Redneck Bubba

Bubba has some of those of you who are "takers"

Headzup: Bobby Jindal Rejects Money For State's Unemployed

Unemployment Cartoon

Can unemployment ever be funny?

How Deep The Recession?

You've probably heard the unemployment figures for November that came out yesterday - 533,000 newly unemployed. But it is only part of the picture...

Back in 1994, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics changed how it gauged unemployment, choosing to exclude "discouraged workers." That means people available and eager to work but who, after a year of looking, have given up because they cannot find a job. The Clinton administration just chopped these discouraged workers out of the most commonly reported statistic on unemployment.

The figure now used - the official rate (which today clocked in at 6.7%) - is called U3 in BLS jargon. As you can see from this table, it's labeled "Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force." But, as you can also see from the table, there are other, broader measures that rarely get reported in the megamedia, although The Wall Street Journal did include one of these in paragraph 16 of Market Watch today:

An alternative gauge of unemployment -- which includes discouraged workers and those whose hours have been cut back to part-time -- rose to 12.5% from 11.8%. The number of workers forced to work part-time rose by 621,000 to 7.3 million.

From Meteor Blades on Daily Kos.

President Bush Hates You...

...unless you are one of the nation's richest people. If there was ever any doubt in your mind just who George W. Bush is willing to bail out in our current economic crisis, here's a report from the Progress Report Oct. 9, 2008. (This page changes regularly - so here's a link to the archives.)

ECONOMY -- PERINO CONFIRMS WHITE HOUSE WON'T EXTEND JOBLESS BENEFITS, SAYS PEOPLE SHOULD JUST FIND A JOB: During a White House press briefing yesterday, Press Secretary Dana Perino suggested that the Bush administration would oppose any effort to extend jobless benefits, a stance that the White House has taken before. She explained this position by saying, "[W]e want people to be able to return to the workplace as soon as possible" and concluded that "the best way to help" the economy and unemployed people is for the unemployed to start "getting back to work." However, eight years of Bushonomics has resulted in significant job loss and the slashing of safety nets for laid-off workers. The Department of Labor reported last week that the country shed 159,000 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate has increased to its highest level in five years. The Washington Post reported that "unemployment claims are at a seven-year high, and factory orders are sharply down." And while the federal government is refusing to extend benefits, state unemployment funds are drying up, with "such funds in at least 10 states facing insolvency in 2009."