Louisiana
31st October 2009, 02:04
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Unemployment benefits are ending for hundreds of thousands of workers who have been without a job for six months, and in some cases for up to a year and a half. The National Employment Law Project estimates that an additional 900,000 workers will lose their benefits by the end of the year.
States provide 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. More than half of those receiving these payments are jobless after the benefits end. In September, for example, a record 5.4 million people had been unemployed for longer than six months.
For many no longer eligible for state benefits, the federal government has provided extended payments, in some cases for up to 53 additional weeks. But even these are being exhausted. Congress is currently discussing a further extension of benefits for another 14 weeks, plus an additional six weeks in states where unemployment rates, averaged over three months, exceed 8.5 percent. Meanwhile, the number of workers filing initial jobless claims has been more than half a million for 48 straight weeks, reported Market Watch October 15.
According to data released October 15 by the Barack Obama administration, 30,383 jobs have been created or saved through federal government stimulus contracts with businesses. An October 19 White House report estimated that 250,000 school jobs have been saved or created from federal grants to states. When the $787 billion stimulus package was passed by Congress earlier this year the president claimed that it would create or save 3.5 million jobs over two years.
The capitalist rulers have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into shoring up the nations largest banks, in hopes of getting lending going again, and for programs to encourage consumer spending. But this has had no effect on alleviating the economic crisis, which is rooted in declining capitalist production worldwide. U.S. factories in September operated at 70.5 percent of their capacity, more than 10 percent below the average in the years 1972 through 2008.
Source: The Militant
Unemployment benefits are ending for hundreds of thousands of workers who have been without a job for six months, and in some cases for up to a year and a half. The National Employment Law Project estimates that an additional 900,000 workers will lose their benefits by the end of the year.
States provide 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. More than half of those receiving these payments are jobless after the benefits end. In September, for example, a record 5.4 million people had been unemployed for longer than six months.
For many no longer eligible for state benefits, the federal government has provided extended payments, in some cases for up to 53 additional weeks. But even these are being exhausted. Congress is currently discussing a further extension of benefits for another 14 weeks, plus an additional six weeks in states where unemployment rates, averaged over three months, exceed 8.5 percent. Meanwhile, the number of workers filing initial jobless claims has been more than half a million for 48 straight weeks, reported Market Watch October 15.
According to data released October 15 by the Barack Obama administration, 30,383 jobs have been created or saved through federal government stimulus contracts with businesses. An October 19 White House report estimated that 250,000 school jobs have been saved or created from federal grants to states. When the $787 billion stimulus package was passed by Congress earlier this year the president claimed that it would create or save 3.5 million jobs over two years.
The capitalist rulers have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into shoring up the nations largest banks, in hopes of getting lending going again, and for programs to encourage consumer spending. But this has had no effect on alleviating the economic crisis, which is rooted in declining capitalist production worldwide. U.S. factories in September operated at 70.5 percent of their capacity, more than 10 percent below the average in the years 1972 through 2008.
Source: The Militant