Onorato hammering Corbett on jobs quote

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato won’t soon let opponent Tom Corbett live down comments suggesting the unemployed would rather collect benefits than work.

Though Corbett told CBS3 on Tuesday, “I may not have been clear or complete as I possibly could,” Onorato told a raucous crowd of labor-union supporters that his foe made similar comments at a Lancaster job-referral center in March.

“It wasn’t a gaffe or a slip of the tongue. [The state unemployment rate] didn’t go from 4 to 9 percent because workers decided they didn’t want to work. It’s because the jobs left. Corbett just doesn’t get that,” he said. “This is the beginning of defining who we are as candidates.”

Last Friday, Corbett claimed he’d heard from “five, six or seven different people” that they couldn’t fill open jobs because workers told them, “I’ll come back to work when unemployment runs out.”

Attempts to get comment from Corbett’s press office were unsuccessful.

“Rather than trying to find the light, he’s cursing the darkness,” said Pat Gillespie, local Building Trades Council president. “No apology is acceptable.”