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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (76341)	12/14/2009 1:21:02 PM
From: longnshort	6 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224729

yeah part time Christmas jobs. happens every year

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (76341)	12/14/2009 2:12:01 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	1 Recommendation Respond to of 224729

Senate Dems Struggle to Get Health Care on Track By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: December 14, 2009 Filed at 1:50 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Democratic leaders struggled Monday to get President Barack Obama's health care overhaul on track for passage by Christmas, faced with moderates' opposition to expanding Medicare and internal party disputes over abortion and importing cheaper prescription drugs. In a make-or-break week, the leadership called an early evening meeting of all Democrats Monday, just hours after the latest obstacle emerged -- Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman's threat to join Republicans in blocking the bill over a plan to allow uninsured individuals as young as 55 to purchase Medicare coverage. The senator said Sunday he opposes it, speaking in a television interview and later in a private meeting with Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Separately, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., a leading foe of abortion rights, was scheduled to meet with Obama at the White House to discuss the impasse over stiffening the bill's abortion restrictions.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (76341)	12/14/2009 2:15:36 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 224729

At 8:30 on the morning of the first Friday in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the unemployment rate had fallen to 10% in November from 10.2% the month before. Hooray! Headlines heralded the unexpected drop. Stock prices surged. Enthused White House press secretary Robert Gibbs: "We're moving in the right direction." By late morning, though, stocks were slumping. Commentators began to focus on concerns with the numbers. By the following Monday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was warning that "we still have some way to go before we can be assured that the recovery will be self-sustaining." So much for that fall in unemployment, huh? It was a telling reaction, indicative of the still gloomy national mood, the perceived fickleness of monthly economic indicators — and the diminished status of the unemployment rate as a statistic. Once the indispensable, largely unquestioned measure of the state of the job market, it is now treated with suspicion and disdain. With good reason, because the unemployment rate fails to accurately reflect just how bad things are out there. (See 10 perfect jobs for the recession — and after.) Each month, interviewers contact 60,000 households — most by phone, some in person — and ask about the employment status of household members age 16 and over. Those who don't have jobs but have looked in the past four weeks are classified as unemployed. After some statistical adjustments to extrapolate the data from those 60,000 households to the total U.S. population, the number of unemployed is divided by the size of the labor force (employed plus unemployed), and there's your rate. Measured that way, unemployment still isn't as bad as it was at the lowest point of the 1981-82 recession, when it hit 10.8%. And it's nowhere near what it was in 1933, when the rate peaked somewhere around 25%. This method of calculating unemployment was pioneered by the head of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor in 1878, and it has its merits. It's simple. It's straightforward. And it provides a pretty accurate count of those who really, really want jobs. But it also misses millions of people who may not be actively looking for a job but would happily take one if offered. Those ranks surely swell in a deep recession or during a time of economic turmoil that destroys entire job categories (like autoworker). The government's statisticians are aware of this, and since the 1970s the BLS has published broader measures of unemployment that include at least some of these people. In 1994 the broadest measure — which counts as unemployed those who have looked for work in the past year but not the past four weeks, plus part-time workers who would rather be working full time — was dubbed U-6 unemployment. During this recession, it has gotten far more attention than ever before. U-6 unemployment was at 17.2% in November, down from 17.5% the month before and up from 8.4% two years ago. These figures aren't strictly comparable with those from before 1994, but the New York Times has taken a stab at recalculating the earlier numbers — with help from the BLS — and estimates that U-6 unemployment peaked in December 1982 at 17.1%. Meaning this recession is worse. (See the best business deals of 2009.) Even these figures leave out people who say they want a job but haven't looked in the past year. Economist and gadfly John Williams, whose online newsletter Shadow Government Statistics has gained a big following lately, adds them in, makes a few tweaks and gets to 21.8% unemployment in November, down from 22.1% in October. Such measures still rely on people's own assessment of whether they want to work. A BLS study a decade ago found that these self-assessments aren't all that reliable. So how about the simplest possible job-market measure, the employment-to-population ratio? Among Americans ages 25 to 54, it was at 75.1% in November, down from 80.3% in early 2007 and — with the exception of October's 75% — the lowest it's been since 1984. Because of the entry of women into the workforce, the ratio trended upward from the 1960s through the 1990s. If you look just at men ages 25 to 54, the picture is much more dire. Their employment-to-population ratio of 80.6% in November is the lowest since the BLS began keeping track in 1948. It's 4 percentage points lower than it was in the depths of the early-1980s downturn. There are certainly other factors at play here besides just a tough job market — more stay-at-home dads, more rich loafers, more prison inmates. But it also may be a sign that these are in fact the worst times for American workers since the 1930s. Which helps explain why there was so little excitement about that drop in the unemployment rate to 10%. Read more: time.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (76341)	12/14/2009 4:04:47 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	3 Recommendations Respond to of 224729

Times/CBS News Poll: The Recession’s Profound Impact By DALIA SUSSMAN About half of Americans who are unemployed say the recession has been a hardship on them and caused major life changes, and most do not expect relief any time soon, according to a new nationwide poll of unemployed Americans conducted by The New York Times and CBS News. The poll results, which will be released in their entirety Monday evening, underscore the profound impact that the recession and unemployment have had on families and individuals across the country. Forty-nine percent of unemployed respondents in the survey say they’ve experienced major life changes as a result of the economic recession, twice the number of all Americans who said so in another Times/CBS News poll conducted last week. Another 44 percent of unemployed respondents in the poll say the recession has been difficult, but has not caused any major changes in their lives. Just 5 percent say the recession has not had much of an effect on them, compared with 26 percent of all Americans who said so. Looking ahead, most unemployed Americans are not optimistic about the direction of the job market in their area. Most say they do not think it will improve in the next year – 36 percent expect it to stay the same, while 22 percent expect it to get even worse. About 4 in 10, 39 percent, say they think the job market in their area will improve. As to whether or not the jobs that have been lost in their community will come back when the economy improves, unemployed respondents are split. Forty-six percent say the jobs will return, but 40 percent say the jobs will probably never come back to their community. The length of time respondents have been out of work matters. Unemployed Americans who have been without a job for a longer period of time are more apt to say the recession has been a hardship and caused major life changes, and they are less likely to be optimistic about the job market in the next year or about jobs returning to their community. The national telephone poll was conducted with 708 unemployed adults Dec. 5-10 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points Complete poll results and a corresponding story will be available this evening.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (76341)	12/14/2009 11:33:57 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	1 Recommendation Respond to of 224729

Poll Reveals Depth and Trauma of Joblessness in U.S. MICHAEL LUO and MEGAN THEE-BRENAN Published: December 14, 2009 More than half of the nation’s unemployed workers have borrowed money from friends or relatives since losing their jobs. An equal number have cut back on doctor visits or medical treatments because they are out of work. Almost half have suffered from depression or anxiety. About 4 in 10 parents have noticed behavioral changes in their children that they attribute to their difficulties in finding work. Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults, causing major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.