Augusta, Maine, we’re joined by Lloyd Irland, president of the forestry consulting firm The Irland Group, where much of his work concentrates on forests in the northern states from Minnesota to Maine. He is a lecturer at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and author of “The Northeast’s Changing Forests.” Formerly he worked as associate economist for the USDA Forest Service and as a Maine State Economist. He just completed work on a Maine logging report for the state attorney general’s office.

A line of job applicants snakes through a ropeline to attend the CUNY Big Apple Job Fair on Friday, March 20, 2009 in New York. (AP)

Americans keep losing their jobs — 650,000 jobs lost in February. And the months of cuts have gone on and on.

That is a lot of people who have had to scramble. Start over. Grab on to whatever they could find to put food on the table. Race for “Plan B.”

It’s hard. It’s scary. Millions are doing it. How’s it going? We’ve all heard the story of the hedge fund guy delivering pizza. This hour we’ll talk with Americans who have made their scramble. Plunged into their own Plan B.

We want to know from them, from you, how it’s working out. This hour, On Point: Living Plan B.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Los Angeles is Freddy Carillo. Until five months ago he worked in finance at a car dealership during the day and with his father as a contractor at night. The car dealership folded and his father’s business slowed. Three months ago he joined the California Conservation Corps, doing emergency clean-up, and he now wants to pursue a career in search-and-rescue. He is 24 years old and lives with his girlfriend.

From Detroit, Michigan, we’re joined by Maria Weaver. She was a vehicle automotive designer at a German automotive supplier until last August. She started nursing school this fall and is half-way into a 16-month program. She hopes to be a surgical nurse in Detroit, where there is a severe nursing shortage. She is 40 years old and single.

And from Mankato, Minnesota, is Steve Druschel. He was an environmental engineer in private practice in Lawrence, Mass., until November 2008, when the work dried up. He had finished his doctorate at the University of New Hampshire in May 2007. In January he accepted a position at Minnesota State University in Mankato. He is 48 years old. His wife will join him in Minnesota at the end of the semester. His son, now a junior in high school, will stay behind with friends in New Hampshire.

Job seekers queue up to attend a job fair on Jan. 27, 2009, in Chicago. The U.S. unemployment rate, issued earlier this month, jumped to a 16 year high of 7.2 percent in December. (AP)

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It’s raining job losses in the USA. Day after day, company after company announcing layoffs.

We’ve all heard them. Five thousand. Ten thousand. Twenty thousand at a whack. In all parts of the country. In all sectors.

If it once sounded like distant thunder to you, it’s likely to sound closer to home by now. You may have lost a job already. You may fear losing one.

What’s it like when the axe comes down in this economy? We’re talking with people out of work across the country about how they get by.

This hour, On Point: Reality, 2009. Life without work.

You can join the conversation. Are you out of work in America in 2009? How are you and your family managing? Do you have a job, but wonder for how long? What’s your best advice for getting by, getting through?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Today, our experts are three regular Americans from around the country who are themselves out of work.

Joining us from Mercer, Wisconsin, is Lisa Heberling. She was a sales and service coordinator at a local bank until she was downsized six weeks ago. She and her husband have a Subway sandwich shop in Mercer. She is looking for work, and is hoping to stay in banking.

With us from a studio in Mobile, Alabama, is Ronald Avery. He lives about an hour west in Gulfport, Mississippi. A former fireman, he had his own business cleaning windows on high-rise buildings. Things got slower after Hurricane Katrina, but he was managing  — until last October, when business ground to a halt in the down economy. He has four children he’s supporting, ranging from a college sophomore to a 6th grader. He is looking for work, doing odd jobs and hoping for contract employment in Iraq.

And from Stanford, California, we’re joined by Ryan Kuder. He was a senior marketing executive at Yahoo until he was laid off last year. Several of his friends just lost their jobs in Yahoo’s latest rounds of job cuts. He has two children. He is trying to start a software development firm and has already launched a jobs listing website for tech workers called The Purple People Collective.

Jobseekers look for employment opportunities and work on resumes at WorkSource California in Los Angeles earlier this month. (AP)

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It doesn’t take an economist to see what’s going on with jobs and layoffs these days. Just read the papers.

Unemployment, spiking. Citigroup announcing this week it will cut 50,000 jobs. The Fed says joblessness will go higher next year.

For many, the axe has already fallen. For others, who may never have dreamed of unemployment, the thought now trickles in. Could it be me? Next? Or next year? And what if it is? It’s time to know your rights, your options, your Plan B.

This hour, On Point: Good advice. Making it through the tumbling job market.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Kelly Evans, reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Maurice Emsellem, co-policy director for the National Employment Law Project. He just co-authored a report for the Center for American Progress called “Helping the Jobless Helps Us All: The Central Role of Unemployment Insurance in America’s Economic Recovery.” 

Dustin Swayne, employment counselor at the state-run Tennessee Career Center in Nashville.

Patricia Smith, senior vice president at New Directions, a private Boston-based career consulting center for professionals.

More Links:

Unemployed Workers — an online forum and resource for jobless and underemployed workers, provided by the National Employment Law Project.

CareerOneStop.org, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, “offers career resources and workforce information to job seekers, students, businesses, and workforce professionals.” It features a service locator map for all 50 states, including unemployment insurance filing assistance.

“Will the Safety Net Catch Economy’s Casualties?” — Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times looked at America’s fraying social safety net in last Sunday’s Week in Review.