Staff Photo by Margaret Fenton
John Gooch files for unemployment at the Georgia Department of Labor office in Dalton, Ga., on Monday afternoon. Mr. Gooch was laid off from a fire department in the region after 18 years of service.When Georgia legislators return to Atlanta this week for the start of the 2012 legislative session, voters overwhelmingly want them to focus on jobs and economic development. Nothing else comes close.
A poll conducted for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Georgia Newspaper Partnership, which includes the Chattanooga Times Free Press, shows that 39 percent of registered Georgia voters believe the economy and job creation should be the top priority of the governor and General Assembly when the legislative session starts this morning.
Alvin McCullough is among the 39 percent.
“We need jobs; people need to go to work,” said McCullough, a 70-year-old retired manufacturing worker from Waynesboro, near Augusta, who now drives a school bus. “A lot of people that are on welfare now, they don’t have a choice. A lot of people are losing their houses.”
Another 14 percent of respondents said health care should be the top concern while 12 percent said state taxes and spending – which often go hand in hand with job creation. Education was the primary concern for 10 percent, and no other issue reached double digits.