Unemployment benefits, the cruelest cut of all

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.washingtonpost.com

To 1.3 million jobless Americans: The Republican Party wishes you a Very Unhappy New Year! It would be one thing if there were a logical reason to cut off unemployment benefits for those who have been out of work the longest. But no such rationale exists. On both economic and moral grounds, extending benefits for the long-term unemployed should have received an automatic, bipartisan vote in both houses of Congress. It didn’t. Nothing is automatic and bipartisan anymore, not with today’s radicalized GOP on the scene. In this case, a sensible and humane policy option is hostage to bruised Republican egos and the ideological myth of “makers” vs. “takers.” The result is a cruel blow to families that are already suffering. On Saturday, benefits were allowed to expire for 1.3 million people who have been unemployed more than six months. These are precisely the jobless who will suffer most from a cutoff, since they have been scraping by on unemployment checks for so long that their financial situations are already precarious, if not dire. Extending unemployment benefits is something that’s normally done in a recession, and Republicans correctly point out that we are now in a recovery. But there was nothing normal about the Great Recession, and there is nothing normal about the Not-So-Great Recovery. We are emerging from the worst economic slump since the Depression, and growth has been unusually — and painfully — slow. Only...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• Charts: The Worst Long-Term Unemployment Crisis Since the Depression (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Extension of Benefits for Jobless Is Set to End (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Knasas, The Next Target: Unions expect difficult legislative session in 2014 (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• The Appalling Stance of Rand Paul (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• NEOC Awards Whistleblower Client Misclassified as Independent Contractor (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Aid Programs Helped U.S. Survive the Great Recession (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• 10 Reasons That Long-Term Unemployment Is a National Catastrophe (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Charts: The Worst Long-Term Unemployment Crisis Since the Depression

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Officially, the Great Recession of 2007 ended in June 2009. Yet the economic downturn remains in full effect for millions of Americans, particularly the nearly 40 percent of the unemployed who have been looking for work for six months or more. In less than a week, emergency federal unemployment benefits for 1.3 million of these jobless Americans are set to run out. Proponents of ending the benefits argue that the economy is expanding and that the benefits prevent people from finding work. "You get out of a recession by encouraging employment not encouraging unemployment," according to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who opposes extending benefits. However, the data shows that while corporate America has bounced back, it is not restoring all the jobs it shed when the economy tanked five years ago. Currently, nearly 11 million Americans are unemployed. The unemployment rate stands at 7 percent. Both of those stats are improvements from a little more than four years ago, when the post-recession jobless rate peaked at 10 percent and more than 15 million people were out of work. However, there currently are more than 4 million Americans who have been unemployed for six months or longer. Not since the Great Depression has the United States experienced such massive and persistent long-term unemployment. Overall, the long-term unemployed (those with out a job for six months or longer) make up nearly 40 percent of all the jobless. Long-term unemployment has not affected...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• 10 Reasons That Long-Term Unemployment Is a National Catastrophe (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Wonkbook: Washington is reducing the deficit but abandoning the unemployed (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Extension of Benefits for Jobless Is Set to End (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Jobless Fear Looming Cutoff of Benefits (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Aid Programs Helped U.S. Survive the Great Recession (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Accelerated aging found in long-term unemployed men (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

10 Reasons That Long-Term Unemployment Is a National Catastrophe

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Unemployment is bad. Obviously long-term unemployment is worse. But it's not just a little worse, it's horrifically worse. As a companion to our eight charts that describe the problem, here are the top ten reasons why long-term unemployment is such a national catastrophe: It's way higher than it's ever been before. When the headline unemployment rate peaked in 2010, it was actually a bit lower than the peak during the 1980 recession and only a point higher than the 1973 recession. As bad as it was, it was something we'd faced before. But the long-term unemployment rate is a whole different story. It peaked at a rate nearly double the worst we'd ever seen in the past, and it's been coming down only slowly ever since. It's widespread. There's a common belief that long-term unemployment mostly affects older workers and only in certain industries. In fact, with the exception of the construction industry, which was hurt especially badly during the 2007-08 recession, "the long-term unemployed are fairly evenly distributed across the age and industry spectrum." It's brutal. Obviously long-term unemployment produces a sharp loss of income, with all the stress that entails. But it does more. It produces deep distress, worse mental and physical health, higher mortality rates, hampers children’s educational progress, and lowers their future earnings. Megan McArdle summarizes the research findings this way: "Short of death or a debilitating terminal disease,...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• Charts: The Worst Long-Term Unemployment Crisis Since the Depression (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Wonkbook: Washington is reducing the deficit but abandoning the unemployed (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Extension of Benefits for Jobless Is Set to End (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Elizabeth Warren Introduces Bill to Prevent Employers From Discriminating Against Poor People (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Accelerated aging found in long-term unemployed men (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Aid Programs Helped U.S. Survive the Great Recession (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Income Growth Has Stalled for Most Americans

Workers' Compensation is basically a system based on wages that determine benefits. Over the decades the spread or "inequality" of wealth has moved more workers into a lower pay class wherein they only receive the minimum rates of workers' compensation benefits despite what appears to be yearly increases in rate structures. Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Yesterday the Census Bureau released its latest income data, confirming what millions of Americans already know: The recession may be over, but the recovery has yet to trickle down. Specifically, the Census reported that median household incomes didn't budge between 2011 and 2012. Digging deeper into the new data reveals more evidence of the widening income gap between the rich and the rest. The only bright side of stalled incomes is that they are no longer experiencing the steep decline that started in 2007 before the recession hit. But that's hardly cause for celebration: At $51,017, the real median household income in 2012 is even less than it was at the end of the '80s, and it's down 9 percent from its high in 1999. This loss of real income hasn't affected all Americans equally. For the top 20 percent of earners, average incomes grew 70 percent since 1967, and they grew 88 percent for the top 5 percent. Meanwhile, middle-income households have seen their earnings grow just 20 percent in the past four decades.    This translates into a greater share of total income going to top earners. In 2012, the top 20 percent took in more than half of all income in the United States, according to the Census. To put that into sharper focus, I've charted how each percentile's share of total income has changed since the late '60s. After experiencing significant growth in the mid-1970s, the bottom 20 percent of earners have seen their share steadily drop. Compare that...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

….

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

Found on

Related articles

• John Burton Reports on Workers' Compensation Insurance Industry Underwriting Results (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Study: Calif. workers compensation overhaul too new to parse (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Where is the Deep Water? (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• The Soaring Cost of a Simple Breath (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• What a Government Default Will Do To Workers' Compensation (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Privatization of workers, compensation continues throughout WV (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Florida rejects workers' compensation rate hike (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Jobs....a long way to go

The workers' compensation market/business is dependent on employment. The newly released statistics, while appearing encouraging, might not be so after all.

Despite today's promising numbers report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, some believe that the US has a very long way to go to get to full employment. Repeating the golden years is a very difficult road.

I commented a few years ago (Is The Recovery Of The Workers’ Compensation System An Illusion?) that workers' compensation is not necessarily anti-cyclical, ie. does not necessarily do better in down markets. That has been reflected in decreased manufacturing and insurance carrier insolvencies.