Re: Report says 230,000 unemployed losing benefits over weekend

so you think tightening up credit is going to lower the unemployment rate

MAKE ME LAUGH

;O))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

WELL at least u made me laugh this morning



On 5/14/12, geoffrey theist <gtheist957@gmail.com> wrote:
> watch the unemployment rate drop.
>
> On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 5:44 AM, lew <lewcoop@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Report says 230,000 unemployed losing benefits over weekend
>>
>> By Vicki Needham -
>> 05/13/12 06:24 PM ET
>> drudgereport.com
>>
>>
>> More than 230,000 unemployed workers will lose their jobless benefits
>> this weekend as portions of federal programs expire across several
>> states.
>>
>> All told, 409,300 long-term unemployed Americans in 27 states will
>> have lost upward of 20 weeks of federal unemployment benefits by this
>> past Saturday, even as the many state jobless rates remain high,
>> according to a new analysis by the National Employment Law Project
>> (NELP).
>>
>> The latest batch of cuts affects 236,300 unemployed people in eight
>> states — California (11%), Texas (7%) Pennsylvania (7.5%), Florida
>> (9%), Illinois (8.8%) North Carolina (9.7%) Colorado (7.8%) and
>> Connecticut (7.7%) — half of which have jobless rates above the 8.1
>> percent national average posted in April.
>>
>> "A growing number of long-term unemployed workers are being left
>> behind," said Christine Owens, executive director of the NELP.
>>
>> "Job openings are not taking the place of these cuts," Owens said.
>>
>> A tier of 13 to 20 weeks of federal jobless benefits, used by the long-
>> term unemployed, are expiring because of legislation Congress passed
>> in February that gradually cuts federal benefits to 79 weeks from 99.
>> That figure includes up to 26 weeks of state-level insurance.
>>
>> "These cuts are coming faster than the economy is improving, which
>> means more workers will have to survive without any jobless assistance
>> and families will have less money to put back into the economy," Owens
>> said.
>>
>> Since August, the national unemployment rate has dropped to 8.1
>> percent from 9.1 percent, but most of that improvement is because
>> discouraged workers have stopped looking for jobs.
>>
>> There are still 16 states and the District of Columbia with rates
>> above that national average in March, according to an April report
>> from the Labor Department.
>>
>> Even though rates have been dropping across the country, they are
>> still historically high in some states.
>>
>> Three states, California, Rhode Island (11.1%) and Nevada (12%), have
>> double-digit levels of unemployment.
>>
>> More than 100,000 will lose benefits in California, state officials
>> have estimated.
>>
>> By the end of September, another seven states will lose federal
>> benefits, which will eventually bring the total to 34 states facing
>> reduced federal assistance to the long-term unemployed.
>>
>> Many Democratic lawmakers, including House Ways and Means ranking
>> member Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), whose state has experienced persistently
>> high levels of unemployment, tried to keep 99 weeks for struggling
>> states but lost the fight.
>>
>> Republicans have called the continuation of extended jobless benefits
>> a drag on the economy, arguing that they discourage the unemployed
>> from looking for work and they are adding to the federal budget
>> deficit.
>>
>> Still, the long-term unemployed, and those giving up on looking for
>> work, are bogging down numbers for a longer period of time than during
>> other recoveries.
>>
>> During the first three months of the year, about 29.5 percent of the
>> unemployed had been out of work for a year or more, about 3.9 million
>> people, according to a recent report from the Pew Fiscal Analysis
>> Initiative.
>>
>> The percentage has improved somewhat since reaching its peak in the
>> third quarter of 2011, yet it was still more than triple the 9.5
>> percent rate at the start of the recession in late 2007, the Pew
>> report said.
>>
>> Older workers were particularly hard hit in the first quarter, but the
>> number of unemployed mostly cut evenly across all education groups,
>> the report showed.
>>
>> A separate report showed that among the 15 million workers who lost
>> jobs from 2007 to 2009, half received jobless benefits, and about one-
>> fourth exhausted them by January 2010, the General Accounting Office
>> said in February.
>>
>> That means 2 million displaced workers exhausted benefits by early
>> 2010, and another 3.5 million used up their benefits for the rest of
>> that year and into 2011.
>>
>> In 2010, approximately 66 percent of jobless workers qualified for
>> either state or federal unemployment benefits.
>>
>> Last year, that number fell to 54 percent, according to the GAO
>> report.
>>
>> Many of the displaced workers who exhausted their benefits by January
>> 2010 appear to have faced troubled circumstances.
>>
>> Most, however, seemed to have worked at some point in 2009 or to have
>> been supported by a spouse who was working, and some had income from
>> assets to help them along.
>>
>> Nevertheless, their poverty rate ticked up for working-age adults, to
>> 18 percent compared with 13 percent, and more than 40 percent had
>> relatively low incomes, below 200 percent of the federal poverty
>> threshold, the GAO report showed.
>>
>> Continuing expirations of federal benefits will eventually push the
>> percentage of unemployed receiving some form of unemployment benefit
>> to less than one in two, NELP said in its report.
>>
>> Job creation has crawled along since the recession ended in July 2009,
>> with only 43 percent of the jobs lost regained 34 months later,
>> according to an Associated Press analysis.
>>
>> Following the previous recession, which ended in November 2001, the
>> rebound was similarly slow at first. By September 2004, 54 percent of
>> the jobs lost had been regained. But five months later all job losses
>> were recovered, according to AP.
>>
>> This time around, it will take longer to recover 8.8 million in job
>> losses.
>>
>> Average unemployment is now 39 weeks, and 41 percent of the unemployed
>> have been out of work for six months or more. Almost one-third have
>> been unemployed for more than a year, NELP said.
>>
>> "We can't pull the rug out from under the unemployed before the
>> economy is fixed, and with 8.1 percent unemployment, we still have a
>> long way to go," Owens said.
>>
>> "Especially now that these cuts are taking a toll, lawmakers need to
>> pursue aggressive strategies to put the long-term unemployed back to
>> work."
>>
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