Hundreds of thousands about to lose unemployment benefits

There is no stopping it this time.
Last month Senator Jim Bunning created a stir with his stand against extending unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed through borrowing. After a lot of political grandstanding, it ended after a couple days when both sides agreed to a temporary 30-day extension.

The 30-days are almost over and nothing has been accomplished. D-Day is approaching for the unlucky millions of long-term unemployed.

As many as 130,000 Californians are expected to exhaust their unemployment benefits within the next three weeks, based on estimates from the state Employment Development Department. About 3,300 already have fallen off the unemployment rolls.

That's 130,000 in just one state. The effects over the entire country will be catastrophic.

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Of course this didn't happen without yet another confrontation in Congress.

"We're going to be like the Athenian Empire," warned the Oklahoma Republican, standing alone on the Republican side of the room.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) slumped in his chair, rubbing his temples in apparent agony.
After about 20 minutes, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) interrupted Coburn to ask: "How long are you going to talk?"
Coburn said he planned to talk for another 45 minutes. Reid turned around and left the room. He eventually returned with a motion to table Coburn's bill, which succeeded easily.
A reporter asked Bunning how he felt that Coburn had taken up his cause. "I think it's wonderful," he said.

Congress will adjourn for a two-week break starting tomorrow. On April 5 a huge wave of long-term unemployed will lose their benefits. Congress will not be back in session until April 12.
Newly unemployed will also lose eligibility for subsidized COBRA benefits.

"This will be our first item of business when we come back."
- Reid spokesman Jim Manley

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Here's the breakdown on the weeks of basic unemployment and the extensions available:

* Basic unemployment: 26 weeks
* First tier extension: 20 weeks
* Second tier extension: 14 weeks
* Third tier extension: 13 weeks
* Fourth tier extension: 6 weeks
* FedEd: 20 weeks

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For every cloud there is a silver-lining, and it took JP Morgan Chase to find it.

A recent report by JPMorgan Chase claims that the enhanced unemployment benefits which were enacted to fight the recession have actually increased the unemployment rate by 1.5 percent.

So you see, giving unemployed people a small amount of money so they can pay their rent is actually a bad thing. Therefore lots of poor people getting evicted should shrink the unemployment rate.
You can trust JP Morgan Chase on this. They know more than a few things about getting money from the government.

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Thanks, with all of the extensions

I've been getting confused as to when the great "shove 'em under the rug, they don't count anymore" exodus to make the official unemployment numbers "improve" was going to happen!

I thought there was a total extension until 12-2010, so I guess I am wrong.

Yeah, so nice of Zombie Bank JP Morgan Chase to chastise handouts which obviously makes people lazy bums.

It doesn't have to be this way.

But since political courage is out of style it will be. This will continue to happen every few months. GOP will continue to blame the unemployed for their problems. Democrats will be piss in their pants.

Just pass a direct jobs program plus a jobs guarantee and be done with it.

RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

hang it up Rebel

That job guarantee and the actual link, we've already been there, done that and proved that does not stand solid to good economics, wish it were so, but it is not, esp. the site you're linking to, repeatedly. And you can tell, you'll see no graphs or charts because it does not work, not the way they want to do such a thing.

We cannot even get good health care reform or any real action on jobs as it is. Why continue to promote something that doesn't add up by the numbers and theory when we have so much that does and that we cannot even get voted on out of committee never mind passed? Some, you cannot even get it introduced into a bill by anyone.

Why focus on an agenda that isn't going to really help U.S. workers.

Don't be so hasty

What the article is talking about has legal and historical precedence. It's talking about the Right to Work.
Historically this idea was the basis of the June Days Revolt in Paris, 1848. I wrote about it here.

yes I know

and if you read their agenda, these people, it's more like India's program, which is a disaster and it's even worse than that. These people are those "social engineers", globalists, who could care less about the laws of labor econ.... As previously stated, there must be requirements, performance requirements, for a job which violates the "guarantee" clause of it, one could call it a "limited warranty" to modify the concept instead of a blanket absolute, then ....it can work.

That is not what is currently being pushed by the link Rebel keeps doing and as also previously stated, we're not a social engineering site, being the liberal elite who look at the peasants and come up with a grand plan....we are an economics site.

I obviously disagree.

As for good economics - I am not sure you understand the economics of it. Hyman Minsky's book "Stabilizing An Unstable Economy" addresses it at length and with tables, graphs, charts and formulas. But besides that since when does "graphs or charts" determine whether a theory works.

Just because politics is screwed up doesn't mean that alternative policies should not be raised. And I will continue to do so despite what the consensus says.

Employer of Last Resort (ELR) will help workers much more than two parties bickering over extensions of unemployment benefits. We can continue to drown in the mistakes neoliberal and bastard Keynesian policies or we can provide real change. ELR says that if economy is not operating at full employment that government should provide every eligible person who is willing and able to work a job at a certain living wage.

RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

no, that's not what you are linking to!

Do you honestly believe I do not know Minksy's theory?

I am saying the link and the policies being promoted WILL NOT WORK and I'm saying that from the theory itself.

No, you cannot provide a job to all with no requirements, conditions and performance metrics. I'm sorry, it just does not work that way. You reduce the value of work to welfare.

How many times must I go over this? YOU MUST have these requirements which is why the CCC, WPA and so on did work and why this type of mentality does not work and I've pointed to India repeatedly as a version of what you promote...it's a disaster. It's led to the same issues I said, massive forced migrations going on, bureaucracy, corruption...

Hyman Minsky:

The main instrument of such a policy is the creation of an infinitely elastic demand for labor at a floor or minimum wage that does not depend upon long- and short-run profit expectations of business. Since only government can divorce the offering of employment from the profitability of hiring workers, the infinitely elastic demand for labor must be created by government

He is talking about government as ELR. The theory is much more than what you think it is. Prof. L. Randall Wray, a student of Minsky's, addressed this more in his book "Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability" and a Levy Institute article I can't link to because site is down.

This ELR doesn't call for 'make work' jobs and doesn't advocate "no requirements, conditions and performance metrics."

RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

not what you are link promoting

I know, as already stated, the original theory and that is NOT what India implemented and is NOT what you are promoting and these globalist, welfare state people you are linking to are promoting.

I'm not getting very amused that you somehow think I just do not understand, when I more than understand.

How many times, do I have to repeat, the idea of the WPA, CCC, even Voc rehab are all based on these sorts of principles and that all worked, whereas, this globalist agenda you keep linking to.....is NOT the same and also will not work. The closest implementation currently to what these grand "social engineers" are prophesying is India.

You never respond to the fact I am pointing out these very serious flaws and additionally this hidden "social engineering" globalist, and it's actually labor arbitrage in disguise agenda! It's just this continual promotion of some sort of philosophy regardless of the economic realities, which is the anti-thesis of what EP is about.

NREGA is fraught with corruption, disaster, forced migrations, that isn't helping their national economy or even the people, long term.

One needs to write proof with statistics, results, graphs, instead of linking to some agenda from some other group that really, by the numbers, does not add up.

Or...trying to claim your friendly neighborhood content police just doesn't understand (ahem).

I'll take a guaranteed job

I can rest on a shovel with the best of them. But personally I'd rather have some good old capital producing jobs.

I expect that if this goes on for another year and there is no reason to think not, that we will see the same things Greece is facing.

I find it really, really, funny that our local school district is about to go on strike. They want a 5% wage increase each year for the next several years. Ha! Where exactly are the taxpayers to come up with the cash.

Some people have not accepted the economic reality that times have changed.

So all that guaranteed job stuff, paid for by taxpayers, the same ones that still have work.....is not going to go well.

Capitalism is flawed

Keynes recognized this:

The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.

And many others. These flaws can be corrected but we have to change our economic policies. We need to target full employment with our economic policies.

Bickering over unemployment compensation extension is not change. It will simply be a recurring theme through out the next few years.

RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

on next Friday's unemployment report

Folks, all of a sudden we're seeing headlines on the unemployment report which isn't due out until next Friday.

Just a heads up, I know I will be going over it with a fine tooth comb and I'll bet midtowng will as well, to ascertain if we have real job growth or a Census temp hiring/snow removing bubble of good news, or what the real data is...

I don't know what news organizations are thinking, writing articles on data that isn't out, although it's clear analysts are expecting growth, so if it does not appear, bet the markets will actually react this time (markets pay attention to the unemployed? That alone is news!).

Watch It Happen Live

Please continue to cover the unemployed Americans. There are going to be 100,00-300,000 Floridians that will no longer collect unemployment due to their tier 4 ending. Imagine being able to provide for your family for the past 14-18 months due to your unemployment claim. Now imagine that your unemployment benifit has ended because there is no tier 5 or a longer extension of your tier 4. How far would you go to provide for your family? Robbery, severe violence due to not being able to provide for your family. Or even worse child abuse or negelect due to the stressful inability to provide. Guess what eveyone it's going to happen and it already is. It will not be sudden as if 300,000 people took to the streets reaking havoc. The media outlets are going to be so busy covering all of the tragic stories. By the time it peaks in 2 years we will already be conditioned to it. Please understand that this will effect ever single American. Imagine 10MILLION
Americans without any unemployment assistance. If only 1% of these desperate Americans turn to criminal activity to care for their family, well you do the math. Not a good situation for any American. Please report the severe need for a Tier 5 or an ajustment to the Tier 4. I fear that within a few weeks my state of Florida is going to be a very violent place to be and I fear for my family too as my unemployment benifits Tier 4 will be exhausted by April 13. If we do not get the help of the major media networks we will get no results. As you know election time is comming soon. The networks will cover that, so let's start covering the unemployment or we will be living in a violent violent country.

Thank You For Your Time,

Unemployed American

No Further Extensions Now Because of "Good" Jobs Report News

Watch, now Congress won't want to approve any further COBRA subsidy or unemployment benefits extensions because of the "good" March jobs report news.

Robert, I'm very impressed with your blog, and I put up a link to it on my new blog. I hadn't visited your old No Slaves sight for a long time and am thrilled to see the site you have developed. It is an instant favorite of mine. Your intellectual activism has come a long way since our time together on the John Kerry forums, years ago when I was known as the Intellectual Advocate.

Frank the Underemployed Professional

http://FlusterCucked.blogspot.com

Frank the Underemployed Professional
http://FlusterCucked.blogspot.com

Welcome to EP Intellectual

I didn't volunteer for a single campaign in 2008. I wrote up 3 "per request" posts I think the entire time. Wait, I did some phone work for Hillary when I realized Obama would be even worse on trade, outsourcing/insourcing, but that was just a few hours, during a primary. (because obviously I was not enthusiastic about Hillary either). I became really disgusted with all of the work in 2006 to promptly be ignored 100% once he won. Just use the damn techies to get some damn votes for we know they are technically savvy but as a voting block...don't add up enough.

Yeah, EP is becoming pretty popular and much more analytic, focus on writing accurate, sourced pieces with details that (I hope) cannot be found elsewhere on the blogs and media.

noslaves.com is alive, but it's now pure tech labor issues. I got burnt out on doing all of the work and I wish others would post over there. I also shake head with people claiming to be technical, who cannot figure out how to format a URL. Although I wrote up one piece explaining the reason why the contract law was so messed up for techies and it got 10,000 hits in 1 day...so I guess they only care when the results are gruesome and morbid. But noslaves.com does get readers, and if there were other quality writings on it, I think it would help, it's set to "take off" in terms of hits, it simply needs some quality writings and frankly I'm so much more "into" straight, overall "everything econ". I get very burnt out on reading the latest lobbyist written fiction on how there is a "shortage of tech labor" and then point over and over to the actual stats which show how false such stuff is.

EP is a straight up economics site and I'm also the content police, esp. on "controversial" topics and to make the case very clear by the statistics, economic theory, facts. The mottos are listed in the FAQ and I think it's served us well over all to stay out of the misinformation wars path and do our best to really get to the answers and show where we dug around to reach conclusions.

I think you're right, it's pre-ordained to declare the economy "all good" to try to get the public ignoring all of those falling off of the roles, plus stop any legislation, action.