"States cutting weeks off jobless benefits" May 23, 2011|By Kevin Freking, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Some of the states that have drained their unemployment insurance funds are cutting the number of weeks that laid-off workers can count on those benefits.
But bankers get bailouts and wars never need worry.
Legislators are trying to limit tax increases for businesses to replenish the pool and are hoping the federal government keeps stepping in when the economy slumps....
As they heap tax increases on you, citizen-consumer.
And let's all hope the OVER 14 TRILLION in DEBT feds come through.
The cuts come as legislatures deal with the damage that the recession inflicted on state unemployment insurance programs. The sharp increase in the number of people who lost their jobs drained the reservoir of money dedicated to paying benefits.
But we have been TOLD that we ARE IN and HAVE BEEN IN a RECOVERY for TWO YEARS!!
Wouldn't states be COMING BACK by NOW?
Of course, the OBVIOUS ANSWER is WE, the PEOPLE, NEVER CAME OUT of the GREAT DEPRESSION and are STILL in it!!!
About 30 states borrowed more than $44 billion from the federal government to continue payments to laid-off workers. Many states hastened the insolvency of their funds by keeping balances at historically low levels going into the downturn.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: States Stole Unemployment Insurance
The AmeriKan system itself is bankrupt and implosion is the only answer. It's beyond salvaging. The people we asked and elected to do that have betrayed us.
The burden of replenishing the funds and paying off the loans will fall primarily on businesses through higher taxes, but the benefit cuts are an effort to limit the tax increases....
I always see a lot of companies making big profits in the Boston Globe business pages.
In good economic times, most of the unemployed find new jobs before their benefits expire. But in times of high unemployment, states have come to count on extra help from the federal government. Some say that reliance is playing a role in the bills to cap benefits.
“A lot of states are basically saying, ‘Hey, why are we paying for these benefits when, in a recession, the federal government will step in?’ ’’ said Steve Woodbury, an economics professor at Michigan State University.
Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, said Congress in the future might worry that repeated extensions of unemployment benefits would serve as a deterrent to finding a job.
That TIRED OLD PoS argument coming from Hatch?
I suggest that UTAH VOTERS run his sorry f***ing ass out next time!
And maybe CUTTING OFF the CORPORATE WELFARE would HELP, huh?
“There’s some truth to that’’ concern, said Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the program.
You know what else is a deterrence to finding a job? Incumbency!
Employers pay both state and federal taxes for unemployment insurance. States collect the taxes that pay for basic benefits. The federal taxes help pay for administering the program and providing the federal government’s share of extended benefits. State tax collections will have increased about 44 percent since 2009, according to the Department of Labor.
Still, as a percentage of wages paid, unemployment insurance taxes are at historically low levels, less than 1 percent. When the unemployment insurance program began in 1938, the tax rate for unemployment insurance averaged about 2.7 percent of wages.
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Here is what happens when you apply in Massachusetts:
"Data theft may expose jobless residents; Breach could affect up to 210,000 in Mass.; state gives notification 4 weeks after attack" May 18, 2011|By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff
The personal financial information of up to 210,000 unemployed Massachusetts residents may have been stolen in a data breach caused by a virus discovered in state labor department computers four weeks ago, officials said yesterday.
And yet the government needs to spy on you, dear citizen. They can't protect the information they have, but they need to know if you are a "terrorist."
Names, addresses, and Social Security numbers, among other data, may have been taken, said John Glennon, chief information officer for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.
The number of affected recipients is probably a small fraction of the total number of potential victims, according to Glennon....
Then that means there are a LOT of UNEMPLOYED in Massachusetts.
And now it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to SECURE your information! I guess you would have the time and it would give you something to do, huh? No sense looking for work.
Computer viruses are so common that it might not make sense to issue an immediate warning when a network is infected, said Chester Wisniewski, a network security analyst for Sophos Corp. in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. But he added that a delay in warning possible victims could give identity thieves extra time to exploit the stolen data....
Just the state looking out for you again, dear citizen.
About 1,500 computers in the department’s unemployment assistance and career services departments, and its One Stop Career Centers, were infected with the computer virus called Qakbot, which is designed to let an attacker take control of infected computers and to steal information from the machines....
Agency workers began to complain that their computers were running sluggishly — a common indication that machines have been infected with a virus — and network managers tried in vain to clean the infected machines. They eventually discovered that the virus was capturing information being typed on the keyboards of infected computers. In a sense, that was good news, according to Glennon, because it meant the virus did not copy files stored on the infected computers’ hard drives.
Still....
Sigh.
The potential impact of the breach is dwarfed by other recent data thefts....
Yeah, so we can ALL FEEL BETTER!
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I'm glad I never applied.
Related: State reassures on data breach
Yup. When it's agenda-pushing stuff like "terrorists" and global fart-misting we are supposed to feel urgency, but when it comes to state malfeasance, cutting cop, fireman, and teacher benefits, and banker looting of the people, etc, etc, it's take a pill.
Also see:
State's jobless rate hits two-year low
The Massachusetts economy continued to show surprising strength as the state unemployment rate hit a two-year low in April and employers added nearly 20,000 new jobs, officials reported yesterday.
Related:
Labor union says wind projects aren’t using local workers
For teen job-seekers, summer again offers dismal prospects
The number of teens holding summer jobs in Massachusetts and across the country is expected to match or be even less than last year’s record lows, with only about 1 in 4 teens finding work, according to research by Northeastern University.
And yet we are told more jobs were created every month, blah, blah, blah.
