In advance of the president's jobs' summit , economist Paul Krugman is finally calling for government jobs. "It?s time for at least a small-scale version of the New Deal?s Works Progress Administration" writes Krugman. He says it "would offer relatively low-paying (but much better than nothing) public-service employment." That's probably not what the Obama administration has in mind. They and Congress seem set instead on relying on the private sector and re-asserting Democrats' fiscal conservative bona fides before next year's vote. But the broader reality is, what's needed is way more -- more than the private sector is likely to give Obama, and more than a few poorly-paying government jobs. After all, poorly-paying jobs are what got us into this mess. As we all know by now, between 2000 and 2007 ? while productivity grew ? the typical working household saw their income decline, decline so far that the only way the average worker could pay for a car, a house or a college education for the kids was to go into debt for it. The deadly mix of needy Americans and shameless lenders brought the US economy to the brink and we rode over it. Setting the lowest possible bar for government action and relying on the private sector has brought us here; to a situation where, stimulus or no stimulus, banks aren't lending, mortgage reform isn't happening, and food stamp use is at a record high. Twenty thousand people join the rolls every day and the program now helps feed one in eight Americans. (One in four children.) According to a recent report, more than 36 million Americans use stamps to buy staples like cheese and bread and milk. Local data reviewed by Krugman's own New York Times, reveals that the counties worst hit include counties in the Bronx in New York, Philadelphia and some parts of Appalachia -- where half of all residents need help. The important, rather buried, fact in the numbers is that food stamp use isn't only up due to rising unemployment. Some 40 per cent of the families now on food stamps have ?earned income.? That figure was 25 percent just two years ago. Not just unemployment, but low wages and shrinking working hours have brought Americans to the starvation point. If the economy is stabilizing as the Fed insists it is, it's stabilzing at a frightful place. The rate of job losses is slowing, but huge numbers of working Americans are paid so little they can't afford to eat and feed their families. It's not just jobs the nation needs, it's jobs with justice -- the sort government can create not by thinking petty and small, but thinking big. The best thing that could happen at the president's jobs summit with CEOs is for him to declare a massive government jobs program at genuinely living wages, and for him to demand that private employers shape up. The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com. Less