“It’s been a 100 percent change in my lifestyle,” Terry said. “I used to grill rib-eye steaks on the barbecue. Now I grill hot dogs. And I can’t tell you the last time I went out for a meal.”

My next neighbor beyond the Maggards is Elmer McKoon, 64, who used to work full time in construction, and more recently as a janitor. His company slashed the staff in 2008, but a kind boss kept Elmer working one night a week so he could keep his health insurance.

Another friend, Jeff, who was fired this year after 28 years in his job, notes that the biggest impact isn’t the economic hit but the psychological one. Jeff, who didn’t want his full name used for fear it would hurt his job hunt, said he wakes up and feels a stab in his gut as he realizes that he has nowhere to go that day — and has lost his family’s health insurance as well.

“I don’t have the career that I know, and if someone gets sick then I’m homeless as well,” he said.

Unless more people are working, paying taxes and making mortgage payments, it’s difficult to see how we revive the economy or address our long-term debt challenge. While debt is a legitimate long-term problem, the urgent priority should be getting people back to work. America now has more than four unemployed people for each opening. And the longer people are out of work, the less likely it is that they will ever work again.

President Obama is saying the right things lately about creating jobs. But he is saying them far too meekly, and his jobs agenda seems anemic — while the Republican Congress is saying the wrong things altogether.

There are no quick fixes to joblessness, but Washington could temporarily make federal money available to pay for teachers who are otherwise being laid off. We could increase spending on service programs like AmeriCorps that have far more applicants than spots.

We could extend the payroll tax cut, which expires at the end of December. Astonishingly, Republicans in Congress seem to be lined up instinctively against this basic economic stimulus. Could the Tea Party actually favor tax reductions for billionaires but not for working Americans? Could we have found a tax increase the Republican Party favors?

Mr. Obama, with 25 million Americans hurting, will you fight — really fight! — to put jobs at the top of the national agenda?