Unemployment

Update: Number Of Unemployed Now Over 30 Million

May 3, 2020 Economic Policy Institute. Educate! COVID-19, Pandemic, Recession, Unemployment

The number of workers applying for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits has risen to never-before-seen levels as a result of the coronavirus shock. In the last six weeks, nearly 28 million workers have applied for unemployment compensation. That is more than one in six workers, and over five times the worst period of the Great Recession. I should note that the Department of Labor (DOL) reports that 30.3 million workers applied for UI during the last six weeks on a “seasonally adjusted” basis, compared with 27.9 million on an unadjusted basis. Seasonal adjustments are typically helpful—they are used to even out seasonal changes in claims that have nothing to do with the underlying strength or weakness of the labor market, providing a clearer picture of underlying trends.

Trump Relaxes OSHA Rules And Governors Block Unemployment Benefits For Meatpackers

May 1, 2020 Mike Elk, Payday Report. Educate! COVID-19, Meatpackers, OSHA, Unemployment

Earlier this week, the Trump Administration issued an Executive Order to use the Defense Production Act to order meatpacking plants to remain open. Now, Smithfields is already using Trump’s Executive Order to attempt to block inspections of their plant. Fatima Hussein at Bloomberg has the story: The Rural Community Workers Alliance, which represents Smithfield workers in Missouri, is seeking an order to force the company to comply with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state public health officials, as well as other worker protection requirements, at a Milan, Mo., plant. Nearly eight plant workers already have been forced to stay home because of Covid-19 symptoms. A court order would allow the group to inspect the plant and would force the company to make certain safety changes. Calling a court order to allow plaintiffs to inspect the plant “unprecedented,” Alexandra B. Cunningham, with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP in Richmond, Va., represented Smithfield at the hearing Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

Over 24 Million Workers Apply For Unemployment In Five Weeks

April 25, 2020 the Economic Policy Institute. Educate! COVID-19, Recession, Unemployment

In the last five weeks, the number of workers applying for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits has skyrocketed to well over 20 times what it was in the pre-coronavirus period, and over five times the worst five-week stretch of the Great Recession. For comparison, in the period before the coronavirus hit, just over a million workers would apply for UI in a typical five-week span, and in the worst five-week stretch of the Great Recession, it was less than four million. In the last five weeks, it was more than 24 million. That means more than one in seven workers applied for UI. (It should be noted that using seasonally adjusted numbers, the Department of Labor [DOL] reports that 26.5 million workers applied for UI during the last five weeks, and using unadjusted numbers, they report that 24.4 million workers applied for benefits.

Residents At An Apartment Complex Prepare To Strike

April 11, 2020 Eliza Berkon, WAMU. Resist! COVID-19, Rent Strike, Unemployment

A month ago, Sami Bourma had two jobs. He was a cafeteria cook at the National Institutes of Health and an Uber driver. Now, he can’t work. Furloughed from his NIH job and wary of picking up passengers during the coronavirus pandemic, Bourma has no income. He can’t pay his rent at the Southern Towers apartment complex in Alexandria. But rather than tell his landlord he can’t pay, Bourma is organizing a property-wide rent strike, with more than 300 households all saying they not only can’t pay … they won’t pay. “I started talking to people in the hallway and the lobby just to have an idea how people feel,” he says. Within an hour, Bourma says, his neighbors were in tears. “Some of them, they don’t have money completely, because they’ve been laid off early.”

Ten Signs The US Is Heading For A Depression

April 6, 2020 Mike Whitney, The Unz Review. Educate! Debt, Depression, Food Insecurity, Unemployment

Thursday’s jobless claims leave no doubt that the country is in the grips of another severe recession. More than 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the last week. That number exceeds the gloomiest prediction of more than 40 economists and pushes the two-week total to an eye-watering 10 million claims. According to CNBC: “Those at the lower end of the wage scale have been especially hard-hit during a crisis that has seen businesses either cut staff outright or at best freeze any new hiring until there’s more visibility about how efforts to contain the coronavirus will work. “We’ve lived through the recession and 9/11. What we’re seeing with this decline is actually worse than both of those events,” said Irina Novoselsky, CEO of online jobs marketplace CareerBuilder.” (CNBC) According to New York Magazine: “Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louisprojected Monday that job losses from the coronavirus recession would reach 47 million and push America’s unemployment rate to 32.1 percent — more than 7 points higher than its Great Depression–era peak.”

COVID-19: How Germany Is Managing Its Outbreak

April 3, 2020 Klaus W. Larres, Consortium News. Educate! COVID-19, Germany, Pandemic, Unemployment

A recent work visit to Germany, where I grew up, stretched from one week to three. Those weeks coincided with the spread of the coronavirus in Germany as well as across Europe. What I saw while there is that Germany’s population is in a state of shock and still can’t quite grasp how this sudden turnaround of their lives happened. Only some two weeks ago, life seemed to proceed in a fairly normal way despite the looming crisis which appeared to be unreal and far away. I’m back now at my home in the U.S. From my perspective as a scholar of history and international affairs, what is happening in Germany right now is notable both as a lesson in how to prepare for and manage a pandemic as well as a reflection of the poor state of relations between Germany and the U.S.

St. Louis Fed Warns 32.1 Percent Unemployment Possible By End Of June

April 1, 2020 Miguel Faria-e-Castro, St. Louis Fed. Educate! COVID-19, Recession, Unemployment, Workers

As state and local governments implement social-distancing measures to suppress and contain the spread of COVID-19, many businesses are faced with a large decrease in sales and revenue. This slowdown of economic activity could inevitably lead to solvency and liquidity problems that result in workers being laid off. This negative shock does not equally affect all businesses, sectors or occupations. Many workers in professional services, for example, are able to work from home and continue their activities with minimal disruption. Others—who work in occupations that involve direct physical contact with customers, such as restaurant waiters—are likely to see their jobs affected by social-distancing measures. In this blog post, we combine different types of statistics on industry and occupation composition to try to arrive at a back-of-the-envelope estimate for what the unemployment rate may be at the end of the second quarter of 2020.

The Coronavirus Crisis Led To A Record-Breaking Spike In Weekly Unemployment Insurance Claims

March 27, 2020 By Aaron Sojourner and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Epi.org Educate! Coronavirus, COVID-19, Unemployment, Workers

A greater share of Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the week ending March 21 than in any prior week in American history, according to our analysis of news reports. Many states reported initial claims growth of over 1,000%. Our model predicts that 3.4 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment insurance this past week, although we believe that number could be as low as 3 million or could be substantially higher. This will dwarf every other week in history, as can be seen by comparing the projection against the trend in initial claims back to 1967. For scale, consider that 3.4 million Americans moving from employment to unemployment would raise the number of the unemployed from 5.7 million to 9.1 million.

$71 Million For More Cops; Not A Dime For Jobs And Healthcare

January 11, 2020 Jacqueline Luqman, Therealnews.com Educate! DOJ, Police abuse, Surveillance, Unemployment

In December last year, Attorney General William P. Barr announced the launch of Operation Relentless Pursuit, an initiative aimed at quote, combating violent crime and seven of America’s most violent cities through a surge in federal resources. While the seven cities targeted by this new law enforcement initiative are near or at the bottom of the Bureau of labor statistics unemployment rate from major cities, indicating that unemployment is at the higher end of the scale. What Barr calls the surge in federal law enforcement resources to combat crime, including tens of millions of dollars for hiring more police officers, doesn’t seem to be available to get anyone a job who isn’t willing to be a cop. What do the residents of these cities do in the face of this new effort to allegedly combat crime that doesn’t actually address the roots of crime, nor does it meet the needs of the people most affected by the crime?

What Is The True Unemployment Rate In The US?

September 8, 2019 Jack Rasmus from his blog Educate! Jobs and Wages, New Economy, Unemployment

The real unemployment rate is probably somewhere between 10%-12%. Here’s why: the 3.7% is the U-3 rate, per thelabor dept. But that’s the rate only for full time employed. What the labor dept. calls the U-6 includes what it calls discouraged workers (those who haven’t looked for work in the past 4 weeks). Then there’s what’s called the ‘missing labor force’–ie. those who haven’t looked in the past year. They’re not calculated in the 3.7% U-3 unemployment rate number either. Why? Because you have to be ‘out of work and actively looking for work’ to be counted as unemployed and therefore part of the 3.7% rate.

The Crummy Good Economy And The New Serfdom

July 19, 2018 Frank Stricker, Counterpunch.org Educate! Class Struggle, Labor, New Economy, Unemployment

For about a year now, the unemployment rate has been around 4%. That’s supposed mean full employment, labor shortages, and rising pay. But the latest earnings report is the same old story: no gains in real hourly wages from June of 2017 through June of 2018. Most employers have been able to find new workers without having to raise pay offers. What’s going on? There are screwball right-wing diversions and explanations. A Trump economist, D. J. Norquist, opines that it will take time for the Republican tax-cuts to work their way through the economy. As an explanation, this is nonsense. Just because the lords of creation get more money doesn’t mean more will filter down to workers. We have the evidence of forty years on that issue. Then we have Stephen Moore at the Heritage Foundation.

Hiding The Real Number Of Unemployed

June 11, 2018 Pete Dolack, Systemic Disorder Educate! Jobs and Wages, New Economy, Unemployment

A better indication of how many people have found work is the “civilian labor force participation rate.” By this measure, which includes all people age 16 or older who are not in prison or a mental institution, only 62.7 percent of the potential U.S. workforce was actually in the workforce in May, and that was slightly lower than the previous month. This is just about equal to the lowest this statistic has been since the breakdown of Keynesianism in the 1970s, and down significantly from the peak of 67.3 percent in May 2000. You have to go back to the mid-1970s to find a time when U.S. labor participation was lower. This number was consistently lower in the 1950s and 1960s, but in those days one income was sufficient to support a family. Now everybody works and still can’t make ends meet. And that brings us to the topic of wages. After reaching a peak of 52 percent in 1969, the percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product going to wages has fallen to 43 percent, according to research by the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve. The amount of GDP going to wages during the past five years has been the lowest it has been since 1929, according to a New York Times report.

Hidden Employment Stats & Puerto Rico’s Ongoing Disaster

May 17, 2018 Eleanor Goldfield, Occupy.com Resistance Report Natural Disasters, Puerto Rico, Unemployment

Next up, unemployment rates may be going down but what does that actually mean? Hint: no, our economy is not doing well. And neither are the soon-to-be-homeless elderly of Louisiana – because you know, budget cuts – and screw grandma. Finally, Alex Cohen of Earth Defense Coalition joins us to talk Puerto Rico – a colony wrestling with both climate change and colonial capitalism – and what aid and autonomy look like on the ground. ALSO: we will soon lose funding from occupy.com. WE NEED YOUR HELP TO KEEP ACTING OUT! Please visit our Patreon page - anything you can contribute will help us keep producing these weekly activist news updates AND there are some activist give-aways in store...

The Robot, Unemployment, And Immigrants

March 5, 2018 By Roberto Savio, Transform-network.net Educate! Immigration, Labor, Robots, Technology, Unemployment

Going out, you swipe the card, which goes to your bank account or to a credit card, and that it is. No ques, no cashiers, fast and easy. The first shop, in Seattle, has a roaring success. Nobody is in charge with restocking the items. An automatic system does that. And soon two robots will replace the items on the shelves, now done by two employees. Even the cleaning of the floor is being done by a robot. The goal is to have a totally automatic shop, where no human can make mistakes, get ill, go on strike, take holidays, or bring into the work personal problems. The American petrol industry calculates that will reduce within three years the staff required at each well, from 20 to five. Small hotels within three years will have a fully automated reception. You will arrive, swipe your credit card, a key for your room will come out, and you are done.

Mass Protests Against Austerity, Unemployment Shake Tunisia

January 11, 2018 Bill Van Auken, Wsws.org Resist! Austerity, Protests, Tunisia, Unemployment

Tunisia has erupted over the past three days in demonstrations and violent clashes with security forces. Workers and youth have taken to the streets in at least 18 different towns in protest against a 2018 austerity budget that will only exacerbate prevailing conditions of mass unemployment, poverty and social inequality in the North African nation. The Interior Ministry acknowledged that a 55-year-old man was killed during a protest on Monday in the town of Tebourba, about 20 miles outside of the capital of Tunis, and five other people there were wounded. There were conflicting reports over the cause of death, with some protesters saying the man had been run down by a police vehicle, while the authorities claimed he had been overcome by tear gas. In a number of areas, the army has been called out to back up local security forces and protect government buildings and banks.

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