US Labor Secretary Celebrates Rise in Unemployment by Handing Out Candy to Reporters
Can somebody please explain to me what reason there is for celebrating another uptick in unemployment – to 7.9% – in America?
This tweet just came across from Scott MacFarlane:
And here is the picture:
“Today’s increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill. The jobless rate is higher than it was when President Obama took office, and there are still 23 million Americans struggling for work. On Tuesday, America will make a choice between stagnation and prosperity. For four years, President Obama’s policies have crushed America’s middle class. For four years, President Obama has told us that things are getting better and that we’re making progress. For too many American families, those words ring hollow. We can do better. We can have real economic growth, create millions of good-paying jobs, and give middle-class families the security and opportunity they deserve. When I’m president, I’m going to make real changes that lead to a real recovery, so that the next four years are better than the last.”
Romney and most Americans see it as yet another sad day in a four-year struggle with the economy and unemployment.
Not the Obama administration.
Generation Opportunity, the largest non-profit, non-partisan organization in the United States engaging and mobilizing young Americans on the important economic issues facing the nation, announced non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) 18-29 youth unemployment rate data for October 2012 as the Presidential election nears:
- The youth unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds specifically for October 2012 is 12.0 percent (NSA).
- The youth unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans for October 2012 is 21.4 percent (NSA); the youth unemployment rate for 18-29 year old Hispanics for October 2012 is 13.4 percent (NSA); and the youth unemployment rate for 18–29 year old Women for October 2012 is 11.8 percent (NSA).
- The declining labor force participation rate has created an additiona1.7 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.
- If the labor force participation rate were factored into the 18-29 youth unemployment calculation, the actual 18-29-unemployment rate would rise to 16.5 percent (NSA).
Don’t worry though, things can turn around after Election Day.
In a press release to CNN, Romney reiterated his five-point plan to create a real recovery in America:
Together with Paul Ryan, I’ve put forward an economic recovery plan consisting of five central elements that will in four years create 12 million jobs.
We will produce more of the energy we need to heat our homes, fill our cars, and make our economy grow. We will stop President Obama’s war on coal, his disdain for oil, and his effort to crimp natural gas by federal regulation of the very technology that produces it. We will support nuclear and renewables, but phase out subsidies once an industry is on its feet. We will invest in energy science and research to make discoveries that can actually change our energy world. By 2020, we will achieve North American energy independence.
We will retrain our work force for the jobs of tomorrow and ensure that every child receives a quality education no matter where they live, including especially our inner cities. Parents and students, not administrators and unions, need to have greater choice. Our current worker retraining system is a labyrinth of federal programs that sprawls across 47 programs and nine agencies. We will eliminate this redundancy and empower the 50 states and the private sector to develop effective programs of their own.
We will make trade work for America. We’ll open more markets to American agriculture, products, and services. And we will finally hold accountable any nation that doesn’t play by the rules. I will stand up for the rights and interests of American workers and employers.
We will restore fiscal sanity to Washington by bringing an end to the federal spending and borrowing binge that in just four years has added more debt held by the public than almost all previous administrations combined. We will put America on track to a balanced budget by eliminating unnecessary programs, by sending programs back to states where they can be managed with less abuse and less cost, and by shrinking the bureaucracy of Washington.
Finally, we will champion small business, the great engine of job creation in our country, by reforming the tax code and updating and reshaping regulations that have suffocated economic growth.
What do you want America? A President who celebrates mediocrity in America, or a President who will bring back exceptionalism to this great nation?
Good News! NY Stops Unemployment Checks to Illegal Immigrants and Dead People
We’re starting to get a warm fuzzy feeling here again in New York State. A sense of pride is being restored. It was just over a month ago that New York made it illegal once again to view child pornography. (Yes, it had actually been legal, so long as the porn was not downloaded or printed).
And now state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has put a halt to unemployment checks being delivered to working people, illegal immigrants and the dead.
Good news, of course. The bad news however, is that over $1 million in unqualified unemployment compensation has already been paid out.
New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says he has stopped $1.4 million in unemployment checks written out to working people, illegal immigrants and the dead.
But DiNapoli says nearly $1 million in checks to people who didn’t qualify for unemployment checks has already been paid by the state.
The comptroller says among them are 91 recently hired state workers who owe the state $105,000 for overpayment of unemployment benefits.
After finding the errors, DiNapoli says he advised the state Labor Department to tighten its controls to make sure the critical aid gets only to New Yorkers who qualify.
DiNapoli says the Labor Department didn’t even seek to recover $383,000 in overpayments because a year had lapsed.
The Labor Department says it will tighten its controls.
DiNapoli also stated, “In these challenging fiscal times, state agencies must watch their spending closely. Clearly that isn’t happening when payments are sent to deceased people.”
The report can be read here…
Almost makes you fall in love with New York all over again.
Mental Recession 