Nevada wins again. Today, the Labor Department reported that Nevada has the highest unemployment rate of any state or Washington, D.C., at 14.3 percent. That is the highest rate on record for Nevada. Other states rounding out the top five are Michigan (13.1 percent), California (12.3), Rhode Island (11.9) More…
He hit “publish” on the last Wednesday in July, in the middle of a long afternoon. “I also have become homeless and am on the verge of suicide. I slept out in the wood last night and didn’t gett very much sleep. I hate to bring you people down with More…
After 99 weeks, or more, of unemployment, traveling to a political rally is a luxury. Across the country, thousands of 99ers, Americans who have exhausted the maximum weeks of unemployment benefits, have written letters or called Congress advocating for legislation extending benefits or creating jobs programs. But the first 99ers More…
Today, the Obama administration announced it will spend $3 billion more to help jobless homeowners.
First, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is starting up the Emergency Homeowners Loan Program, created in the Wall Street reform bill.
Yesterday, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) introduced a bill to provide extra weeks of federally paid-for unemployment insurance benefits for the 99ers — the pool of 1.4 million Americans workers who have exhausted their maximum weeks of federal and state benefits.
The Americans Want to Work Act brings the maximum More…
In the unemployed netroots this week, rumors abounded that Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) might be planning legislation for the exhaustees or the 99ers — those who have run out of the maximum number of state and federal unemployment benefits.
Arthur Delaney at the Huffington Post notes that Schumer More…
Yesterday, a report from The Conference Board showed that Americans’ confidence in the economy declined again in July, a result of a sluggish recovery and sustained high rates of joblessness. The main consumer confidence index has been falling more sharply than economists expected, from 62.7 in May to 50.4 More…
Sometime this spring, Republicans turned against unemployment. In Nevada, Sharron Angle (R), the candidate facing incumbent Sen. Harry Reid (D), told local reporters, “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job.” (Untrue.) Angle also called More…
Today, the Rockefeller Foundation and Jacob Hacker, a Yale professor, launched the Economic Security Index — a measure of not just unemployment or income, but of broader insecurity related to income loss, out-of-pocket medical spending, drops in retirement accounts and other factors.
A team of policy experts studied economic More…
Today, the Labor Department announced that weekly initial jobless claims had fallen to a nearly two-year low — declining 29,000 to 429,000. That is the lowest number of initial claimants since the third week of August 2008. Here is a chart of weekly claims since the beginning of 2008, More…
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