Updated—Mike Ivey has a piece out the new jobs report for Wisconsin, and the report paints a dreary picture, as Wisconsin under Walker has maintained its position in last place in jobs growth or virtually tied for last place among Wisconsin's five border states.
Wisconsin lags behind the nation as a whole in job growth as well, with the nation adding 6,484,000 jobs (5.82%) since 2011, and Wisconsin adding 88,000 jobs (3.37%).
The jobs numbers come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW).
The QCEW numbers are the standard non-partisan numbers economists use in gauging unemployment.
Scott Walker who is expected to run for reelection made an unequivocal and repeated promise that he would bring 250,000 new jobs to Wisconsin during his first term.
Walker's 88,000 jobs are 65 percent short of his promise, 162,000 jobs short; and Walker has 13 months to go.
Walker would need our citizens to get 12,461 new jobs a month to make good on his promise.
Walker's line is that he has exceeded the economic performance on the 2007-09 recession and the two years after the worst national recession since the Great Depression.
Walker will need all of his big-money cats to help him explain why dead-last in the region is good, exceeding the great recession is commendable; and bringing up the rear nationally makes his case for reelection and president.
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Sep 22, 2012
On Tom Coburn and GOP Senators Blocking Veterans Jobs Bill
 |
| Sen. Ron Johnson: Out-of-work veterans can go to hell |
Heather at Crooks and Liars has excellent commentary, reserving Sen. Tom Coburn (OK) for special opprobrium as the GOP again tells veterans to get lost.
"The unemployment rate for Iraq and Afghanistan-era Veterans (or Gulf War II-era Veterans) in August ticked up to 10.9 percent," notes a VA blog.
Jon Stewart nails it: "So once again, 800 billion dollars, unfunded, for war. A billion dollars, but paid for in a way you aren't crazy about to help the guys who fought the war get jobs afterwards, 'We're not made out of money people.'"
Jul 22, 2010
Jobless Benefits Unsuccessfully Blocked by GOP onto House Vote, then Obama
By Andrew Taylor
WASHINGTON – A House vote Thursday is expected to send President Barack Obama a long-sought measure to resume unemployment payments to millions of people whose benefits have lapsed.
Obama is set to sign the bill as soon as Congress can ship it to him. The Senate broke through months of [GOP obstruction] in passing the measure Wednesday by a 59-39 vote. The House planned to vote around midday Thursday.
Some 2.5 million people who been out of work for six months or more and have seen their jobless benefits lapse would receive back payments within a few weeks.
Obama promised to sign the measure quickly once the House acts and denounced the "weeks of parliamentary roadblocks by a partisan minority" that had stalled approval in the Senate.
"Americans who are working day and night to get back on their feet and support their families in these tough economic times deserve more than obstruction and partisan game-playing," Obama said in a statement Wednesday night.
Under best-case scenarios, unemployed people who have been denied jobless benefits because of the partisan Senate standoff can expect retroactive payments as early as next week in some states.
At issue are jobless payments averaging $309 a week for almost 5 million people whose 26 weeks of state benefits have run out. Those people are enrolled in a federally financed program providing up to 73 additional weeks of unemployment benefits.
About half of those eligible have had their benefits cut off since funding expired June 2. They are eligible for lump-sum retroactive payments that are typically delivered directly to their bank accounts or credited to state-issued debit cards.
In states like Pennsylvania and New York, the back payments should go out next week, officials said. In others, like Nevada and North Carolina, it may take a few weeks for all of those eligible to receive benefits.
Democrats have become more aggressive in attacking the GOP for opposing the measure, which has been stripped down so that it's essentially limited to a $34 billion, six-month renewal of unemployment insurance for the chronically jobless.
Republicans say they support the benefits extension but insist any benefits be financed by cuts to programs elsewhere in the $3.7 trillion federal budget. Maine GOP moderates Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins were the only Republicans to support the bill Wednesday.
Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska was the only Democrat to break with his party to oppose the bill.
Democrats tout the economy-boosting effect of unemployment checks since most beneficiaries spend them immediately, and they say paying for them with cuts to other programs dilutes the stimulative effect.
"Extending unemployment insurance isn't just the right thing to do. It's also the smart thing to do for our economy," said Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
Economists say the measure will probably have a modest beneficial effect on the economy. It represents less than one-quarter of 1 percent of the size of the $14.6 trillion economy, and is far smaller than last year's $862 billion stimulus legislation.
WASHINGTON – A House vote Thursday is expected to send President Barack Obama a long-sought measure to resume unemployment payments to millions of people whose benefits have lapsed.
Obama is set to sign the bill as soon as Congress can ship it to him. The Senate broke through months of [GOP obstruction] in passing the measure Wednesday by a 59-39 vote. The House planned to vote around midday Thursday.
Some 2.5 million people who been out of work for six months or more and have seen their jobless benefits lapse would receive back payments within a few weeks.
Obama promised to sign the measure quickly once the House acts and denounced the "weeks of parliamentary roadblocks by a partisan minority" that had stalled approval in the Senate.
"Americans who are working day and night to get back on their feet and support their families in these tough economic times deserve more than obstruction and partisan game-playing," Obama said in a statement Wednesday night.
Under best-case scenarios, unemployed people who have been denied jobless benefits because of the partisan Senate standoff can expect retroactive payments as early as next week in some states.
At issue are jobless payments averaging $309 a week for almost 5 million people whose 26 weeks of state benefits have run out. Those people are enrolled in a federally financed program providing up to 73 additional weeks of unemployment benefits.
About half of those eligible have had their benefits cut off since funding expired June 2. They are eligible for lump-sum retroactive payments that are typically delivered directly to their bank accounts or credited to state-issued debit cards.
In states like Pennsylvania and New York, the back payments should go out next week, officials said. In others, like Nevada and North Carolina, it may take a few weeks for all of those eligible to receive benefits.
Democrats have become more aggressive in attacking the GOP for opposing the measure, which has been stripped down so that it's essentially limited to a $34 billion, six-month renewal of unemployment insurance for the chronically jobless.
Republicans say they support the benefits extension but insist any benefits be financed by cuts to programs elsewhere in the $3.7 trillion federal budget. Maine GOP moderates Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins were the only Republicans to support the bill Wednesday.
Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska was the only Democrat to break with his party to oppose the bill.
Democrats tout the economy-boosting effect of unemployment checks since most beneficiaries spend them immediately, and they say paying for them with cuts to other programs dilutes the stimulative effect.
"Extending unemployment insurance isn't just the right thing to do. It's also the smart thing to do for our economy," said Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
Economists say the measure will probably have a modest beneficial effect on the economy. It represents less than one-quarter of 1 percent of the size of the $14.6 trillion economy, and is far smaller than last year's $862 billion stimulus legislation.
Feb 13, 2010
Changed America
Sarah Palin's squawking [and let's pray to the Almighty that she becomes the Republican 2012 nominee] aside, writers like Paul Craig Roberts at CounterPunch have been warning for years the offshore-the-jobs, screw-the-workers' policies are devastating.
Dingbats like Sarah Palin screech U.S.A., but do not think the sentiment ought include the American working class.
A couple of not-altogether pleasant reads explain why the jobless future in the offing is not a good thing. See by Don Peck' How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America and Ismael Hossein-Zadeh's The Retrogression: New Phase, Not Just Another Recession.
Put aside the free market nostrums that Palin spouts without comprehension, we need a government committed to the great majority of its citizens, an economic democracy.
Faced with joblessness, a lame jobs bill now being batted about to unanimous Republican opposition is not close to a step in the right direction. But it's not too late to help Americans.
Though Palin will pick up on traditional GOP racial and class resentments, she is a poor, political vehicle. The question is will President Obama step up to offer a challenge, he has not to this point.
Dingbats like Sarah Palin screech U.S.A., but do not think the sentiment ought include the American working class.
A couple of not-altogether pleasant reads explain why the jobless future in the offing is not a good thing. See by Don Peck' How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America and Ismael Hossein-Zadeh's The Retrogression: New Phase, Not Just Another Recession.
Put aside the free market nostrums that Palin spouts without comprehension, we need a government committed to the great majority of its citizens, an economic democracy.
Faced with joblessness, a lame jobs bill now being batted about to unanimous Republican opposition is not close to a step in the right direction. But it's not too late to help Americans.
Though Palin will pick up on traditional GOP racial and class resentments, she is a poor, political vehicle. The question is will President Obama step up to offer a challenge, he has not to this point.
Sep 6, 2009
Oklahoma Merc Plant to Close, Jobs to Fondy
Rollercoaster ride in Fond du Lac.
Aggressive Wisconsin pols looking out for their own? Corporate duplicity?
Whatever the machinations in the minds of the decision-makers at Brunswick and Mercury Marine, the Fox Valley and (IAM) Local 1947 are relieved; not so in Oklahoma.
The latest:
From the AP in the Chicago Tribune:
Aggressive Wisconsin pols looking out for their own? Corporate duplicity?
Whatever the machinations in the minds of the decision-makers at Brunswick and Mercury Marine, the Fox Valley and (IAM) Local 1947 are relieved; not so in Oklahoma.
The latest:
From the AP in the Chicago Tribune:
STILLWATER, Okla. - After Wisconsin workers agreed to concessions, Mercury Marine said it will move work there from Oklahoma within two years, putting 380 employees in Stillwater out of work.
The boat engine maker pitted its manufacturing plants in Stillwater and Fond du Lac, Wis., against each other, saying it would consolidate the plants but hadn't decided where.
When a union representing workers at the Wisconsin plant agreed last week to wage and benefit concessions, the company announced that plant would remain open.
On Friday, Mercury Marine said it would take 18 to 24 months to complete the Stillwater layoff.
'Eventually we'll close the Stillwater facility,' Mercury Marine spokesman Steve Fleming said.Company President Mark Schwabero said the consolidation needed after major declines in the recreational boating industry. 'As we've stated throughout this important process, comprehensive changes to wages, benefits and operational flexibility are necessary for Mercury to effectively compete in a smaller and fundamentally changed marketplace,' he said.
State Rep. Cory Williams, D-Stillwater, worked with state officials to put together a tax-incentive package to entice Mercury Marine to stay. 'This went down to a corporation trying to get concessions out of a union, and I think they leveraged another community to do so,' Williams said.
May 15, 2009
Stiglitz Is Coming to Town
Update: A reader recommends a March piece by Paul Krugman in which he blasts the bank bailout plan. "But Treasury is still clinging to the idea that this is just a panic attack, and that all it needs to do is calm the markets by buying up a bunch of troubled assets. Actually, that’s not quite it: the Obama administration has apparently made the judgment that there would be a public outcry if it announced a straightforward plan along these lines, so it has produced what Yves Smith calls 'a lot of bells and whistles to finesse the fact that the government will wind up paying well above market ... .'"Next Tuesday's (May 19) Joint Economic Committee (JEC) hearing will hear testimony by Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Stiglitz is widely admired for his book (co-authored with Linda J. Bilmes), The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, putting a price tag on the obscene Bush-Cheney-Rice lie that continues to kill to this day.
That's the thing about Nobel Laureates. They often feel free and obliged to tell the hard, unvarnished truth.
To give you an idea of what Stiglitz will say on the economy, consider his commentary in The Spring of the Zombies, excerpted below after this political aside.
---
No one envies the Obama administration's task to revitalize after 20 years of neo-liberal/neo-conservative globalization, offshoring of jobs, and facilitation of financial speculators.
But Obama's resort to Bushian secrecy on matters ranging from the bank bailout plan to photos of American torture victims does not inspire confidence, much less reassurance that our president is on the same team as we.
An unprecedented number of Americans (myself included) worked to get Obama into the White House; and America still suffers from eight years of a genuinely hostile force in the White House.
We expect better from Obama. In so many words: You don't lie to a man who just got out of the can.
We are either in this together or we are not
Obama's refusal to provide the pubic with details on the mysterious creation of Zombie banks and the censorship of the black art of American torture makes everyone wonder about the nature of the man in charge.
The audacity of opacity is not the message that any administration should be sending to American citizens especially now. It's a tremendous mistake.
---
From Stiglitz:
(E)xamine the fundamentals: in America, real estate prices continue to fall, millions of homes are underwater, with the value of mortgages exceeding the market price, and unemployment is increasing, with hundreds of thousands reaching the end of their 39 weeks of unemployment insurance. States are being forced to lay off workers as tax revenues plummet.
The banking system has just been tested to see if it is adequately capitalized – a ‘stress’ test that involved no stress – and some couldn’t pass muster. But, rather than welcoming the opportunity to recapitalize, perhaps with government help, the banks seem to prefer a Japanese-style response: we will muddle through.
‘Zombie’ banks – dead but still walking among the living – are, in Ed Kane’s immortal words, ‘gambling on resurrection.’ Repeating the Savings & Loan debacle of the 1980’s, the banks are using bad accounting (they were allowed, for example, to keep impaired assets on their books without writing them down, on the fiction that they might be held to maturity and somehow turn healthy). Worse still, they are being allowed to borrow cheaply from the United States Federal Reserve, on the basis of poor collateral, and simultaneously to take risky positions. ...
In earlier crises, as in East Asia a decade ago, recovery was quick, because the affected countries could export their way to renewed prosperity. But this is a synchronous global downturn. America and Europe can’t export their way out of their doldrums.
Fixing the financial system is necessary, but not sufficient, for recovery. America’s strategy for fixing its financial system is costly and unfair, for it is rewarding the people who caused the economic mess. But there is an alternative that essentially means playing by the rules of a normal market economy: a debt-for-equity swap.
With such a swap, confidence could be restored to the banking system, and lending could be reignited with little or no cost to the taxpayer. It’s neither particularly complicated nor novel. Bondholders obviously don’t like it – they would rather get a gift from the government. But there are far better uses of the public’s money, including another round of stimulus.
Every downturn comes to an end. The question is how long and deep this downturn will be. In spite of some spring sprouts, we should prepare for another dark winter: it’s time for Plan B in bank restructuring and another dose of Keynesian medicine.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Professor of Economics at Columbia University, chairs a Commission of Experts, appointed by the President of the UN General Assembly, on reforms of the international monetary and financial system. A new global reserve currency system is discussed in his 2006 book, Making Globalization Work.
May 4, 2009
Low Wages Are No Good
You offshore American jobs and people lose their jobs.
No good, not for Americans and not for the economy.
Krugman offer some advice against falling wages; might seem obvious but Republicans love the idea of falling wages.
No good, not for Americans and not for the economy.
Krugman offer some advice against falling wages; might seem obvious but Republicans love the idea of falling wages.
Concern about falling wages isn’t just theory. Japan — where private-sector wages fell an average of more than 1 percent a year from 1997 to 2003 — is an object lesson in how wage deflation can contribute to economic stagnation.
So what should we conclude from the growing evidence of sagging wages in America? Mainly that stabilizing the economy isn’t enough: we need a real recovery.
There has been a lot of talk lately about green shoots and all that, and there are indeed indications that the economic plunge that began last fall may be leveling off. The National Bureau of Economic Research might even declare the recession over later this year.
But the unemployment rate is almost certainly still rising. And all signs point to a terrible job market for many months if not years to come — which is a recipe for continuing wage cuts, which will in turn keep the economy weak.
To break that vicious circle, we basically need more: more stimulus, more decisive action on the banks, more job creation.
Credit where credit is due: President Obama and his economic advisers seem to have steered the economy away from the abyss. But the risk that America will turn into Japan — that we’ll face years of deflation and stagnation — seems, if anything, to be rising.
Jan 17, 2009
Area Stores Seeking out Cub Foods Employees for Jobs
One positive aspect of the closing of Cub Foods on Madison’s southwest side on Verona Road is that the employees are getting attention from other grocery stores in Madison to work for them.
Cub Foods is scheduled to close in mid-March, leaving many residents without a place to buy their groceries and many employees without a job.
But a large area grocery chain is reportedly stepping up and offering employment to the Cub workers.
“Yeah, I heard that Roundy’s (who owns Copps and Pick n’ Save) is saying to (Cub) management ‘send your people over,’” according to one Cub employee.
That’s good to hear. We have been shopping at Cub Foods for years, and the employees are good people but several questioned on Friday had no clue what they are going to do for a new job.
Cub Foods is scheduled to close in mid-March, leaving many residents without a place to buy their groceries and many employees without a job.
But a large area grocery chain is reportedly stepping up and offering employment to the Cub workers.
“Yeah, I heard that Roundy’s (who owns Copps and Pick n’ Save) is saying to (Cub) management ‘send your people over,’” according to one Cub employee.
That’s good to hear. We have been shopping at Cub Foods for years, and the employees are good people but several questioned on Friday had no clue what they are going to do for a new job.
Dec 1, 2008
Krugman: Large fiscal expansion needed
Update: National Bureau of Economic Research says the U.S. economy fell into a recession last year.
Among the pathological programs pursued by the Bush administration is its enterprise to turn the national debt from prospects made in 2001 of the debt being completely paid off in 10 years to upping the debt to $10 trillion.
'Deficits don't matter,' infamously mumbled Dick Cheney at a high-level meeting that was recalled by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil.
Worse is the wish list that the rightwingers wanted from the future administrations dealing with the massive debt: Eliminating those awful programs like Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare which would become unsustainable because of the debt purposefully piled up by Bush and Cheney.
Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman warns today that president-elect Obama should not clean up the fiscal mess immediately in the face of a dangerous recession, and views government spending as a economic imperative to ending the recession:
Among the pathological programs pursued by the Bush administration is its enterprise to turn the national debt from prospects made in 2001 of the debt being completely paid off in 10 years to upping the debt to $10 trillion.
'Deficits don't matter,' infamously mumbled Dick Cheney at a high-level meeting that was recalled by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil.
Worse is the wish list that the rightwingers wanted from the future administrations dealing with the massive debt: Eliminating those awful programs like Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare which would become unsustainable because of the debt purposefully piled up by Bush and Cheney.
Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman warns today that president-elect Obama should not clean up the fiscal mess immediately in the face of a dangerous recession, and views government spending as a economic imperative to ending the recession:
(C)ircumstances right now are anything but normal. ...
(W)e have a fundamental shortfall in private spending: consumers are rediscovering the virtues of saving at the same moment that businesses, burned by past excesses and hamstrung by the troubles of the financial system, are cutting back on investment. That gap will eventually close, but until it does, government spending must take up the slack. Otherwise, private investment, and the economy as a whole, will plunge even more.
The bottom line, then, is that people who think that fiscal expansion today is bad for future generations have got it exactly wrong. The best course of action, both for today’s workers and for their children, is to do whatever it takes to get this economy on the road to recovery.
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