200,000 to Lose Unemployment Benefits for at Least 2 Weeks Because Congress Failed to Act

Judy Conti of the National Employment Law Project, tells The Hill that 200,000 unemployed people will lose their benefits for at least two weeks because Congress is on its Easter recess until April 12.

As the two-week recess began, Congress was at an impasse over how to extend the emergency unemployment insurance program and other expiring provisions, including increased COBRA health insurance subsidies for the unemployed, the Medicare doctor payment rate and federal flood insurance.

Senate Republicans said the $9.3 billion, 30-day extension preferred by Democrats should be paid for, while Democrats said the bill's cost didn't need to be offset because the program was "emergency spending."

Under the jobless benefits program that ends Monday, Americans out of work are eligible for up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. The program, aimed at helping jobless Americans stay afloat when new jobs aren't readily available, gives an unemployed worker more than the 26 weeks of unemployment insurance normally available. But with the program ending, those out of work for as few as six months will see an interruption in their benefit checks.

"Odds are they have burned through savings, already asked for loans and gifts from family and friends if needed, so going for two weeks without a paycheck, especially if those two weeks are a time when rent or mortgage is due, is going to be hard," Conti said.

Those who will miss unemployment checks may see them in the future.

Senate Democrats said they'll try to pass an extension of the program that can be applied retroactively once Congress is back in session. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a vote on cloture to end debate on the short-term extension for April 12.

U.S. Unemployment Drops to 10.0 Percent

The unemployment rate edged down to 10.0 percent in November, and nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-11,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

In the past 3 months, payroll job losses had averaged 135,000 a month, the government said. In November, employment fell in construction, manufacturing, and information, while temporary help services and health care added jobs.

In November, both the number of unemployed persons, at 15.4 million, and the unemployment rate, at 10.0 percent, edged down, the report said. At the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons was 7.5 million, and the jobless rate was 4.9 percent.

Among the major worker groups, the govenrment said that unemployment rates for adult men (10.5 percent), adult women (7.9 percent), teenagers (26.7 percent), whites (9.3 percent), blacks (15.6 percent), and Hispanics (12.7 percent) showed little change in November. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.3 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs fell by 463,000 in November, according to the report. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) rose by 293,000 to 5.9 million. The percentage of unemployed persons jobless for 27 weeks or more increased by 2.7 percentage points to 38.3 percent.

The civilian labor force participation rate was little changed in November at 65.0 percent. The employment-population ratio was unchanged at 58.5 percent.

The number of people working part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in November at 9.2 million, according to the federal government. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

Fuzzy Math Over Employment Numbers and Saved Jobs

Matt Apuzzo of The Associated Press made a point yesterday I've been stating for months about job creation and how the Obama administration is counting employment in the United States.

THE WHITE HOUSE SAID: The stimulus has created or saved 150,000 jobs.

THE FACTS: Since February, the nation has lost more than 1.3 million jobs, according to the Department of Labor. To make the case that the country created jobs over that same stretch, the White House has put forward a benchmark of jobs created "or saved." The argument is that the job numbers would have been even worse had it not been for the stimulus, and the difference between those numbers is a net positive.

To visualize that disconnect, consider this: The administration has promised to create or save 600,000 more jobs in the next 100 days. Even if the nation loses another 5 million jobs during that span (a highly unlikely prospect) the White House could still claim success.

There are few hard numbers when it comes to tracking stimulus jobs. The Obama administration numbers are based on estimates by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, based largely on a formula Obama's transition team put forward. It estimates the effect of tax breaks, government spending and social programs on job growth.

Spending money will put people to work. But spending has a cost. At some point, Washington will have to pay for this program, either by raising taxes or interest rates, and those policies typically hurt job growth. The Obama administration's job data do not take into consideration this back-end cost, an omission some economists, particularly conservative economists, say is a flaw in the analysis.

The argument of "saved jobs" is arbitrary at best, and is only being used to claim a political victory by the White House. It's impossible to quantify, and suddenly appeared in the president's language only after the campaign. What we ought to be counting is the net jobs. Is the economy continuing to shrink? Or is it expanding?

Barack Obama promised 5 million green jobs alone during the campaign. How are we doing on that? PolitFact has an answer.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the economic stimulus, includes nearly $17 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy, including $5 billion to weatherize low-income homes; $3.1 billion for state energy programs; $2 billion for advanced battery manufacturing grants to encourage production of plug-in hybrid and electric cars; and $3.2 billion for energy efficiency and conservation block grants.

There's also $6 billion in the stimulus to modernize the nation's electricity grid; as well as hundreds of millions for research into renewable energy technologies like biomass and geothermal.

And it includes more than $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy investors. Together with renewable tax credits, the White House estimates that will result in $100 billion in private investment in renewable energy projects.
... It's too early to say how many green jobs all of this will translate into. Suffice to say a lot. Five million? Time will tell.

This is what his administration needs to quantify, not an obscure figure of saved jobs. It's early in his term, and I'm sure the number of green jobs created is still low. But if he focused on reporting tangible results, it would be hard for the right to refute him.