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NC Becomes 1st State To Drop Federal Jobless Funds

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Photo Credit: CESAR MANSO/AFP/Getty Images

Photo Credit: CESAR MANSO/AFP/Getty Images

With changes to its unemployment law taking effect this weekend, North Carolina not only is cutting benefits for those who file new claims, it will become the first state disqualified from a federal compensation program for the long-term jobless.

State officials adopted the package of benefit cuts and increased taxes for businesses in February, a plan designed to accelerate repayment of a $2.5 billion federal debt. Like many states, North Carolina had racked up the debt by borrowing from Washington after its unemployment fund was drained by jobless benefits during the Great Recession.

The changes go into effect Sunday for North Carolina, which has the country’s fifth-worst jobless rate. The cuts on those who make unemployment claims on or after that day will disqualify the state from receiving federally funded Emergency Unemployment Compensation. That money kicks in after the state’s period of unemployment compensation — now shortened from up to six months to no more than five — runs out. The EUC program is available to long-term jobless in all states. But keeping the money flowing includes a requirement that states can’t cut average weekly benefits.

Because North Carolina leaders cut average weekly benefits for new claims, about 170,000 workers whose state benefits expire this year will lose more than $700 million in EUC payments, the U.S. Labor Department said.

Lee Creighton, 45, of Cary, said he’s been unemployed since October, and this is the last week for which he’ll get nearly $500 in unemployment aid. He said he was laid off from a position managing statisticians and writers amid the recession’s worst days in 2009 and has landed and lost a series of government and teaching jobs since then — work that paid less half as much. His parents help him buy groceries to get by.

Read more from this story HERE.

Male Illegal Aliens in US Have Lower Unemployment Rate than Citizens

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Photo Credit: Fibonacci Blue

Male immigrants, including illegals, have a much lower unemployment rate than men born in the United States, according to a new federal analysis of the traits of U.S.- and foreign-born workers.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unemployment rate for American-born men is 8.4 percent. For the foreign-born it’s 7.5 percent, a near 1 percent difference.

The figures could play a role in the Senate immigration debate, especially as critics upset with clearing the way for some 11 million illegal immigrants to get U.S. residency and a legal shot at jobs dig in to fight.

Read more from this story HERE.

Federal Workers Furloughed by Sequester to Receive Unemployment Benefits

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Photo Credit: IFPTE

Should federal employees on furlough be allowed to collect unemployment benefits? Workers at a Navy engineering station in Philadelphia think so.

The local union affiliate of International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers has signed an agreement with the Navy which would allow their civilian federal workers to group furlough days in one-week blocks. It’s a strategy with one key goal: enable those employees to recoup some of their lost wages through unemployment checks.

Here’s how it works.

Bill Coleman, a mechanical engineer who works for the Navy, makes around $104,000 a year, before taxes. Like most Department of Defense employees, he expects to be furloughed for 11 days between July and September. He will lose roughly $4,400 in pay during that stretch.

If his furlough days are scattered throughout the three month period, he will not qualify for unemployment benefits in Pennsylvania. Workers in that state cannot earn more than $745 in one week and still qualify for unemployment benefits.

Based on government pay grades, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry estimates most federal employees will not be eligible for benefits unless they work less than 28 hours per week. Indeed, if Coleman works just four days a week — he would surpass the $745 limit.

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The Lies Go Deeper Than You Ever Imagined

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If you read the newspapers and listen to the perpetual happy talk out of D.C., you might become convinced that the economy is improving. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is supposed to tell us the unemployment rate; and currently, it says the rate is 7.6%. But in reality, we’re being misled.

It’s understandable… we all want to believe the best. And most likely, you feel a little better off than you did four years ago. You can probably look around your neighborhood and see some people doing just fine. But the sinister truth is that we’re being lied to. The government is sponsoring a campaign of misinformation, and we’re all the victims of a mass hypnosis. It leads us to think – falsely – that all’s well in the U.S. of A.

A Stark Contrast

I just spent four days on the beautiful Island of Coronado. I was at a board meeting at a 125-year-old resort, the Hotel Del Coronado. All seemed like a fairy tale. I drove into the city of San Diego and had dinner at a lovely Zagat-rated restaurant. I met a group of friends in a skybox, complete with a buffet line, to watch the Padres beat up on one of their rivals. But that’s where the fairy tale ends.

I also took the time to visit the community of El Centro, California. It’s down Interstate 8 from San Diego. In that town, headline unemployment is nearly 23%. Coming upon a church, I saw a line, winding around the block, of people simply wanting a hot meal.

This is the part of America the media is hiding. They don’t want to blemish President Obama. He feels people’s pain, so he can’t be responsible… right? But the reality is that every Coronado, America has at least one El Centro.

If you dig deeper and calculate unemployment, adding those people standing in the food line who are unemployed, discouraged, and dropping out of the job search, the unemployment rate is 14.3%.

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Social Security Disability Rolls Headed For Collapse

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Photo Credit: Examiner

America’s unemployment rate has come down significantly from its peak of 10 percent in late 2009. That may seem to suggest a steady improvement in the employment picture, but the impression is misleading.

We recently pointed out that workers age 25 to 54 are experiencing a jobs depression that has gotten slightly worse since the end of the Great Recession of 2007-2009, with nearly all job growth since the downturn’s end coming among older Americans. But also statistically concealing the dire reality are labor force dropouts. A smaller percentage of Americans now work or seek work than at any point since the Carter era. Jim Pethokoukis, of the American Enterprise Institute, has calculated that if labor force participation had not declined so much since Obama took office, the unemployment rate for January would have been 10.8 percent.

What happens to the workers who drop out of the labor force? Some retire, some become full-time parents, some go on welfare. But here’s an important answer that is often overlooked: In 2011, on average, one net person has been added to Social Security’s Disability Insurance rolls (and 3.3 to its retirement program) for every five net new jobs created. Since 1970, the number receiving DI has grown sixfold (from 1.4 million to 8.8 million), and the program expenses have grown tenfold, which is unsustainable. The federal government now spends more on disability than food stamps and welfare combined. In 2009, DI began paying out more in benefits than it took in from payroll taxes. By 2016, it is set to run out of money.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: ‘Let America Get Back To Work!’ – Santelli Explodes During Panel Discussion On The Fed’s Easy-Money Policies

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Not one to shy away from voicing his opinion, CNBC’s Rick Santelli on Friday clashed with his colleagues over topics that included Quantitative Easing, unemployment, and Fed’s supposed plan to revive the U.S. economy.

Photo Credit: NPR“Five years into this crisis, I think it’s all disappointing,” Santelli said, referring to recovery’s slow pace. “It would take five years at the present job rate to get to where we were before the crisis.”

Indeed, as noted earlier on TheBlaze, although today’s unemployment numbers are heartening, there’s still a lot a work that needs to be done before we can get back to pre-recession employment levels.

“There is no crisis!” Santelli continued, taking issue with the Federal Reserve’s open-ended commitment to monthly purchases of $85 billion dollars worth of bonds. “Why they’re still in crisis mode is beyond belief and I think it’s wrong.”

“Rick,” CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Liesman interjected, “Some 7.7 percent of the population is unemployed. The U6 is 14.3 percent and that’s part of the problem there, Rick. There is a crisis! There’s a crisis of unemployment in this country.”

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The Anti-Stimulus Economists Agree: Unemployment Benefits Hurt Employment Rates

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Photo Credit: APUnemployment insurance and other forms of government benefits act as a disincentive to work, economists across the political spectrum agree.

Three different economic experts testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Job Creation, and Regulatory Affairs on Thursday afternoon during a heated and contentious hearing. All said that government benefits that kick in during unemployment decrease the economic incentive to pursue work, although they disagreed about the extent of the benefits’ effect.

“The focus of today’s hearing is on the unintended consequences that too often stem from well-intentioned policies,” said Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) in his opening statement for the hearing, “Unintended Consequences: Is Government Effectively Addressing the Unemployment Crisis?”

Casey Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and author of a recent book on the effect that safety net programs have had on employment, argued that the government’s expansion of assistance programs in the wake of the recession actually has made it financially harmful to return to work in some cases.

He called the loss of benefits caused by employment the “job acceptance penalty,” and noted that a high penalty—100 percent of profit in some cases—is associated with low employment rates.

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Fox News Poll: Voters Back Spending Cuts To Boost Economy By Huge Margins

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Photo Credit: J Pat CarterBy massive margins, voters say they would rather see the government cut spending than increase it as a way to boost the nation’s economy, according to a Fox News poll that showed, in hindsight, voters largely saying the 2009 stimulus did not work.

The poll showed that, by a 60-34 percent margin, voters say President Obama’s $800 billion strategy for pulling the American economy out of its one-and-a-half year long recession did not deliver on its promise. While more than half of Democrats said they thought the stimulus worked, 87 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of Independents said they thought it did not.

Opposition to another round of stimulus runs two-to-one, according to the poll. This could be because 73 percent of voters polled say cutting government spending would be more likely to help strengthen the nation’s economy — as opposed to just 15 percent who believe increasing spending would do the trick.

While Obama reportedly has said he doesn’t believe the government has a spending problem, the poll showed that out of 13 issues tested, more voters are “extremely” concerned about government spending than any other issue.

Even a majority of Democrats — 55 percent — agreed that cutting spending is the way to help the economy. Ninety-one percent of Republicans held that view.

Read more from this story HERE.

CBO Forecast: 1.4% GDP, 8% Unemployment, 7 Million To Lose Health Insurance

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Photo Credit: APThe Congressional Budget Office’s just-released economic forecast for 2013 is dispiriting, to say the least. The GDP is expected to grow by only 1.4%, the unemployment rate will “stay near” 8%, the deficit will reach $845 billion, and ObamaCare will cost 7 million their health insurance.

The CBO says things will improve after that, but after three years of being told by the government and its media that “prosperity is just around the corner,” you’ll just have to pardon my cynicism. The media, however, will talk only about how much better the CBO says things will get, because that’s what Obama would want them to do.

What these numbers really mean is that millions of Americans are about to face yet another year of chronic joblessness and economic hardship — which just didn’t have to happen. Reagan inherited an economy in much worse shape than the one Obama inherited. But Reagan’s tax and regulatory policies got out of the way of the economy, and as a result, the engine of American ingenuity was unleashed and the economy exploded. Millions of jobs were created, millions were lifted out of poverty into the middle class, and poverty decreased.

Obama, however, decided he knew better than history and did the exact opposite of what Reagan did. New taxes, ObamaCare, untold numbers of regulations, and an overall Narrative that toxified success, individualism, and the pursuit of prosperity.

And just look at us now.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Recovery: January Unemployment Rises to 7.9%

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Photo Credit: Susan Trigg The new year started off with an old story: Employment grew again in January but not at a pace able to lower the jobless rate.

Nonfarm payrolls rose 157,000 for the first month of 2013 while the unemployment rate edged higher to 7.9 percent, news unlikely to alter the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy or instill confidence that the recovery is gaining steam.

Economists were looking for 160,000 net new jobs created with the unemployment rate holding steady at 7.8 percent.

The ho-hum jobs numbers for January were accompanied by substantial revisions higher for previous months, according to the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics . . .

A report earlier this week indicated that third-quarter growth actually contracted 0.1 percent, but Friday’s jobs numbers contradicted the gross domestic product read.

Read full story HERE.