January 30, 2004
W's recovery
A record-high 375,000 jobless workers will exhaust their unemployment insurance this month and an estimated 2 million workers will find themselves in the same predicament during the first half of the year, according to an analysis of Labor Department statistics by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. ......Posted by Norwood at January 30, 2004 10:34 PMThe jobless recovery has become an issue in this presidential election year, and the report shows the jobless benefits will run out for large numbers of workers in several key states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina and South Carolina.
While the unemployment rate dropped to 5.7 percent in December, down from 6.3 percent in June, businesses added only 1,000 jobs that month. The country has lost more than 2.8 million manufacturing jobs in a steady erosion over the past 41 months.
Congress voted in 2002 to give unemployed workers an additional 13 weeks of benefits and extended the program twice. But it expired just before Christmas. Congressional Republicans said another extension wasn't necessary because the economy was gaining strength and job growth was near at hand.
· I read an article in the Arizona Republic that said 1.8 million jobs have been lost in last two years under Bush and that the manufacturing sector lost 2.8 million since mid-2000. All Bush does is convene “high-level” meetings that don’t move the ball. If the US wants to create jobs it should make broadband a high national priority. A report by some New Millennium Research group (http://www.newmillenniumresearch.org/archive/bbstudyreport_091703.pdf) said 1.2 million jobs would be created in the next 20 years if the Bush administration had a broadband policy or plan. Lieberman said he would push to accelerate broadband Internet development (not sure if he would have government fund it). He also would increase R&D spending for science and technology. Bush hasn’t done jack in this field.
Posted by: ramennoodle at February 4, 2004 11:40 AM