tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73175156590005483972024-03-13T04:19:10.504-07:00You're Hired ... NOT!A resource of news, opinion and occasional gallows humor meant to reassure the more than 1 in 6 jobless or underemployed Americans that, no, they're not crazy - the world is.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317515659000548397.post-86862853918113629812012-10-25T07:47:00.000-07:002012-10-25T15:22:45.093-07:00Healthcare one of biggest casualties among children of the Great Recession<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Much <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">– </span>but not enough <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">–</span> attention has been paid to the devastating emotional, financial and professional
effects the Great Recession has had on working adults. But what about the
children of the longest and most severe economic calamity since the Great Depression? How have they fared?</span><br />
<div style="margin: 12.75pt 0in 0in; outline: 0px none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">"Members
of this shadow generation have already started out their young-adult lives with
a distinct disadvantage, especially if their parents did not have a college
degree or were already struggling to stay within striking distance of the
middle class," the <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/workforce/what-happens-to-the-children-of-the-unemployed--20121012" target="_blank"><i>National Journal</i> recently reported</a>. "Children
of the unemployed are 15% more likely to repeat a grade than their peers whose
parents held on to stable jobs, a 2009 study by Stevens and economist Jessamyn
Schaller found. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 12.75pt 0in 0in; outline: 0px none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">"Worse,
their families may never recover financially; even 15 to 20 years later, losing
a job can translate in to as much as $140,000 less in lifetime wages, according to
a 2009 paper by economists Till Marco von Wachter, Jae Song, and Joyce
Manchester. For many families, a job loss also nudges them into poverty. From
August 2008 to August 2009, <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2010/01/04-child-poverty-isaacs" target="_blank">The Brookings Institution reports</a> that the number of children on
food stamps jumped by 3.4 million."</span></div>
<div style="margin: 12.75pt 0in 0in; outline: 0px none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Besides the financial strains and emotional trauma these children often face, they
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">also </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">frequently encounter health risks, fueled by a lack of medical insurance. This has been especially true in my home state of Nevada, according
to a <a href="http://ccf.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Uninsured-Children-2009-2011.pdf" target="_blank">new report by the Georgetown University Health Policy
Institute's Center for Children and Families</a>. And in the Silver State, an alarming percentage of children under 18 have no health insurance coverage.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 12.75pt 0in 0in; outline: 0px none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<h3>
</h3>
<h2>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Another Dubious Distinction for Nevada: #1 in Uninsured Children</span></h2>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;"> </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">“We
know for a fact that insurance status is a very strong predictor of health,”
Glen Stream, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians (but who
was not affiliated with the Georgetown study), <i><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/01/doctor-visits-decline/1605987/" target="_blank">told USA Today</a> </i>earlier this month. “If you have
coverage, you’re going to be healthier because you have access to medical
services.”</span></div>
<div style="outline: 0px none;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Already
tops in </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">foreclosures, personal
bankruptcies</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;"> and unemployment among major U.S. metro areas, Nevada also leads the nation in the percentage of uninsured
children: 16%.2 in 2011, well above the national average of
7.5%, and substantially worse than the 13.2% in<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>No. 2 Texas, the
Georgetown study found.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHwpYJSBJSe0GU_U3OCP2ocVrWuD41T7OGfYOR0FAooNFR8u4mEz10titEaU6u0tF6d6BydCoLBV0OEQ1C7AyOpCDGVHMlqSNopJ1GrM_kDRT1zxPuYy2B-0dbOMJZR2xPpKZKklmi3A/s1600/UninsuredKids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHwpYJSBJSe0GU_U3OCP2ocVrWuD41T7OGfYOR0FAooNFR8u4mEz10titEaU6u0tF6d6BydCoLBV0OEQ1C7AyOpCDGVHMlqSNopJ1GrM_kDRT1zxPuYy2B-0dbOMJZR2xPpKZKklmi3A/s320/UninsuredKids.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Nevada
has never had an enviable record when it comes to insuring its youngsters (or providing for its children across many other important parameters, even
during the state’s boom days). And the startling increase detailed above was
in part fueled by the state’s stubbornly high jobless rate,
a national phenomenon during the recession that has trapped many children's parents.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Lack of outreach is the culprit</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Another
contributing factor, however, is even more insidious and regrettable, the leader of a Nevada
child advocacy organization told the <i>Las Vegas Review Journal</i>. Fewer
Nevada children have health insurance coverage not so much because of less availability of public
programs, but because the state cut back on funding to communicate with eligible
families about available benefits, <a href="http://www.lvrj.com/business/nevada-kids-uninsured-rate-growing-175753661.html" target="_blank">Denise Tanata-Ashby, executive director of the Nevada
Children's Advocacy Alliance, told the <i>R-J</i></a>. State officials curbed
efforts to obtain money earmarked for outreach efforts because reaching more
families would have further swelled the state Medicaid rolls during the
recession. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">The lack of outreach drove the number of kids enrolled in <a href="http://nevadacheckup.nv.gov/" target="_blank">Nevada Check Up</a>, the
state program for low-income families, from nearly 30,000 in June 2007 to
fewer than 21,500 in 2011, the Georgetown study reported. </span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Rs0VDdkhI2iXjYBleDE8U5okhW5SqdonXDmQWtmbWb3sGdyDt51UTKWjwPavE7JhLfSIvDoTdWqHw6QFuyc1-3hUZ2gqkaeJiGUgWS906y_D-yaxhoswbHgXUgtIUwrYsODy3AFZkQ/s1600/bilde.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Rs0VDdkhI2iXjYBleDE8U5okhW5SqdonXDmQWtmbWb3sGdyDt51UTKWjwPavE7JhLfSIvDoTdWqHw6QFuyc1-3hUZ2gqkaeJiGUgWS906y_D-yaxhoswbHgXUgtIUwrYsODy3AFZkQ/s320/bilde.jpg" width="262" /></a></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Tanata-Ashby
told the <i>R-J</i> that the state must do
two things to help to reverse this disturbing trend.</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">First, Nevada needs to aggressively
compete for federal grants available to underwrite outreach and application
assistance for eligible families.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Second,
the state should fully support Medicaid expansion under the federal Affordable Care
Act. Doing so will provide coverage to an additional 25,000 parents of
low-income children, according to state Department of Health and Human Services
figures cited in the <i>R-J</i> article. </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">That coverage, in turn, would link thousands more children to public health insurance. Unfortunately, a spokeswoman for Gov. Brian Sandoval told the <i>R-J </i>that he had not yet decided whether to expand Medicaid in the state.</span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">I’ll
tackle other serious obstacles kids of long-term unemployed parents face in
a post later this week. However, not linking poor children to available health
care just so the state can suppress its Medicaid rolls is one of the most deplorable.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Advance Publications, owner of the 175-year-old, Pulitzer Prize-winning <i>Times-Picayune, </i>announced May 24 that beginning Oct. 1, it will cease being a daily newspaper and publish only three times a week, making New Orleans the largest U.S. city without a daily newspaper. Three weeks later, management cut the staff by one-third - including slashing its newsroom staff by almost one-half - and said its emphasis going forward would be on its clunky and sometimes-impenetrable website, Nola.com.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">What
happened the first time the <i>Picayune</i>, one of the predecessors of today's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Times-Picayune</i> felt pressure to cut
publication to three days a week? </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Professor
Emeritus Larry Lorenz of the School of Mass Communication at Loyola University in New
Orleans, </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">cited this passage from T.E. Dabney's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One Hundred Great Years: The
Story of the Times-Picayune From its Founding to 1940: </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>"Within
three months of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Picayune</i>'s
founding in January 1837, a financial panic swept the country. In New Orleans,
as elsewhere, businesses failed. Banks that had advanced money against the
cotton crop suspended. In April, arsonists started fires throughout the city in
order to plunder homes and businesses. In September came a yellow fever
epidemic, and among those stricken were the <i>Picayune</i>'s printers, and in late
September, George Kendall, a co-founder of the paper, fell ill with the fever. <br /><br />
"Some of the city's five well-established dailies dropped to tri-weekly publication. The </b>
<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Picayune</i> did not miss an
issue." </b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">The blunders and PR disasters </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">at <i>The Times-Picayune </i>keep piling up like garbage in the French Quarter on Mardi Gras.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2DAKFZGDnZNyFBLdNWC6NbtrioBt0yQ4CXALCK4ON305z2oc0mWlCa1sNAhGcSUkJ3Ciag88AOKCbAvhlz0INkKZ2V15PGv9hjDXz6T7moyFxUR6bjYpDIaWNBuXa9pDCmy_S7lsgSw/s1600/PaperLaysff200_FrontPageOnGrass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2DAKFZGDnZNyFBLdNWC6NbtrioBt0yQ4CXALCK4ON305z2oc0mWlCa1sNAhGcSUkJ3Ciag88AOKCbAvhlz0INkKZ2V15PGv9hjDXz6T7moyFxUR6bjYpDIaWNBuXa9pDCmy_S7lsgSw/s320/PaperLaysff200_FrontPageOnGrass.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>T-P</i> owner Advance Publications may think it doesn't need copy editors, but whomever is running the newspaper's HR operations since the entire HR team was sacked last Tuesday (along with nearly 200 other colleagues) definitely does. Three new job postings by NOLA Media Group refer to "MLive," Advance's disastrous Michigan operations, while another refers to the desirability of "past experience with Georgia sports." (Does that mean that while <i>The Times-Picayune</i> just cut its Washington, D.C. bureau in half, it's planning to open a Georgia bureau?)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">You can find the job descriptions by keyword searching "MLive" and "George sports" on the <a href="http://jobs.nola.com/jobs/results/keyword/georgia-sports?radius=0&sort=score+desc&rows=20">NOLA.com's local jobs page</a>. If someone has corrected the four ads by the time you see this, shoot an email to <a href="mailto:rebecca@rebeccatheim.com">rebecca@rebeccatheim.com</a> and I will forward screen grabs.</span></div>
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</script></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317515659000548397.post-51457457593219789092012-06-11T12:54:00.000-07:002012-06-11T15:46:34.379-07:00“Lou Grant” Joins the New Orleans Times-Picayune Battle<script type="text/javascript">
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<h3 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;"></span></span></h3>
<h3 align="center" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="messagebody"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Actor Ed Asner Sends Message of Support to Newspaper’s Staff</span></i></span></span></h3>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I’ve been wanting to write about the incredibly sad news coming out of my former employer, <i>The Times-Picayune</i> of New Orleans, and the battle the community is waging over a planned steep cut in the newspaper’s already reduced staff and a reduction of </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">its print publishing schedule to three days a week.</span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0WQlDr6qM1k4wqW6quyTUqg4GSbByZrwT8i1tiqAWt0WPYSJoR_B3XLXPh3Rydm_BuZiIo9_B5QI_JO_f78ZeBCTpRVMVcFel8cUwRdOnTYiGpSnaIyV_PcqFU5GKD0mkOrD-CpX2XA/s1600/Lou+Grant+Flier+-+Robust+Website.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></h6>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6wJcL9clkCmVZVy5OzR5snqvJuTzBhFojzvi3cZFH5WWrmV_J7xTz_E4ZJjuQu1ZkImGGTiP7-fnQFmFQuWaDIgURaOWp4MYQ_f5rtdDLde2lgbHoYWxQr_DI0ISnsGY7hxME3SJJuQ/s1600/Lou+Grant+Flier+-+Robust+Website-cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6wJcL9clkCmVZVy5OzR5snqvJuTzBhFojzvi3cZFH5WWrmV_J7xTz_E4ZJjuQu1ZkImGGTiP7-fnQFmFQuWaDIgURaOWp4MYQ_f5rtdDLde2lgbHoYWxQr_DI0ISnsGY7hxME3SJJuQ/s400/Lou+Grant+Flier+-+Robust+Website-cropped.jpg" width="303" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">There are so many reasons why this is such a bad idea, many which are articulated incredibly well in <a href="http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/07/profits-arent-the-only-consideration-for-newspapers/" target="_blank">this article</a> that appeared Friday on Fortune.com. (I list links to other good coverage of this issue at the end of this post.) But the human tragedy is that more people – some of the</span><span class="textexposedshow"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> most generous, most kindhearted people I've ever had the pleasure of working with and knowing – will lose their jobs because the newspaper’s billionaire owners – the Newhouse family and their Advance Publications - need even more money. (Which, they incidentally continue to make in New Orleans because the Picayune remains profitable – apparently just not profitable enough for the Newhouses.)</span></span></span></h6>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Besides being </span><span class="textexposedshow"><span style="font-weight: normal;">generous and kindhearted, many of my fellow workers are also wicked funny </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">– particularly when it comes to satirical parody and gallows humor.</span></span></h6>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Sometime over the weekend, <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/06/10/spotted-in-the-times-picayune-newsroom-lou-grant">fliers began appearing around <i>The Times-Picayune</i> newsroom</a> featuring an iconic image of actor Ed Asner, in character in his seminal TV role as newspaper editor Lou Grant. Drawing from the <a href="http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2012/05/nolamediagroup.html">convoluted corporate-speak</a> <i>Times-Picayune</i> and Advance management used in announcing the looming changes, the images featured such captions as:</span></span></h6>
<ul style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin-top: 0in;" type="square">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">“What the hell is an ‘enhanced’ newspaper?”</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">“What the hell is a ‘robust’ website anyway?”</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span dir="LTR">“How exactly do we do more with less?”</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span dir="LTR">“Fewer ad dollars, huh? What about a paywall?”</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span dir="LTR">“A 3-day-a-week newspaper in New Orleans? When did Ted Baxter become an executive at Advance Publications?”</span></span></li>
</ul>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;">News of the fliers prompted New Orleans writer <a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=719804984" target="_blank">Michael Tisserand</a> to reach out to Asner, in hopes that the famously activist-minded and big-hearted actor might offer some words of support and/or wisdom to the troops in the New Orleans. Tisserand, who’s been involved in the grassroots community effort to preserve the <i>Picayune</i> as a daily newspaper, contacted Asner’s assistant through Asner’s Studio, City, Calif. </span></span><span style="color: black; font-weight: normal;">Quince Productions, Inc. </span><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;">and included select links to coverage of happenings in NOLA, including the Lou Grant-inspired fliers. </span></span></span></h6>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Less than an hour later, Tisserand received the following message, directed "To the employees of the Times-Picayune:”</span></span></span></h6>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;">“I've been on strike and I've always identified with the working press, knowing they're not fat cats and knowing job security is zilch. Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one. I identify totally with your plight and hope that a decent resolution may be arrived at!</span></span></span></i></h6>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Sincerely,</span></span></span></i></h6>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Ed Asner"</span></span></span></i></h6>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<u><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span></span></b></span></u></h6>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><b><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Other Coverage of Interest</span></span></b></u></span></h6>
<h6 style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span><i><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></i></span></h6>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><a href="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/new-orleans-paper-said-to-face-deep-cuts-and-may-cut-back-on-publication/" target="_blank">New Orleans Paper Said to Face Deep Cuts and May Cut Back
Publication</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/05/24/times-picayune-employees-in-shock-tonight-as-extent-of-newhouse-cuts-begins-to-emerge"><i>Times-Picayune</i>
employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><a href="http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/07/profits-arent-the-only-consideration-for-newspapers/" target="_blank">Profits aren't the only consideration for newspapers</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/06/04/times-picayune-citizens-group-issues-letter-of-civic-and-business-support-for-the-paper" target="_blank">"<i>Times-Picayune</i> Citizens' Group" issues letter
of civic and business support for the paper</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/business/media/the-times-picayune-new-orleans-and-a-doomed-romance.html">A
Doomed Romance With a New Orleans Newspaper</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="AR-SA"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/06/04/save-the-picayune-rally-draws-hundreds">"Save
the Picayune" rally draws hundreds</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><a href="http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_sometimes_picayune.php" target="_blank">The Sometimes Picayune</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2012/06/05/the-great-newspaper-liquidation/" target="_blank">The great newspaper liquidation</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/168330/rolling-dice-times-picayune" target="_blank">Rolling the dice at <i>The Times-Picayune</i></a></span><br />
<br />
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<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><div style="text-align: right;"></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJxCGct6DYklDfk8zekp4erGLXuUh_Yle5CZ2CoxtyeTU8EgaPv9E_EClXT74REL5aYWDSTvL-c7uhX3sfFBe2dAlIvcQhgtknjmWvBY3tUi_NdF6NDfMqYJCZiG1_VdXfDN6dYT-3bg/s1600/unemployment+ofc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJxCGct6DYklDfk8zekp4erGLXuUh_Yle5CZ2CoxtyeTU8EgaPv9E_EClXT74REL5aYWDSTvL-c7uhX3sfFBe2dAlIvcQhgtknjmWvBY3tUi_NdF6NDfMqYJCZiG1_VdXfDN6dYT-3bg/s400/unemployment+ofc.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">The Great Recession cost the U.S. labor market 8.4 million jobs, or 6.1% of total payroll employment – “the most dramatic employment contraction of any recession since the Great Depression,” according to <i><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://stateofworkingamerica.org/great-recession/"><i>The State of Working America</i></a>, an annual publication of the </span></i>Economic Policy Institute, a<i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Washington, D.C. think tank</span></i><i>.</i></span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Even after the recession technically ended in the summer of 2009, the economy’s growth has been so weak that the number of jobs created hasn’t even kept pace with population growth, much less helped to clear the backlog of jobs lost during the devastating downturn. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now comes the news that not only are U.S. workers more vulnerable than workers in other rich, industrialized democracies when it comes to factors that measure employment stability, they also receive, on average, a paltry 27.5% of their previous pay in unemployment benefits. That percentage places the United States 31<sup>st</sup> among 91 countries recently ranked for an <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2011/wp11154.pdf">International Monetary Fund working paper</a>.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">A list of the top 51 countries is available on the blog “<a href="http://euwelfarestates.blogspot.com/2012/04/world-ranking-in-unemployment-benefit.html">European Welfare States</a>,” but below is the Top 10 and how the United States stacks up against them:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div align="center" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: medium none;"><tbody>
<tr> <td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Rank</b></span></div></td> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: windowtext windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-width: 1pt 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Country</b></span></div></td> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: windowtext windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-width: 1pt 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>% of pay replaced by UI</b></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">1</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Netherlands</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">71.0%</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">2</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Switzerland</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">68.7%</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">3</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sweden</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">68.5%</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">4</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Portugal</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">65.0%</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">5</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Spain</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">63.5%</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">6</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Norway</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">62.0%</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">7</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Algeria</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">61.2%</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">8</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Taiwan</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">68.0%</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">9</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ukraine</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">56.9%</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">10</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Italy</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">52.7%</span></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="-moz-border-bottom-colors: none; -moz-border-image: none; -moz-border-left-colors: none; -moz-border-right-colors: none; -moz-border-top-colors: none; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; border-right: 1pt solid windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 0.7in;" valign="top" width="67"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>31</b></span></div></td> <td style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 85.5pt;" valign="top" width="114"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>USA</b></span></div></td> <td style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; text-align: right; width: 112.5pt;" valign="top" width="150"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>27.5%</b></span></div></td> </tr>
</tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Not only that, but the United States falls behind 13 other countries not widely regarded as leading world countries – including Algeria, Taiwan, and Ukraine – all of which provide at least double the percentage </span><span style="font-size: large;">of pay replaced by unemployment benefits </span><span style="font-size: large;">of America, according to <a href="http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/04/guest-post-us-has-18th-best.html#more">political science professor and author Kenneth Thomas</a>. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><h2><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Longer Recoveries = Longer Dependence on UI Benefits</b></span></h2></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">As mentioned above, the recovery from the Great Recession has been excruciatingly long, much longer than of any economic downturn since the Great Depression. For example, in October 2010, 16 months after the official end of the recession, the economy still had 5.4% fewer jobs than it did before the recession started, <a href="http://stateofworkingamerica.org/great-recession/">according to the EPI</a>. Contrast that to the average of 10 months it took for jobs to be restored following post-World War II recessions that occurred before the early 1990s. (After the early 1990s recession, that span grew to two years, while it took three-and-one-half years to recover jobs lost during the 2000-01 recession.)</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Thus, the Great Recession has brought the worst of both worlds: extraordinarily severe job loss, combined with an extremely sluggish recovery,” the EPI concluded.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Another way of looking at the situation is that more Americans have depended on unemployment benefits for a longer period of time in the aftermath of the Great Recession than at any time since the benefit was created in 1935. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Not only are these benefits important to individual recipients, but they also serve to stabilize the overall economy by providing the unemployed with money they spend on goods and services they’d otherwise stop buying because of the loss of their pay checks, Tim Vlandas, a PhD student at the London School of Economics, <a href="http://euwelfarestates.blogspot.com/2012/04/world-ranking-in-unemployment-benefit.html">noted on the European Welfare States blog</a>. “It also prevents workers from falling into poverty when they lose their jobs,” he added.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">But with American jobless workers receiving only about 28 cents in unemployment benefits for every dollar they earned while working, it’s clear they don’t have the economic wherewithal to help jumpstart – or even sustain – a robust economic recovery.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><h2><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Protections for U.S. Workers Dead-Last Among OECD, BRIC Countries</b></span></h2></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">If that’s not alarming enough, U.S. workers are more vulnerable than any other workers in member countries of the primarily advanced, industrialized democracies that comprise the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or even in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). According to Thomas, <a href="http://middleclasspoliticaleconomist.blogspot.com/2011/09/labor-day-us-has-weakest-employment.html">the United States is dead-last</a> in the 21 measures the OECD uses to determine how well workers' rights are protected, including:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><ul><li style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">being fired unfairly</span></li>
<li style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>not getting severance pay</span></li>
<li style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>getting the least notice on mass layoffs</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span>being relegated to temporary positions.</span></span></li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">“The bottom line is that American workers enjoy the least protection out of all major economies in the world,” <a href="http://middleclasspoliticaleconomist.blogspot.com/2011/09/labor-day-us-has-weakest-employment.html">Thomas writes on his “Middle Class Economist"</a> blog. “Protections against individual firing, collective dismissals, and the ability to get off temporary employment are as weak as they can be.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The original database of the 91 countries, which served as the basis for the <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2011/wp11154.pdf">IMF working paper</a>, can be found by clicking <a href="http://www.frdb.org/language/ita/topic/archivio-dati/dataset/international-data/scheda/IMF-labour-institutions-database">here</a>.</span></div><script type="text/javascript">
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</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxjRJDccw26KDAwwsZYbjzuTKioc0ThWoDB3n3ebXGRn_xlFkZCOJSIJMhECHsKO8zsgHT57J8H6M9kOd_MP05_BtpglwQeE-4-jp2QK2R6cpZppN84y8Zf7CCqPZGOoQcr1hxPoqE0Q/s1600/FedExTruck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxjRJDccw26KDAwwsZYbjzuTKioc0ThWoDB3n3ebXGRn_xlFkZCOJSIJMhECHsKO8zsgHT57J8H6M9kOd_MP05_BtpglwQeE-4-jp2QK2R6cpZppN84y8Zf7CCqPZGOoQcr1hxPoqE0Q/s320/FedExTruck.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">FedEx: Failing to deliver for its drivers?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Sho</span>uld FedEx be able to enjoy all the benefits of having employee drivers, but treat them like independent contractors - leaving those workers with about 30% less in wages, benefits and other worker protections, like unemployment compensation?</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">iWatch News</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">, a project of The Center for Public Integrity, has taken on that topic. </span></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"Employees are eligible for a host of legal benefit and protection programs that governments run and regulate," according to </span><a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/04/02/8565/fedex-fails-deliver-drivers" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">the report</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">, by American University iWatch Fellow </span><a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/authors/amy-biegelsen" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Amy Biegelsen</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">. "Employers must pay into those programs on behalf of 'employees,' but not [on behalf of] 'independent contractors.' </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Businesses have strong incentive to classify employees as contractors - they save about 30% and reduce regulatory exposure, according to the report. But such "misclassification" cause workers "to lose legal rights, governments [to] lose tax revenue, and businesses [to] gain an unfair advantage over competitors who pay the extra costs to treat their workers as employees."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Biegelsen used the example of FedEx driver Gary Terrio, who signed on as a contract driver, thinking that meant he'd control his schedule, route and enjoy other flexible working conditions independent contractors typically do.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">But Terrio was required to be at the FedEx terminal at 6 AM daily, was paid by the delivery, not by the hour, and was docked if a package was late. He had to purchase and insure his own FedEx-approved truck. He also had to pay his entire Medicare and Social Security contributions (which are typically split between an employer and worker when the latter is classified as an employee), and was not eligible for sick, disability or family leave, or unemployment compensation. He also couldn't affix bumper stickers to the truck he had paid for, or run a quick personal errand in it in between deliveries or at the beginning or end of the day. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">All of that expense and aggravation netted him only about $500 a week. “I would have loved to have been just an independent contractor,” he told Biegelsen. Instead, “I felt like an employee.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;">The implications for this shift is far greater than FedEx's workforce because of the sizable and growing number of independent contractors across all U.S. industries and professions.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">In its inaugural annual "Independent Workforce Index," MBO Partners found that there were 16 million independent contractors (what the company calls "career independent workers") in the United States in 2011. By the year 2020, the consultancy predicts that 70 million people - </span><a href="http://www.mbopartners.com/news-events/majority-workforce-will-be-independent-2020" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">more than 50 percent of the private workforce - will be independent</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<table align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiSWeluQyA8agL01F1TvXNsaygDul_6MsURRLbmYpBNo89khkalsM7HkBvtJZDEPXE9RU2x-ePbEFiUK8soyRo4Raxuv9DigWDvQsAyglpQX68TTZV5KBkxGOakWGVja8lPyoPN1N1JA/s320/yahoo-headquarters.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Yahoo! Headquarters in Sunnyvale, California</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson - who joined the company in January with a guaranteed $27 million annual compensation package set to increase by at least $1 million annually - has announced his first big move at the Silicon Valley internet company: he's laying off 2,000 employees, or 14% of the total workforce.</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">This round of cuts comes about three months after Thompson inked his multimillion compensation package. Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney - not exactly someone to regularly call attention to excessive executive pay - pegged the amount as </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://bloom.bg/AfZaLV#ooid=JrODA5MzrF8Vr8n5Sl9qcmQe7jKqUuK7" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"unusually high."</span></a></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Although Thompson promised </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://allthingsd.com/20120404/its-official-yahoo-lays-off-2000-employees/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"a bold, new Yahoo"</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;"> in a written statement this morning, he's resorting to a tired - and not very effective - tactic to try to achieve that goal: this will be the company's </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://bcove.me/sznhps61" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">sixth mass layoff in four years</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">, and the deepest one to-date. He's the third CEO during that time period to unsuccessfully try to grow the company's revenues by slashing jobs:</span></h3>
<ul>
<li><h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">February 2008 - 1,000 jobs (under founder and former CEO Jerry Yang)</span></h3>
</li>
<li><h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">December 2008 - 1,500 jobs (under Yang)</span></h3>
</li>
<li><h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;"><noscript>&amp;lt;a target="_new" href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh%3Dv8/3c4d/3/0/%2a/c%3B255352030%3B0-0%3B0%3B18124211%3B4307-300/250%3B47373843/47389591/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://ncbeach.com/"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;img src="http://s0.2mdn.net/2212511/NAO_120326_CrystalCoastHospitality_300x250.jpg" border="0" alt="" &amp;gt;&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;</noscript><noscript> &amp;lt;a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/mi.nao00/Business;atf=N;dcove=d;pl=story;sect=BWire;pos=1;sz=300x250;tile=3;!c=news;pub=NewsObserver2;ord=998376795361889;gender=;year=;income=?" target="_blank"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/mi.nao00/Business;atf=N;dcove=d;pl=story;sect=BWire;pos=1;sz=300x250;tile=3;!c=news;pub=NewsObserver2;ord=998376795361889;gender=;year=;income=?" border="0" alt="Advertisement"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/a</noscript>April 2009 - 700 jobs (under former CEO Carol Bartz)</span></h3>
</li>
<li><h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">December 2010 - 600 jobs (under Bartz)</span></h3>
</li>
<li><h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">April 2011 - 100 to 150 jobs (under Bartz)</span></h3>
</li>
<li><h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">April 2012 - 2,000 jobs (under Thompson) </span></h3>
</li>
</ul>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjhaUZVzrnEa2Tza2e9DjOVFI0pqJZjveSidWL_0iyOgm1SJlAiYhyphenhyphentMBt_T1-IrIDN51aUDvajQ0Ztd-bl0l_LFniTkZRjN2Q_lvz7zHRuY5AnK0Wd85TlikxxO0kDV-oP52hF0If8A/s1600/Scott_Thompson_446x625-thmb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjhaUZVzrnEa2Tza2e9DjOVFI0pqJZjveSidWL_0iyOgm1SJlAiYhyphenhyphentMBt_T1-IrIDN51aUDvajQ0Ztd-bl0l_LFniTkZRjN2Q_lvz7zHRuY5AnK0Wd85TlikxxO0kDV-oP52hF0If8A/s1600/Scott_Thompson_446x625-thmb.png" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">And the layoffs, which were first reported yesterday by </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://allthingsd.com/20120403/yahoos-layoffs-tomorrow-morning-of-up-to-2000-will-only-be-the-first-move-of-a-larger-purge-to-come/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">AllThingsD</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">, may not be the last: Wednedsday’s round is “just the tip of the proverbial iceberg” and more are to come, the technology website said.</span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Not that Thompson has much to worry about - at </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">least financially - should his grand, albeit not very original, plan not take. If history is any guide, an "exit" from Yahoo! would be softened considerably by a generous golden parachute. Former CEO Bartz left the company in September 2011 with a </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392795,00.asp" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">$14 million severance package after a "murky record, at best</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">" marked by an expletive-laced send-off when the company's board of directors fired her. </span></h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yahoo! reported a net profit of more than $1 billion on revenue of nearly $4.4 billion last year.</span></h3>
<div class="entry-content" id="story_text_remaining">
<div style="color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 10pt/normal sans-serif; height: 1px; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-transform: none; width: 1px;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/04/04/1980558/job-cuts-at-yahoo-6-rounds-of.html#storylink=cpy</span></div>
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cashed out his retirement account and is in the process of selling
off personal possessions so his family can move into more affordable
housing.
</script><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXQRZmDjp2byR0LSROIDnTcBotMbqpiuZYti1zTFqQ8tAK43dCMUC_4LhIcXlqygIOjYc3L1fA9rvlyVCf-2cLr-lahSR4BkXVDTVpJtDOdpyKE1zx3kfQt3h6PU245nFSwRVxmYGHg/s1600/unemployment_benefits_have_expired_sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXQRZmDjp2byR0LSROIDnTcBotMbqpiuZYti1zTFqQ8tAK43dCMUC_4LhIcXlqygIOjYc3L1fA9rvlyVCf-2cLr-lahSR4BkXVDTVpJtDOdpyKE1zx3kfQt3h6PU245nFSwRVxmYGHg/s1600/unemployment_benefits_have_expired_sign.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Cashing out retirement accounts. Selling off personal possessions. Moving in with relatives. Declaring personal bankruptcy.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Those are some of the fates met by victims of the Great Recession who exhaust their unemployment insurance benefits before finding a new job. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Probably because of the especially cruel duration and severity of this economic downturn, the federal and various state governments have decided they want a more complete picture of what happens to people once they come to the end of their available benefits </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">–</span><span style="font-size: large;"> and thereby drop off of </span><span style="font-size: large;">both </span><span style="font-size: large;">the official rolls and count of America's jobless.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/unemployment-benefits_n_1291060.html" target="_blank">The Huffington Post today reports</a> that about one-third of people who run out of benefits eventually do find jobs, while
another third are forced to instead tap into another safety net program. The final third manage to scrape by relying on family members. Those findings came from a new report from the federal <a href="http://1.usa.gov/w97QB4" target="_hplink">Government Accountability Office</a>.
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">"Using the most recent available data, the GAO found that of the 2
million people who lost jobs and ran out of unemployment insurance from
2007 to 2009, only 35% had found work by January 2010," reported The Huffington Post's Arthur Delaney, author of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/a-peoples-history-of-the-_n_943390.html" target="_blank"><i>A People's History of the Great Recession</i></a>. "Eighteen
percent left the workforce and 46% remained totally unemployed
(twice the jobless rate for "exhaustees" before the recession)."</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">But far from the picture painted by any number of Republican office holders and presidential candidates </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">– </span><span style="font-size: large;">who insist that the jobless are lazy bums who want to live off of the public dole </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">– </span><span style="font-size: large;">the GAO found that just 18% received some type of Social Security benefit, only 15% received food stamps, and less than 3% landed on welfare. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Several states last year also checked in on people who ran out of benefits
and came up with similar results. In my home state of Nevada, 27% of those who
ran out of unemployment insurance turned to another part of the state's
safety net, according to the Silver State's <a href="http://bit.ly/yurwvu" target="_hplink">November 2011 report</a>. More than one-third of <a href="http://bit.ly/zqcsSg" target="_hplink">Connecticut</a> and <a href="http://bit.ly/zzbQHy" target="_hplink">Washington</a> state residents who exhausted their benefits landed jobs after tapping out their unemployment insurance benefit. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Of no surprise to those of us who have lost jobs during the Great Recession, even when they do find new work, most of those who lose their jobs
and exhaust their benefits have to settle for dramatic reductions in their standards of living, all
of the studies found.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The GAO found that among the 35% of those who had exhausted their benefits but found work by the beginning of 2010, 71% earned less in their new jobs, and one-half had seen their paychecks shrink by more than 26%. The
surveys in Connecticut and Washington also reported that the majority of
those who had found new jobs after using up their UI benefits also earned much less than before they were laid off.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtfFM4IsF21zCr7AJMJZKvO6IKoYdY_04wMoPh5ykqARLwF4xZFnVjCmai4aOx0oZWz-m_BulVwMrVftLx394wUfm07gOkapvOTR8AuVMA7aIPLoWCdsBSdZd4fgb3m9l-Uc0wWw05RA/s1600/WeThePeopleNeedJobs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtfFM4IsF21zCr7AJMJZKvO6IKoYdY_04wMoPh5ykqARLwF4xZFnVjCmai4aOx0oZWz-m_BulVwMrVftLx394wUfm07gOkapvOTR8AuVMA7aIPLoWCdsBSdZd4fgb3m9l-Uc0wWw05RA/s320/WeThePeopleNeedJobs.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">The rate of unemployment in the United States has exceeded 8% since February 2009, making the past three years the longest
stretch of high joblessness in the country since the Great Depression, according to a <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/126xx/doc12699/01-31-2012_Outlook.pdf" target="_blank">new report</a> issued by the Congressional Budget Office.</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">And the stigma associated with long-term unemployment is actually contributing to the problem, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/17/unemployment-long-term-unemployment-cbo_n_1284202.html" target="_blank">The Huffington Post notes</a> in its article about the CBO report. "As workers sit idle for months and years, their skills deteriorate
and the very fact of their joblessness makes them even less employable," The Huffington Post's Arthur Delaney writes.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">"The CBO estimates that stigma and skill-erosion combined have boosted
the unemployment rate by a quarter of a percentage point since the start
of the recession in December 2007 </span><span style="font-size: large;">— and that the jobless rate will be
half a percentage point higher for the next several years." This occurs, in large part, because of "an employer's inference
that people who have been unemployed for a long time are low-quality
workers," the CBO report concludes.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The CBO projects that
the unemployment rate will remain above 8% until 2014. The share
of unemployed people who have been looking for work for more than six
months — referred to as the long-term unemployed — topped 40% in
December 2009 and has remained above that level ever since.</span></div>
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</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">That news came along with the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/american-airlines-wants-cut-13000-bankruptcy_n_1247753.html" target="_blank">airline's announcement</a> that it intends to cut 13,000 jobs, or 15% of its workforce. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">That American Airlines is in serious financial trouble and needs to take drastic steps to improve its balance sheet is indisputable. It's the only major airline that, in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Great Recession, did not avail itself of the benefits bankruptcy proceedings can provide to troubled companies.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But the question is if the company's books should be balanced on the backs of its retirees and employees. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“This is not a case of runaway labor costs. This is a case of poor management,” Jamie Horwitz, spokesman for the Transit Workers Union, told the <i>Post</i>. And then the kicker: the bankruptcy filing revealed that amid its poorhouse pleadings, the airline bought a $30 million London home for its recently named CEO, Tom Horton. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now $30 million won't exactly cover a $9 billion pension shortfall, but if American spent that kind of money on a home for one executive, what other dubious spending has it done?</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">That question was hinted at in the <i>Post </i>story by Josh Gotbaum, director of the PBGC.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“We know that other airlines have successfully restructured, preserved their jobs and kept their pension plans. We don’t see why American can’t, too,” said Gotbaum, a former investment banker who spent two years as bankruptcy trustee for Hawaiian Airlines and ultimately restructured the company by repaying creditors and preserving its defined benefit pensions. “We hope that before American takes the drastic action of terminating the pension plans covering 130,000 American employees that it tries hard to find an alternative and shows the world that there is no other alternative.”</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Related articles</span></span></h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/american-airlines-wants-to-terminate-its-pension-plan-lay-of-13-000/252399/">American Airlines Wants to Terminate Its Pension Plan, Lay of 13,000</a> (TheAtlantic.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="http://r.zemanta.com/?u=http%3A//www10.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/business/pension-agency-pressures-american-airlines.html%3F_r%3D5&a=73147030&rid=8c159475-111e-4f0f-8efc-c00849476089&e=d4ac0d4f6e67f3c6c73bafe12d2620e5">Pension Agency Pressures American Airlines</a> (NYTimes.com)</span></li>
</ul></div><div class="zemanta-pixie"><img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=8c159475-111e-4f0f-8efc-c00849476089" /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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<span style="font-size: large;">The significant decline in union membership since the early 1970s explains approximately 20% of the rising hourly wage inequality among women and about one-third among men, according to a new study in the <i>American Sociological Review</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Our study underscores the role of unions as an equalizing force in the labor market," co-author Bruce Western, a professor of sociology at Harvard University, told <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110726092151.htm">Science Daily</a>. "Most researchers studying wage inequality have focused on the effects of educational stratification - pay differences based on level of education - and have generally under-emphasized the impact of unions."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Looking primarily at full-time, private-sector workers, the study found that the decline in a unionized labor force explains about 33% percent of the rise in wage inequality among men. Among women, de-unionization explains about 20%.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"For generations, unions were the core institution advocating for more equitable wage distribution," said co-author Jake Rosenfeld, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington. "Today, when unions - at least in the private sector - have largely disappeared, that means that this voice for equity has faded dramatically. People now have very different ideas about what's acceptable in terms of pay distribution."</span></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-size: large;">Big Business, which is sitting atop <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/stocks/2011-07-10-earnings-season-starts_n.htm">record-breaking profits</a>, won't spend – e.g., hire any of the 25 million unemployed and underemployed Americans – until demand for its products and services improves.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">And the American consumer – battered by joblessness, underemployment, underwater mortgages and steep consumer debt – simply no longer has the financial wherewithal to create the demand big business is holding out for.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: large;">It's been this way for roughly three years, and neither side is blinking.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: large;">Although it's not yet exactly the hue-and-cry it should be, more experts seem to be stepping forward to argue that it's now is the time for business to step up and take some responsibility for getting America back to work. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: large;">"I am coming more and more to think that with the government essentially paralyzed for the foreseeable future, the only way we’re going to get jobs is by turning to actual job creators: business itself," <span id="goog_654128434"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/">op-ed columnist Joe Nocera wrote in today's <i>New York Times</i><span id="goog_654128435"></span></a>. "With all their cash, companies shouldn’t be waiting for Congress to give them tax incentives to hire people. They should be trying to jump-start the economy — and fend off another recession — by making investments, and hiring workers, that will lead to renewed prosperity." </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: large;">Michael Useem, professor of management and the director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, recently proposed an even more specific plan <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/the-business-of-employment-time-to-revise-investor-capitalisms-mantra/2011/08/09/gIQAh8rs4I_story.html"><i>The Washington Post.</i></a></span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br />
</i></span><span style="font-size: large;">Useem called upon leading business organizations such as the Council of Institutional Investors, the National Association of Corporate Directors, the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to "rewrite the rules ... of widely accepted views of investor capitalism" and place "long-term collective growth and employment security back in their mission statements.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Working together, an inner circle of leading executives, directors and owners could help rewrite the rules most tangibly through direct actions," Useem continued. "Two come quickly to mind: 1) Creation of 1 million new U.S. jobs within the next year by the companies they lead or in which they invest. 2) Creation of a research and development fund for innovative ways to expand employment among companies they represent or own.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Given the billions in cash that many companies have accumulated at home and abroad, the wherewithal for both is already in the bank."</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/drawing-on-success-model-t-creator.html"><span style="color: #2288bb;">Today's Titans of Industry Should Follow Henry Ford's Lead</span></a> (job-search-torture-blogspot.com)<br />
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<a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/republican-controlled-congress-more.html"><span style="color: #2288bb;">Republican-controlled Congress more intent on tax cuts than jobless benefits extension</span></a> (job-search-torture-blogspot.com)</div><script type="text/javascript">
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<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: large;">- New York Times reader in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/us/politics/05poll.html?_r=1&hp">story</a> about the plunge in public opinion of Congressional members following the recently concluded debt limit debate </span><script type="text/javascript">
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</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Chief executive officers at 299 U.S. companies earned a combined total of $3.4 billion in 2010, a 23% increase from the year before. That amount would support 102,325 workers earning a median wage." </span></div><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Unfortunately, the decrease was not driven by significant improvement in the labor market” said Bill Anderson, the DETR's chief economist. “It appears likely that some jobless Nevadans are becoming discouraged and giving up their search for work and dropping out of the labor force. In addition, given stagnant population levels, it is also likely that some Nevadans are leaving the state.”</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Nevada’s jobless rate fell from a revised 14.9% in December to 14.2% in January.The unemployment rate in the Las Vegas area fell from 15.1% in December to 13.7% in January. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
However, roughly 10,700 workers dropped out of the labor force in January, which was nearly the same decrease in the number of unemployed. Household employment remained virtually unchanged, the department reported.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The sobering announcement came after improving Nevada economic news in recent months. For instance, key indicators of the state’s economic well being, such as visitor statistics, gaming win and taxable sales,</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> have exceeded expectations. A number of workforce indicators have stabilized, too, including the unemployment rate, although it's still inflated. “Not all is positive though,” Anderson said in the statement. “The recent surge in gas prices will undoubtedly affect travel to Nevada and continued pressure on government payrolls will likely offset any near term improvement in private sector hiring. It appears Nevada will continue to move sideways, bouncing along the trough of this recession for the foreseeable future.”</span></span> <br />
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Nevada’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from a revised 14.9 percent in December to
14.2 percent in January. Nevada’s regional labor markets saw their unemployment rates fall
significantly in December, again, due to a contracting workforce, rather than economic
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<object height="390" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rFTZ3flsipE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rFTZ3flsipE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="390" width="640"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Related articles</span></span></h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/jobless-rate-falls-but-nevada-still.html">Jobless rate falls, but Nevada still most unemployed state in October - for 6th consecutive month</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/oops-it-did-it-again-las-vegas-tops-in.html">Oops, it did it again: Las Vegas Tops in the Country in Unemployment</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/great-recession-does-what-little-else.html">Great Recession Does What Little Else Could Do to Nevada: It Reverses Population Growth</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/nevadas-unemployment-rate-falls-for.html">Nevada's Unemployment Rate Falls for First Time in Five Years</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/economic-stress-eases-in-all-but-six.html">Economic stress eases in all but six states, including Nevada, AP finds</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: large;">It was the sixth consecutive month the state led unemployment among in the United States. The states with the next highest jobless rates were Michigan, at 12.8%, and California, 12.4%, <i>The New York Times</i> reported.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">And another national publication has recognized the difficulty of finding work in Sin City. Forbes.com has ranked <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/18/best-worst-cities-to-find-jobs-leadership-careers-employment-worst_slide_2.html">Las Vegas the worst U.S. city for finding a job</a>.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The hiring environment may be improving, but job seekers in cities that rely on strong economy-reliant industries should know that they may each be competing with six, seven or eight other idle workers for one advertised job, Forbes.com reported.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> In arriving at its rankings, Forbes relied on figures from Juju.com, a site that aggregates job listings to arrive at its monthly Job Search Difficulty Index, which measures how tough it is to find employment in 50 major cities around the country. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> "The cities that have continued to underperform rely on jobs from lagging industries such as manufacturing, tourism and construction," </span><span style="font-size: large;">Juju vice president Brendan Cruickshank </span><span style="font-size: large;">told Forbes.com. "Detroit and Las Vegas have improved from this time last year, but they continue have more unemployed individuals per open job than other large metropolitan areas." </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sunbelt cities like Las Vegas dominate the list of the most difficult metro areas for finding a job. Large metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Miami and New Orleans continue to suffer as their tourism remains weak. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Although things are still tough in some areas, nationally things have improved, according to the report. "If you look back to November 2009, the average number of unemployed people per job posting was 6.5. This year it is 3.19," Cruickshank said. "This indicates that the market has gotten significantly better."</span></div><br />
<h1 class="head" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Paper-Economy/2010/1124/Jobless-claims-down-A-new-declining-trend"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></a><span style="font-size: small;"></span></h1><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: small;">Related articles</span></h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://r.zemanta.com/?u=http%3A//economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/nevada-retains-highest-unemployment-rate/&a=29034517&rid=e3d5cd11-7eda-4e1d-9f13-784586effb22&e=0d93e8622afed91a987ccd4891898ab7">Nevada Retains Highest Unemployment Rate</a> (economix.blogs.nytimes.com)</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/18/best-worst-cities-to-find-jobs-leadership-careers-employment.html">America's Worst Cities For Finding A Job</a> (forbes.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-11-23-state-jobs_N.htm?csp=34money">41 states see job gains in October, most in 5 months</a> (usatoday.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/nevadas-unemployment-rate-falls-for.html">Nevada's Unemployment Rate Falls for First Time in Five Years</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Paper-Economy/2010/1124/Jobless-claims-down-A-new-declining-trend">Jobless claims down: A new declining trend? </a></span><span style="font-size: small;">(Christian Science Monitor)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/oops-it-did-it-again-las-vegas-tops-in.html">Oops, it did it again: Las Vegas Tops in the Country in Unemployment</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Joblessness decreased two-tenths of a point, to 14.2% in October over September, the DETR announced in a statement. The improvement was even more pronounced in Las Vegas, where unemployment fell from 15% in September to 14.1% last month.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">"This is a clear sign that the recession's grip on Nevada may finally be loosening," DETR Chief Economist Bill Anderson said in the statement. "The number of jobs being eliminated is stabilizing, but there is no sign of major job growth on the horizon. While the decline in the rate is immediate good news, there is still a long road ahead to completely recover from the devastating effects of the recession."</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The U.S. unemployment rate in October was 9.6%.</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The last time the jobless rate declined was in December 2005, when the local economy was booming and unemployment decreased to 4.2%. Since then, the Great Recession has devastated Nevada's tourism and construction industries, and the state has led the nation in joblessness, bankruptcies and foreclosures.</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> In total, 181,600 Nevadans, and 135,000 Las Vegas Valley residents were without work in October.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: small;">Related articles</span></h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/10/las-vegas-september-unemployment-climbs.html">Las Vegas September Unemployment Climbs to Historic High of 15%</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/great-recession-does-what-little-else.html">Great Recession Does What Little Else Could Do to Nevada: It Reverses Population Growth</a></span> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/09/las-vegas-september-unemployment-falls.html">Las Vegas September Unemployment Falls Slightly to 14.7%</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/oops-it-did-it-again-las-vegas-tops-in.html">Oops, it did it again: Las Vegas Tops in the Country in Unemployment</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/economic-stress-eases-in-all-but-six.html">Economic stress eases in all but six states, including Nevada, AP finds</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://justjobs.com/employmentnews/nevadas-unemployment-rate-breaks-records-at-14-4-percent/">Nevada's unemployment rate breaks records at 14.4 percent</a> (justjobs.com)</li>
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<br />
It's looking iffy at best whether Congress will renew jobless benefits averaging $310 per week nationwide that are presently claimed by almost 5 million people who have been out of work for more than six months.<br />
<br />
An extension of jobless benefits enacted this summer expires Dec. 1, and on Thursday, a bill to extend them for three months failed in the House. Democrats brought the bill to the floor, but Republicans opposed the legislation because they were denied a chance to attach spending cuts.</span></div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Still, the looming expiration of unemployment benefits could put Republicans on the defensive since they'll expire just as debate peaks in the lame-duck session over whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts on individuals with income exceeding $200,000 or for couples making more than $250,000. The tax cuts expire Dec. 31, and Democrats oppose permanently extending the upper-bracket tax cuts, which would cost about $700 billion over 10 years. "I don't think we want to leave here having fought for tax cuts for millionaires and against unemployment insurance for those that have lost their jobs," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.</span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Every recession since 1950 has featured an extended federal benefits program financed with deficit dollars. Allowing benefits to expire in the holiday season may draw negative attention to Republicans, especially when measured against their insistence on renewing tax cuts for upper-income taxpayers.</span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, maybe not double workers' pay, but at least share with them some of the record-breaking profits companies have enjoyed as they downsized millions of American during the Great Recession. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"This is relevant now because we're dealing with a new crisis in consumer demand," John Landry writes in an <i>HBR </i>blog post titled "Time for a New Five-Dollar Day. "As <a href="http://hbr.org/2010/09/synthesis-bridging-americas-income-gap/ar/1">many have pointed out</a>, average pay in the United States has been stagnant or declining for decades." And now, "from households to governments, everyone has big debts to pay off, so it's going to be hard to emerge from the recession.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Everyone, that is, except companies. The flip side of stagnant worker pay has been above-average corporate profits. All the talk about highly competitive markets has hidden the fact that most companies have done <a href="http://www.nber.org/palmdata/indicators/corporate.html">quite well in the past two decades.</a>"</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Landry said the recent election of more Republicans will mean even less regulation and fewer taxes for businesses, another reason they should share their largesse. Because the problem isn't with businesses, "It's with consumers" who are hurting so badly financially that they can't buy many companies' products, Landry concludes.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"> Related articles</span></b></div><div class="zemanta-related" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2009/11/slashing-jobs-beyond-whats-necessary.html">Slashing Jobs Beyond What's Necessary ... and Defining What's Necessary</a> (job-search-torture.com) </span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989769,00.html?xid=rss-mostpopular">Driving Force: Henry Ford</a> (time.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2010/11/08/ford-the-remake-of-an-american-icon/">Ford: The Remake Of An American Icon</a> (blogs.forbes.com)</span></li>
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<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">That's acccording to the monthly <a href="http://www.job-search-engine.com/press/Juju-Releases-Job-Search-Difficulty-Index-for-Major-Cities-November-2010">Job Search Difficulty Index by job search engine JuJu.com</a>, which measures the difficulty of finding employment in major cities around the country.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Las Vegas dropped below Miami in the November index, taking the 50th - or dead last - last spot previously held by Miami.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Index was calculated by dividing the number of unemployed workers in each metro area, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), by the number of jobs in Juju's index of millions of online jobs in the United States, which is includes job postings from thousands of employer career portals, recruiter websites and job boards.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">BusinessInsider.com has taken Juju.com's stats to create a slide show of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-hardest-cities-to-find-a-job-2010-11#st-louis-45-job-seekers-per-available-job-1">10 Worst Cities for Finding a Job</a>. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: small;">Related articles</span></h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/five-jobless-workers-per-opening-in-september/">Economix: Five Jobless Workers Per Opening in September</a> (economix.blogs.nytimes.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/oops-it-did-it-again-las-vegas-tops-in.html">Oops, it did it again: Las Vegas Tops in the Country in Unemployment</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/11/09/hires-rise-still-five-unemployed-workers-per-job-opening/">Hires Rise, Still Five Unemployed Workers Per Job Opening</a> (blogs.wsj.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/09/job-openings-unemployed_n_781019.html">There Aren't Enough Jobs For 4 Out Of 5 Unemployed Americans</a> (huffingtonpost.com)</li>
</ul></div><div class="zemanta-pixie"><img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=603223fe-aa5c-4c77-8c98-442923834b06" /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Nevada again was the most stressed, with a score of 21.93. California with 16.15., Florida with 15.86, Michigan with 15.76 and Arizona with 14.9 rounded out the top five.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Among counties, the Top 10 are dominated by those in Nevada, California, Florida and Arizona. Las Vegas' Clark County was 6th, with a stress index of 23.5. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The AP's index calculates a score for each county and state, from 1 to 100, based on unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy rates. A higher score indicates more economic stress. Under a rough rule of thumb, a county is considered stressed when its score exceeds 11.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The average county's Stress score in September was 10, down from 10.3 in August. The last time the average was that low was in May 2009. Just more than one-third of counties were deemed stressed in September, down from 40% in August.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">North Dakota remained the economically healthiest state with a score of 3.75. Next came South Dakota (4.78), Nebraska (5.73) and Vermont (5.89). New Hampshire leapfrogged over Wyoming for the No. 5 spot with a score of 6.79.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A glaring exception to lower distress in much of the country was Nevada. It led the nation in September unemployment with a 14.4% rate and also was No. 1 in foreclosures; 6% of homes there were in some stage of the foreclosure process. In addition, Nevada was the leader in bankruptcy filings, too, with nearly 3% of the population in the bankruptcy process.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Still, some hints suggest the worst is nearing an end in Nevada. Gaming revenue has enjoyed a small upswing. And while Nevada's housing market shows no signs of picking up, prices are starting to stabilize, </span><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i6sy7BkrqwZLzcmG0Jx5V8X9wRqg?docId=647a72a1367244e486d66494f9a7e832" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Stephen Brown, an economist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told the AP.</a></span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Related articles</span></b></div><div class="zemanta-related" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2013382187_apusstressmap.html?syndication=rss">AP analysis: Economic stress dips to 16-month low</a> (<i>Seattle Times</i>)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.newser.com/article/d9jcj0m00/ap-economic-stress-index-shows-20-most-stressed-20-least-stressed-counties-in-september.html">September AP Economic Stress Index: 20 Most- and Least-Stressed U.S. Counties </a>(AP)</span></li>
</ul></div><div class="zemanta-pixie"><img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=673baa96-c0f1-4375-8d83-a27ac59b1a07" /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_3L-Bo7jimVhkg9-prQ1r-sv3GmwfeDC4SIp4GmZLuLIH-kX50-e9Q3-c84hx4bL7FHn5jKUmIUozywGyL3MKWsY4HwHMWzONIM_d4MfssX_zaO33_u-BTbfmARb5RAaVXMQXM-8Gw/s1600/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_3L-Bo7jimVhkg9-prQ1r-sv3GmwfeDC4SIp4GmZLuLIH-kX50-e9Q3-c84hx4bL7FHn5jKUmIUozywGyL3MKWsY4HwHMWzONIM_d4MfssX_zaO33_u-BTbfmARb5RAaVXMQXM-8Gw/s320/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Fear and Loathing <i>really </i>has come to Las Vegas - </b></div><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">at least in the economy</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It took the country's worst natural and man-made disaster to decimate Louisiana's population in the same way the Great Recession has ravaged Nevada's.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The nation's fastest-growing state for 19 consecutive years until 2006, Nevada will see its population drop an estimated 70,000, or 2.6% this year, to 2.64 million, Nevada's state demographer predicts. It would be the largest annual drop for a state since thousands of Louisiana residents were displaced by Hurricane Katrina, slicing that state's population 5.7% to 4.2 million in 2006, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/demographics/2010-11-08-1Anevada08_ST_N.htm?csp=34news"><i>USA Today</i> reports</a>.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"The major loss (in Nevada) is happening between now and 2013," Jeff Hardcastle, state demographer at the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=39.5458333333,-119.816666667&spn=1.0,1.0&q=39.5458333333,-119.816666667%20%28University%20of%20Nevada%2C%20Reno%29&t=h" rel="geolocation" title="University of Nevada, Reno">University of Nevada-Reno</a>, told the newspaper. "In a state that has two main industries — gaming and construction — people realize we're not in a good situation."</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="inside-copy" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Driving this population exodus is Nevada's dubious #1 rankings in foreclosures, personal bankruptcies and unemployment. One out of every 29 housing units received a foreclosure filing in the third quarter of this year — almost five times the national average, according to <a class="zem_slink" href="http://realtytrac.com/" rel="homepage" title="RealtyTrac">RealtyTrac</a>. Nevada's unemployment rate is 14.4% compared with 9.6% nationwide, while Las Vegas' 15% jobless rate has topped the country for five consecutive months.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Economic diversification tops the state's agenda, Robert, Lang, urban sociologist at the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=36.10779,-115.14376&spn=0.01,0.01&q=36.10779,-115.14376%20%28University%20of%20Nevada%2C%20Las%20Vegas%29&t=h" rel="geolocation" title="University of Nevada, Las Vegas">University of Nevada-Las Vegas</a>, told the newspaper. "It's a signal for a shift in the Sun Belt. Reliance on growth due to in-migration is, in the short-term, not sustainable."</span></div><br />
<div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: small;">Related articles</span></h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/11/oops-it-did-it-again-las-vegas-tops-in.html">Oops, it did it again: Las Vegas Tops in the Country in Unemployment</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"> <a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/10/las-vegas-september-unemployment-climbs.html">Las Vegas September Unemployment Climbs to Historic High of 15%</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/demographics/2010-11-08-1Anevada08_ST_N.htm?csp=34news">Downturn Douses Nevada's Growth Rate Streak</a> (USAToday.com) </span></li>
</ul></div><div class="zemanta-pixie"><img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=302db955-ba28-4599-820b-c919abc592ed" /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Nevada last month disclosed the 15% jobless rate - which was a record breaker within the state - but it wasn't confirmed until today that that Las Vegas area is still plagued with the highest percentage of unemployed residents in the country.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Click this link to read the BLS' complete statement on <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/metro.pdf">Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment - September 2010.</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></div><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: small;">Related articles</span></h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/most-states-reported-higher-joblessness-in-august/19642980/?icid=zemanta">Most States Reported Higher Joblessness in August</a> (dailyfinance.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/10/las-vegas-september-unemployment-climbs.html">Las Vegas September Unemployment Climbs to Historic High of 15%</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://job-search-torture.blogspot.com/2010/08/las-vegas-jobless-rate-increases-to-148.html">Las' Vegas' jobless rate increases to 14.8%, which is expected to again make it America's most unemployed metro area</a> (job-search-torture.blogspot.com)</span></li>
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://justjobs.com/employmentnews/nevadas-unemployment-rate-breaks-records-at-14-4-percent/">Nevada's unemployment rate breaks records at 14.4 percent</a> (justjobs.com)</span></span></li>
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<br />
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