Today is Labor Day. It’s a day that was originally intended to celebrate the American worker. The images of that worker used to resonate strength and resolve — workers ready to get up and do jobs, feed families and pay their taxes. This day has come to mean the end of summer. We schedule road trips, barbecues, because it’s a three-day weekend. In many ways that’s all it has become.

Sixty years ago, America had just won a war and was pretty much at the top of her game. We were unstoppable. We were in a word, better.

World War II had forced industry to function at an amazingly high level. The inventions and technology resulting from the war ushered in a new era in this country.

Now as the 2012 presidential election looms, both candidates are talking about a four-letter word: jobs. The nation’s mantra has become jobs. How can we create jobs, keep them in the U.S. and why we seem to be at a loss for solutions to the growing economic crisis.

America has outsourced jobs, laid off workers, forced older workers into retirement — trying to resolve the dilemma. We have all kinds of new ways to say ‘you are out of work’. And yes, some of us don’t seem to want to work. The pride in working hard has deteriorated; many of us seem to want a free ride. And many more of us are struggling to just make jagged ends meet.

It’s worth it to look at what each presidential candidate has said about the issue:

Mitt Romney in his acceptance speech last week at the GOP convention said: “What America needs is jobs, lots of jobs.” He also said: “Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It’s about dreams.”

Romney’s jobs plan focuses on individual effort and ingenuity. He outlined some tangible ideas: securing energy independence, giving workers more skills and championing small-business efforts.

Although Barack Obama hasn’t made his convention speech yet, he too has said a lot about jobs. His belief that government creates wealth and jobs is well-documented. Just a year ago, he introduced his American Jobs Act, which was intended to generate jobs. But the unemployment dilemma continues, sitting at 8.3 percent in July 2012. And that number doesn’t include those who have given up seeking work.

These are two very different approaches to the same problem.  We have a decision to make as to which one we think will succeed.

So, as we say goodbye to summer we should at least give a brief thought to what Labor Day really symbolizes and hope that we return to at least part of our past. The part about strength and resolve. Whoever wins in November, we are all going to have to roll up our sleeves and get to work.  — Pula Davis, The Gazette, for the editorial board.