Tag Archives: jobs

February 7, 2013 · 7:08 pm

North Carolina Unemployment Bill Would Lose State $600 Million In Federal Benefits

Things just keep getting worse and worse under the McCory administration….

This is not just morally wrong, it’s stupid.

Democrats have to do a better job of making people aware of the real Republican agenda.  I can’t help but think if people really knew what these guys were up to, they wouldn’t vote for them.  The GOP is dependent on smoke and mirrors to hide their insensitivity and true plans.

I have to blame the Dems for letting them get away with this….

I keep saying, if the NC Democrats knew how to run a political campaign, we would not have to suffer under these heartless, wrong-headed Republicans.

I can only hope the NC Democrats realize this and are going to get their act together before too many people and wonderful institutions are hurt or destroyed by the GOP legislature and the GOP Governor.

From Huffingtonpost.com:

 

North Carolina lawmakers are considering a bill that would slash unemployment benefits and cause the state to lose roughly $600 million worth of extended jobless compensation paid entirely by the federal government.

The measure would reduce the maximum weekly benefit from $530 to $350 per person. If it passes, North Carolina workers will no longer receive long-term compensation starting in July, since states cannot remain eligible for federal unemployment insurance if local lawmakers cut weekly benefit amounts. An estimated 80,000 people would miss out on federal extended benefits, according to the North Carolina Justice Center, a worker advocacy nonprofit. At $25 million per week, the total loss over time amounts to more than $600 million.

Policy experts said the move would be unprecedented. “It is pretty amazing,” the center’s Alexandra Sirota said in an interview. “As far as we know, no other state has rejected federal dollars to push that level of benefit cuts.”

More:   North Carolina Unemployment Bill Would Lose State $600 Million In Federal Benefits.

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September 26, 2012 · 8:36 pm

After Nearly A Decade Of Declines, Manufacturing Jobs Begin Rebound

This is some really good news….

Manufacturing jobs are middle class jobs with benefits that I was starting to fear were gone for good.

This will really help people feel better about the economy as these jobs beat the hell out of the retail, temp and other low wage jobs that have been the recent sources of job growth.

From Thinkprogress.org:

After nearly a decade of steep declines, American manufacturing jobs have begun to rebound since the beginning of the Obama administration, as the slide that occurred under President George W. Bush and during the Great Recession has largely been reversed.

Manufacturing slumped in the first year of the Obama administration as the nation dealt with the effects of the recession, but since then, manufacturing has posted job gains in all but three months since February 2010, as Bloomberg Government reports:

The BGOV Barometer shows U.S. factory positions have grown since early 2010, arresting a slide that began toward the end of the 1990s. It’s the best showing since the era of Bill Clinton, the only president in the last 30 years to leave office with more factory jobs than when he began.

via After Nearly A Decade Of Declines, Manufacturing Jobs Begin Rebound | ThinkProgress.

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July 11, 2012 · 8:05 pm

5 Ways Republicans Have Sabotaged Job Growth

And these are just to obvious ones…

From ThinkProgress.org:

 

 

1. Filibustering the American Jobs Act. Last October, Senate Republicans killed a jobs bill proposed by President Obama that would have pumped $447 billion into the economy. Multiple economic analysts predicted the bill would add around two million jobs and hailed it as defense against a double-dip recession. The Congressional Budget Office also scored it as a net deficit reducer over ten years, and the American public supported the bill.

2. Stonewalling monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve can do enormous good for a depressed economy through more aggressive monetary stimulus, and by tolerating a temporarily higher level of inflation. But with everything from Ron Paul’s anti-inflationary crusade to Rick Perry threatening to lynch Chairman Ben Bernanke, Republicans have browbeaten the Fed into not going down this path. Most damagingly, the GOP repeatedly held up President Obama’s nominations to the Federal Reserve Board during the critical months of the recession, leaving the board without the institutional clout it needed to help the economy.

3. Threatening a debt default. Even though the country didn’t actually hit its debt ceiling last summer, the Republican threat to default on the United States’ outstanding obligations was sufficient to spook financial markets and do real damage to the economy.

4. Cutting discretionary spending in the debt ceiling deal. The deal the GOP extracted as the price for avoiding default imposed around $900 billion in cuts over ten years. It included $30.5 billion in discretionary cuts in 2012 alone, costing the country 0.3 percent in economic growth and 323,000 jobs, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute. Starting in 2013, the deal will trigger another $1.2 trillion in cuts over ten years.

5. Cutting discretionary spending in the budget deal. While not as cataclysmic as the debt ceiling brinksmanship, Republicans also threatened a shutdown of the government in early 2011 if cuts were not made to that year’s budget. The deal they struck with the White House cut $38 billion from food stamps, health, education, law enforcement, and low-income programs among others, while sparing defense almost entirely.

There have also been a few near-misses, in which the GOP almost prevented help from coming to the economy. The Republicans in the House delayed a transportation bill that saved as many as 1.9 million jobs. House Committees run by the GOP have passed proposals aimed at cutting billions from food stamps, and the party has repeatedly threatened to kill extensions of unemployment insurance and cuts to the payroll tax.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, those policies — the payroll tax cut, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and discretionary spending for low-income Americans — have the highest multipliers, meaning more job boosting potential per dollar.

via 5 Ways Republicans Have Sabotaged Job Growth | ThinkProgress.

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October 12, 2011 · 11:12 pm

Songs for the New Depression?

This is kind of looking and sounding familiar….

A little too modern…

A little too now….

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October 9, 2011 · 7:00 pm

Occupy Wall Street: Why?

If you are wondering what Occupy Wall Street stands for, Keith Olbermann reads their statement below…

Sounds good to me!

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October 9, 2011 · 6:30 pm

$39,000 For a Backpack? Luxury Items Flying Off the Shelves

As Marie Antoinette allegedly said, when told the poor had no bread, “Let them eat cake.”

I bet she would have had one of these bags….

Some kids can’t pay their college tuition without mortgaging their future with student loans and others carry a backpack that costs more than a year’s tuition at an Ivy League College???

Something is very wrong here….

From AlterNet.org:

If you wanted to sum up what people mean when they toss around phrases like “class war” and “the 99 percent”  and “WTF,” you might put it all down to this: $39,000 backpacks. Sold out.

It’s been four years since the entrepreneurial Olsen sisters, Mary-Kate and Ashley, launched their luxury fashion line, the Row, and three months since they debuted their stylish and exorbitantly priced black crocodile bag. But it was the news this week that at the Paris launch of the handbag line, Ashley Olsen bragged that the backpack “was the first thing that sold off the shelf” that really took the let-them-eat-cake. Olsen added that luxury brands do well in hard times, noting that “During our last economic crisis in the U.S., the only thing that went up was Hermès,” before, in the words of Women’s Wear Daily, “returning to sip Champagne with guests including Michelle Harper and Christian Louboutin.” As a commenter on CNN observed of this news, “This is what’s wrong with America. The income inequality in this country is outrageous, we are well on our way to becoming a 3rd world country.” Or, as another more aptly expressed it, “That’s cray cray.”

via $39,000 For a Backpack? Luxury Items Flying Off the Shelves | | AlterNet.

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October 9, 2011 · 4:16 pm

Sex Work to Pay Off College Loans? How the College Debt Crisis Led Many to Occupy Wall St

The more I read about it, the more shocking the story becomes about student loan debt.

It is just disgraceful that young people have to start their lives drowning in debt incurred to get an education.  How can you expect them to be able to buy homes and cars and start families in this kind of situation?

I’m sorry, but we have to find some better way for young people to get their education- or re-look at the educational system.  Admittedly, many young people go to college who probably shouldn’t; we need to remind people we need plumbers and electricians as much- or more- than we need more lawyers and stock brokers.  And we need to support that balance by leveling the income gap.

The young people are smart enough to realize this, too.  Income inequality is the core issue here….

Now, it appears student loans are driving these kids to prostitution.  This is not the first article I’ve read on this….

Another way for the rich to exploit the young and poor…

The young man standing next to the “Jail Sallie Mae, Cancel All Student Loan Debt” sign in Liberty Plaza last night could very well end up in jail himself – not for protesting economic injustice and marching on Wall Street, but for doing sex work to pay off his student loans. “My loans are $1,300 a month,” he said. “My rent is $1,300 a month. My salary is $2,600 a month. You can see the problem. So I work as a prostitute for food and utilities.”

Though he works a day job in the tech sector, it’s not enough to get by. “But it could be worse,” he continued. “I could have to do sex work for all of it.”

With the Department of Education estimating that outstanding US student loan debt will soon exceed $1 trillion and job growth stalled, students face the very real prospect that there’s no way to ever pay back their debts. As of this May, new graduates are leaving college with an average of $22,900 in debt each, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, makes the class of 2011 the most indebted in history. They are members of a generation of students who knew taking out loans to finance a degree – or two – was a gamble on their own futures. As Lindsay Personett, a recent graduate from Oklahoma City University, put it at Wednesday’s solidarity march to support the Wall Street occupiers, “Kids are told to get this expensive degree and you’ll get a job. You end up owing too much and owning nothing.”

Wednesday also saw solidarity walk-outs to Occupy Wall Street from hundreds of students from the New School, New York University, Columbia University, and several CUNY campuses. According to CBS Local, 150 students walked out at Brooklyn College to join the tens of thousands in Foley Square and Liberty Plaza. The student walk-outs are part of a larger national walk-out action, supported by OccupyColleges.org, which spanned at least 100 campuses across the US. Their demands go beyond calls for “job creation.” They are questioning the convergence of interests in the education and financial systems that require them to take on soaring, unforgivable, high-interest debt in order to get an education.

via Sex Work to Pay Off College Loans? How the College Debt Racket Sucks Young People Dry — And Led Many to Occupy Wall St. | | AlterNet.

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October 9, 2011 · 4:09 pm

Protesters Against Wall Street

Very nice statement in today’s New York Times on the Occupy Wall Street movement.

At least one mainstream media outlet seems to be getting it….

Here is a brief excerpt and a link to the full article:

 

As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread from Lower Manhattan to Washington and other cities, the chattering classes keep complaining that the marchers lack a clear message and specific policy prescriptions. The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.

At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.

The jobless rate for college graduates under age 25 has averaged 9.6 percent over the past year; for young high school graduates, the average is 21.6 percent. Those figures do not reflect graduates who are working but in low-paying jobs that do not even require diplomas. Such poor prospects in the early years of a career portend a lifetime of diminished prospects and lower earnings — the very definition of downward mobility.

The protests, though, are more than a youth uprising. The protesters’ own problems are only one illustration of the ways in which the economy is not working for most Americans. They are exactly right when they say that the financial sector, with regulators and elected officials in collusion, inflated and profited from a credit bubble that burst, costing millions of Americans their jobs, incomes, savings and home equity. As the bad times have endured, Americans have also lost their belief in redress and recovery.

 

MORE:   Protesters Against Wall Street – NYTimes.com.

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October 9, 2011 · 2:02 pm

Work for No Pay? How White Collar Companies Exploit Desperate Young People’s Labor — and Perpetuate Our Class Divide

 

The concept of “internships” has disturbed me for many years.

Basically, this is a way to get people to work and not get paid.  Which means, only those who can afford to work without pay have the option of taking these internships.  Therefore, this closes a lot of doors to a lot of young people.

I don’t like anything that inhibits upward mobility and this is a big inhibition.

Now, it seems, this is becoming more and more the case…

From AlterNet.org:

There is a job opening! It seems perfect—full time, in the non-profit sector, based in New York City. It’s obviously a prestigious position—they’re looking to hire someone with at least a masters’ degree, though in certain cases this can be interchangeable with five years of related work experience. There’s only one small problem: it’s unpaid.

According to statistics from the National Association for Colleges and Employers, the number of students at four-year colleges who took internships increased from nine percent to more than 80 percent between 1992 and 2008. Once the economy crashed, and a paying job became a luxury rather than a fact of life, many  jobs were re-packaged as internships, promising experience and career connections in exchange for free labor.

Recent graduates, disturbed by the dearth of job opportunities, began to take internships as a last resort to stay competitive in the labor market. Although an internship used to be akin to an apprenticeship—a temporary stint of unpaid, hands-on labor resulting in an eventual job offer—the explosion of both college students and recent graduates taking internships no longer guarantees a paid position. Instead, as more and more young people demonstrated they were willing to supply an unpaid labor force so long as it was framed as an “internship,” internships have become a means for companies and non-profit organizations to re-package once paying jobs and cut corners in a tight economy.

Internships are the new entry-level job—the same duties and basic experience, only this time without compensation or benefits.

More:  http://www.alternet.org/story/152653/work_for_no_pay_how_white_collar_companies_exploit_desperate_young_people%27s_labor_–_and_perpetuate_our_class_divide?akid=7682.275643.3vhqC6&rd=1&t=2

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October 6, 2011 · 9:15 pm

If Top 1% Hadn’t Ripped Off Trillions, You’d Likely Be Making Thousands of Dollars More Right Now

There are some very important numbers in this post from AlterNet.org.

This really illustrates, historically speaking, how disparate income distribution is now compared to past years.

Entire article is worth a read;  here is a brief excerpt along with the link to the full version:

 

Contained in that simple message is an implied demand, whether or not people recognize it: undoing several decades of increasing inequality in this country.

Economists Thomas Picketty and Emanuel Saez sliced and diced America’s income going all the way back to 1913, and their results tell us exactly what the Occupy Wall Street movement is about, at least in broad terms.

Choose a year from some fondly remembered past when the American economy generated broadly shared prosperity. How about 1947? That year, the top 1 percent of U.S. households grabbed a bit less than 12 percent of the nation’s pre-tax income, and the other 99 percent shared around 88 percent of the take. It wasn’t a perfect time, but it was an era when a large middle-class was emerging.

Or maybe you think 1967 was a great time to be an American worker. That year, the top 1 percent grabbed 10.7 percent of the pile, and the other 99 percent divvied up around 89 percent of our income.

Between 1949 and 1979, those at the top never took in more than 12.8 percent of the total. When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, they grabbed 10 percent of our economic output, and the rest of us shared 90 percent. And that’s when things started to shift, relatively rapidly. In Reagan’s final year in office, the top 1 percent of American households grabbed 15.5 percent of the nation’s income.

By the time George W. Bush was elected, they were taking in 21.5 percent. And in 2007, the year before the crash, they were pulling in 23.5 percent of our pre-tax income, leaving the other 99 percent to share just 76.5 percent of the fruits of our output.

via If Top 1% Hadn’t Ripped Off Trillions, You’d Likely Be Making Thousands of Dollars More Right Now | | AlterNet.

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