NoJobSurvivor.com

WASHINGTON March 8, 2010 – UPDATE -

Eight Republicans voted with Democrats to defeat a GOP filibuster of the measure, setting up a final vote later today.

EARLIER STORY:

Legislation extending unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless faces a key test vote in the Senate today, its momentum helped by about 60 popular tax breaks for individuals and businesses that expired at the end of last year.

The Senate is considering S.Amdt.3336 an amendment to H.R.4213 - Tax Extenders Act of 2009 -  that will extend unemployment and COBRA benefits to the end of 2010. 

The measure also prevents doctors from absorbing a crippling cut in Medicare payments, extends health insurance subsidies for the unemployed and gives cash-starved states help with Medicaid, the federal-state program providing health care to the poor and disabled.

Reuters: The International Brotherhood of Electric Workers fund filed a lawsuit seeking to recover money on behalf of other shareholders. It seeks to stop Goldman from allocating roughly 47% of '09 net revenue as compensation, saying such allocations "vastly overcompensate management and constitute corporate waste."

March 5, 2010 The number of people age 55-plus without a job grew from 490,000 at the start of the decade to 2.1 million last December, according to an AARP analysis of government data on older workers released Thursday. 

To make matters worse for boomers and other older adults, the amount of time it took to find work was devastating—35 weeks in December 2009 compared with 19 weeks in January 2000. In February 41% of all unemployed workers had been out of work 26 weeks or more according to this morning's employment status report from the BLS.

“Things were very different at the end of the decade than at the beginning,” says Sara Rix, a strategic adviser at AARP who conducted the analysis. But even though 2009 was “a really bad year,” she says, more older people are in the workforce today, a trend that she says will continue because of an aging population.

Workers age 65-plus flooded the labor market over the decade. In January 2000, only 13 percent of workers were 65 and older. In December 2009, their numbers grew to 17 percent. By contrast, the labor force participation rates for those age 16 and older fell from 67 percent to just under 65 percent.

Though workers 65-plus found it easier to find work, they also wound up on the firing line. Some 479,000 were out of work last December, a huge increase from the 143,000 jobless workers in January 2000. Likewise, the unemployment rate among that age group shot up to 7.2 percent last December from 3.4 percent in January 2000.

Workers age 16 and older also saw their jobless rate jump from 4 percent at the start of the decade to 10 percent in December.

“The last decade has spelled disaster for millions of older workers who have lost their jobs, seen their retirement savings diminish and had their health care costs continue to skyrocket,” says Nancy A. LeaMond, AARP executive vice president. “The recession has only made this bad situation worse, as the statistics show clearly that older workers who lose their jobs stay unemployed longer than other groups.”

March 5, 2010 The February U-6 unemployment rate rose to 16.8%, an increase of point 3 percentage points, the government reported today.

Long term unemployment, defined to be 27 weeks or more out of work steadied at about 6.1 million, or 41% of unemployed^(U3) people.

Also there were 1,200,000 discouraged workers in February, up from 473,000 a year earlier. Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.

The more commonly quoted U-3 was unchanged at 9.7 percent. The number of unemployed persons unchange at 14.9 million and 36,000 jobs were lost in February.

Nonfarm private employment decreased 20,000 from January 2010 to February 2010 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the ADP National Employment Report®. The estimated change of employment from December 2009 to January 2010 was revised down, from a decline of 22,000 to a decline of 60,000. The February employment decline was the smallest since employment began falling in February of 2008.

Complete ADP National Employment Report

The US Bureau Labor Statistics Jobs Situation report is due out Friday and is likely to echo the trends of the ADP report. Until the decrease in employment falls below jobs creation, the overall unemployment rate will rise and an unemployment rate increase is expected in tomorrow's BLS Situation report.

UPDATED March 4, 2010

The number of new applications for Unemployment Insurance dropped to 469,000 by 29,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 498,000, in the week ending 27 February 2010, the US Department of Labor reported today.

The 4-week moving average was 470,750, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week's revised average of 474,250.

Insured unemployment ending the week February 20 decreased from the adjusted preceding week of  4,634,000 by 134,000 to 4,500,000. The 4 week moving average dropped to 4,575,750 a decrease of 29,250 from the preceding week's revised average of 4,605,500.

States reported 5,687,574 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending February 13, an increase of 207,632 from the prior week.

Click here for a larger graph of unemployment claims.