Orrin Hatch Seeks To Jump Start The Drug Testing Industry

Who says that Republicans are the "Party of No?" No longer can we claim that all the GOP does is block meaningful reform and access to health care and legislation that denies people from being helped back to work. Senator Orrin Hatch, a long-time conservative Senator from Utah has an idea to spur at least one American industry back into action.

From The Huffington Post:

Utah voters have reacted enthusiastically to Sen. Orrin Hatch's legislation to drug test the unemployed and those receiving other forms of government cash assistance, the Utah Republican told the Huffington Post after introducing his measure last week.

"A lot of people are saying, 'Hey, it's about time. Why do we keep giving money to people who are going to go use it on drugs instead of their families?'" Hatch said.

The goal, he said, is to get users into treatment.

What this has to do with anything, no one really knows. So far his Republican colleagues have wisely stayed away from making comments. Democrats have called the idea punitive and pointless.

Senator Hatch though, says that people love his idea. Whether or not he can back that assertion up is another matter of course.

What Hatch is really up to (besides revitalizing the drug testing industry) is trying to score political points by milking the "let's beat up on the poor" card that conservatives have loved to do since Reagan made it popular. Social policy experts however, can point to several examples where programs like this have been tried and quickly failed to make any real difference. Not that that matters to Orrin, he's just trying to get his own welfare....corporate campaign cash that is.

Unemployment Keeps Climbing

Wall Street may be hopeful because we only lost 539,000 jobs in April (though the number will probably be revised upward in a week or so) but for those people and the 5.7 million who are already out of a job due to this recession there is no reason to celebrate. We are now at our worst levels of unemployment since 1983 and there is no reason to doubt that we'll be surpassing the bad times of the early 1980s.

Unemployment Numbers Released Today Minimize The Problem By Half

The headlines this morning, even on the Huffington Post screamed about unemployment jumping 0.4% to 7.6%. These numbers haven't been seen in thirty-five years, but it is far from the reality of the actual problem we face. Unemployment in this country is a serious problem that continues to get worse, but that single digit number so many people see on their newsreaders is far from accurate. It is only one data point among five others that the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses to gauge unemployment. Their most comprehensive number, the U6, is actually at 13.9% and not even that gets the clearest snapshot of what is going on.

From DailyKos:

But even the U6 figure undercounts, according to other observers, including John Williams, who runs the subscription-only electronic newsletter Shadowstats.com. Williams hasn't yet posted his January calculations, but last month he put the jobless rate at 16.5 percent -- more than double the official rate. His figures include unemployed workers who have been left out of the overall count since "discouraged workers" were dropped during the administration of Lyndon Johnson and other downward adjustments were made in 1994. Those changes mean the official rate can't be fairly compared with the official rate in the 1980s, much less the 1930s.

Last month, Williams told Reuters: "I expect that unemployment in the current downturn, which will be particularly deep and protracted, eventually will rival, if not top, the 25 percent seen in the Great Depression."

According to increases reported at the BLS, Williams' number could be at or above 17%. A much more ominous report than 7.6 percent. The traditional media is trying to coat the story with the thickest amount of sugar as they can. While the media networks must address the seriousness of the problem, no one wants to make comparisons to the Great Depression. However, the American people are feeling the effects of this downturn, no matter what official number is touted.

What it all means is that we need a real, solid stimulus bill to be signed by President Obama as soon as possible. What a shame that Republicans and some conservative Democrats are being allowed to dilute the bill, when what it really needs is to be strengthened.

NY Unemployment Outpaces The Nation

It is only by two-tenths of a percent, but New York's unemployment numbers were broken down and found to be higher than the national average (U3 numbers that is). I guess it isn't too surprising, especially with that infamous street downtown that's been hemorrhaging jobs but still full of greed. Like all previous news on NY's economy since September, it's just bad out there.

From The Gothamist:

Guess NY State will be borrowing unemployment funds for a while: New York City's unemployment rate rose to 7.4% in December, up from 6.3% in November. According to Crain's, this is the highest in almost five years and it's over the national unemployment rate, which is 7.2%. The NY State unemployment rate grew from 6% to 7% in December, with the state losing 49,300 jobs last month in December. The NY State Labor Department said, "In just the last three months, the state has lost more than 100,000 private sector jobs, including 49,300 in December 2008. This is the steepest one-month drop since October 2001 in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks." Another NYC stat from the NYS Labor Dept.: "Since December 2007, the number of nonfarm jobs has decreased by 53,600, or 1.4 percent, and the number of private sector jobs has decreased by 49,100, or 1.5 percent."

And what makes all those big numbers worse is how we've handled the crisis so far. Thanks to Congress' unwillingness to put strings attached to the TARP money, Bushies allowed $4 billion of it to be paid out as bonuses to Merrill Lynch execs before Bank of America bought them out. That is four billion dollars gone to those that do not need it, four billion that could have helped families with nothing, or gone into this state right here with a $15 billion dollar budget gap. So many good uses are gone because the wealthy financial sector was able to feed their greed with money meant to help restart the economy.

I know President Obama has been making a lot of changes so far, but I hope this dynamic between the rich and poor gets metted out sooner than later.

NY Struggles To Help The Unemployed, Borrowing From Feds To Keep Going

Unless you're living in a cave (or an ivory tower) it is hard to escape knowing how bad things are in these times. The economy is suffering like no other, thanks to the greed and mismanagement of those in the elite, coupled with the outrageous lending practices that they encouraged among everyone else.

Here in New York, like all the other states of our union, Americans are joining the ranks of the unemployed at an alarming rate. The latest numbers showed a U3 rate above 7%, while the combined rate of the underemployed is way above 13%. The government only pays benefits to laid off workers for six months (and for some in these times, nearly a year) but the addition of so many pink-slip laden workers has overwhelmed New York.

From The NY Times:

New York State’s unemployment insurance system, besieged by claims from laid-off workers, ran out of money on the first business day of the year and is borrowing daily from the federal government to bridge a fast-growing and potentially huge deficit, state labor officials say.

Despite paying lower benefits to its jobless residents than other Northeastern states, the state’s unemployment fund has been borrowing about $90 million a week from the federal unemployment trust fund, state officials said. The deficit has already reached $212 million and is expected to exceed $2.5 billion by the end of 2010, they said.

State officials say that the deficit does not threaten the continued payment of benefits.

But the loans could wind up costing the state’s unemployment fund more than $100 million in interest and could result in a punitive tax on all employers across the state two years from now, state officials and experts on the unemployment insurance system said.

Not only are times troubling for those out of work, but the state's system to handle the problem as well. Legislators should see this failure as an opportunity to rebuild a process that will stand up to the challenges we face. For too long the burden of maintaining our society has been slowly shifted onto the middle class. While we all must share in getting through these times, it is only fair that the wealthy among us do the same. If we are to have corporate welfare, there must at least be an equal amount of welfare for the rest of us, or else, eventually something will have to give.

50,000 In New York Alone

Let's face it, things are terrible out there. As we begin a new year, the employment picture hasn't looked this bleak since...well officially 1993 by way of the U3 statistics put out by the Department of Labor. However, when the numbers are closely examined and underemployment is added into the mix along with those that have disappeared from the unemployment rolls, that number, the U6, is at 13.5%. That's a far cry from the already dismal 7.2% figure that are more frequently mentioned.

Now granted, the government is trying to help to some degree. Many of the recently unemployed were given an extension in their benefits, stretched out from 26 weeks to 46 weeks. All those that were a part of that increase to the term of unemployment benefits got a reprieve from having no income whatsoever. The hope is that you find a job in those twenty extra weeks. The problem is, there is no work out there and jobs are vanishing as we speak. Just here in New York, 50,000 of those beneficiaries are about to disappear from the system.

From The NY Times:

About 50,000 New Yorkers who had been collecting unemployment checks for 11 months — the longest stretch that benefits have been available since the last recession eight years ago — will stop receiving weekly payments this week, according to the State Labor Department.[...]

This will be the first time since the early 1990s that workers are exhausting benefits that have been extended twice because of an economic downturn. The inability of those people to find work after so many months provides a stark reminder of the weakness of the job market, officials and experts say.

So now they'll have to look for work without that help, or go on welfare. For New York as a whole, it means that the unemployment numbers will go down because so many will disappear from the U3 numbers. What needs to happen is to change the way we measure unemployment in the state and the nation. We can not truly work on the problem of putting people to work if we don't know who they all are.

Unemployment Skyrockets To 7.2%, Err I Mean 13.5%

The Department of Labor released their ominous report today showing the unemployment rate (not including the underemployment and non-reported unemployed, where the rate is now 13.5%) to have jumped 0.4% last month to a sixteen year high of 7.2%. More than half a million jobs were lost in December and 2.6 million overall last year. As Bush exits, he leaves a devastating trail of economic ruin that the new President must try and clean up.

From The NY Times:

The unemployment rate jumped to 7.2 percent in December from 6.8 percent in November and 5 percent last April, when the recession was four months old and just beginning to bite. More than 11 million Americans are now unemployed, and their growing ranks seem likely to put pressure on President-elect Barack Obama and Congress to act quickly on a stimulus package that mixes tax cuts and public spending.

“These numbers, back to back, of more than a half million a month suggest that the U.S. economy is in a freefall,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight. “It’s scary, and it indicates that unless something is done and done quickly to turn this economy around, we’re looking at an awful situation this year.”

The 7.2 percent was the highest unemployment rate since January 1993, when the country was still shaking off a jobless recovery from the 1990-91 recession. The loss in total jobs for 2008 was the largest since 1945.

And there is no sign of it stopping anytime soon. David A. Levy, chairman of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center thinks we are looking at a 9% unemployment rate by the end of this year. The numbers sorted by state aren't out yet, but one can assume things are looking extremely off in the Empire State. Wall Street is the epicenter of this debacle and economists know that the worst effects are felt here before they reverberate across the country.

This means that not only does Barack Obama have his hands full, so does our Governor, State Assembly and Senate. Now more than ever, we need drastic change in the way New York does business, and sugar taxes aren't going to cut it. We need to have true shared sacrifice in this state, and that starts at the top, with a truly progressive income tax. Get to it Governor....get to it Shelly Silver...get to it Malcolm Smith!

Job Losses Are Accelerating As The Holidays Approach

The Grinch is certainly getting his way as literally millions of workers are losing their jobs in just the last few months. Times are terrible all over the country and despite what people try to do on their own, the overall economy is suffocating people.

As Bush Gets Ready To Leave, Unemployment At Its Worst In 14 Years

George Bush cannot leave office soon enough, but the problems caused by his disastrous Administration will be felt for some time to come. After eight years of a radical conservative agenda, the economy is in the tank thanks to the unadulterated greed that he helped foster. Due to that, we are seeing some of the worst unemployment numbers since the beginning of Clinton's term when he started to fix Poppa Bush's mess.

From TPM:

The jobless rate zoomed to 6.5 percent in October from 6.1 percent in September, matching the rate in March 1994. Employers have cut jobs each month this year.

Unemployment has now surpassed the high seen after the last recession in 2001. The jobless rate peaked at 6.3 percent in June 2003.

Employers got rid of 240,000 jobs in October, marking the 10th straight month of payroll reductions.

Job losses in August and September turned out to be much deeper. Employers cut 127,000 positions in August, compared with 73,000 previously reported. A whopping 284,000 jobs were axed last month, compared with the 159,000 jobs first reported.

So far this year, a staggering 1.2 million jobs have disappeared.

While many Republicans have believed that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong, thankfully the majority of America saw otherwise. In two and half months we will have a President that can and most importantly wants to address the problems in our economic system. Nevertheless, it seems that things are going to get worse before they get better.

Jobless Rate At It's Worst In Six Years

John McCain and George Bush are happy with the current economical climate, saying that economy is structurally sound. Despite his attempt at getting everyone to look at the world through rose-colored glasses, the reality for many Americans is not as cheery as it is for the President and others that are as ridiculously wealthy as he is. In fact, it is getting worse by the day.

From CNBC:

The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for unemployment insurance rose by a seasonally adjusted 7,000 to 455,000 for the week ending Aug. 2. The increase left claims at their highest level since late March 2002.[...]

Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out weekly fluctuations, rose to 419,500 last week, the highest since mid-July 2003.

The number of people continuing to collect unemployment benefits went up by 31,000 to 3.3 million for the week ending July 26, the most recent period for which that information is available. That was the highest since early December 2003.

With less than six months to go in his term, George could care less about the millions who are unemployed and the millions more who are under-employed. He's off to Beijing to watch the Olympics, giving a bit more credibility to the Chinese government, which is another sad excuse for a government. At least they admit to torture though, so, um, I guess that's better than us trying to hide it in unobstructed daylight?

Anyways, John McCain has less than three months before Barack Obama humiliates him at the polls. He is still signed on to Bush's economic policies and still relies on the advice of Phil Gramm, a man who thinks we should all quit whining about our economy. So as long as he sticks to that failed vision, Obama will be our next President, and help lead us from our troubled economic times caused by the last eight years of ineptitude.

Sec'y Chao: Lazy Young'ins Causing High Unemployment

Government officials say the darndest things and when you are a Cabinet Secretary in the Bush Administration, that goes double. Idiotic moron Secretary Elaine Chao told the press yesterday that the giant leap in unemployment numbers has nothing to do with Bush's failure of a Presidency, horrific foreign policy or environmental record. Instead, it's those damn kids fault.

From ThinkProgress:

According to new Department of Labor data released today, the U.S. unemployment rate rose from 5.0 to 5.5 percent in May, which was higher than the expected 0.1 percent jobless rate increase. It was also the largest jump in unemployment since 1986. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao put out a statement today, attempting to explain the jump. Her answer? Blame America’s youth:

Today’s increase in the unemployment rate reflects the fact that unusually large numbers of students and graduates are entering the labor market.

Chao is just trying to hide bad news. These unemployment numbers are not good, nor are they normal. As Center for American Progress Director of the American Worker Project David Madland told ThinkProgress, unemployment isn’t just for young people:

The unemployment rate for prime-working age adults – people from 25 to 54 – also increased in May, rising from 4.2 percent to 4.4 percent. In addition, the share of this age group that was employed fell slightly from 79.6 percent to 79.5 percent.

Similarly, Jared Bernstein at EPI noted that “even if we take teenagers out of the data, unemployment still rises from 4.5% to 4.8%, a considerable 0.3% increase, and well above the 4.0% adult rate of one year ago.”

Elaine Chao, like her boss is running out of excuses and this one is just pathetic. If she were more competent, both as a Cabinet member and a caring human being, creating a stronger labor force would have fought back against the demands of Corporate America to exploit as many workers as possible. Also, since this is Chao's Labor Department, who knows if the numbers in the study actually reflect the true scope of the problem?

No One Wants To Hire ex-Atty Gen Gonzales

It has been a few months since Alberto Gonzales stepped down amid heavy public pressure. You know things are bad when Mr. George "Loyalty-first" Bush lets one of his cabinet members go. Even though he wasn't impeached for his crimes by a Congress still looking for its spine, it seems that karma has a way of getting around to everyone.

From The NY Times:

WASHINGTON — Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.

He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.

A longtime loyalist to George W. Bush dating to their years together in Texas, Mr. Gonzales was once widely viewed as a strong candidate to be the first Hispanic-American nominated one day to the Supreme Court. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he carried an impressive personal story as the child of poor Mexican immigrants.

Impressive personal story aside, Mr. Gonzales decided to sell his soul to make it to the big leagues under George Bush. He helped to push for torture, spying on Americans and many, many other illegal or illicit items against either U.S. citizens or people around the world affected by the Bush Administration. Unlike living inside the bubble of the White House, now he must deal with the real world and many in it see him for the scoundrel he is. No attorney in his or her right mind would add an award-winning ex-Attorney General to their firm.