Unemployment Statistics

New Jobless Claims Worsen

2009-12-17T14:13:00.002-06:00

According to data released by the government today, the Labor Department said that 480,000 people filed for initial jobless benefits during the week of December 12th---vs. 473,000 people in the prior week.

Continuing Claims also worsened in the week to 5.186 million people collecting unemployment benefits during the week of 12/5/2009.

What's the Maximum Weekly Unemployment Benefit?

2009-12-15T12:48:00.005-06:00

If you're recently unemployed, you may be wondering what the maximum weekly amount of money that you may be getting from the government. Fortunately, MSN Money published a comparison of how much your UI benefits could be... Note: The amount you get depends on the state in which you worked, not the state that you may move to during your jobless time.

Maximum Weekly Unemployment Benefit By State

Alabama - $255
Alaska - $370
Arizona - $240
Arkansas - $409
California - $450
Colorado - $475
Connecticut - $519
Delaware - $330
District of Columbia (Washington DC) - $359
Florida - $275
Georgia - $330
Hawaii - $545
Idaho - $362
Illinois - $385
Indiana - $390
Iowa - $443
Kansas - $423
Kentucky - $415
Louisiana - $284
Maine - $496
Maryland - $380
Massachusetts - $628
Michigan - $365
Minnesota - $566
Mississippi - $230
Missouri - $320
Montana - $407
Nebraska - $308
Nevada - $362
New Hampshire - $427
New Jersey $584
New Mexico - $455
New York - $405
North Carolina - $494
North Dakota - $385
Ohio - $372
Oklahoma - $392
Oregon - $482
Pennsylvania - $539
Rhode Island - $528
South Carolina - $326
South Dakota - $285
Tennessee - $275
Texas - $378
Utah - $444
Vermont - $409
Virgina - $378
Washington - $541
West Virginia - $424
Wisconsin - $363
Wyoming - $387

The amount of money received during Tier 2 and Tier 3 payouts are the same as what is received during the first phase of unemployment. The numbers above do not include the extra $25/week that Obama approved, so your checks may actually be slightly higher, as long as the stimulus plan is still in affect.

California Computer Glitch Prevents 111,000 Unemployment Checks from being Issued

2009-12-10T11:20:00.002-06:00

California's Unemployment Office (EDD) has a computer glitch that is preventing unemployment checks from going to 111,000 out of work Californians. There's too many unemployed Californians for the 30 year old computer system (Even though they were given funds in 2002 to upgrade the departments IT system).

Hat tip to Unemploymentality.

New College Graduates Having a Tough Time Finding Work

2009-12-10T10:58:00.002-06:00

This Channel One story reports how recent graduates from college are having a tough time finding work. Just 5 years ago the unemployment rate for college graduates age 20 - 24 was just over 2%. Today it is almost 10%---And many more grads are forced to work jobs that don't match their major.... And Sadly, many students graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans---consequently, they boomerang back into their parents' home.

Who is (or isn't) Counted as Unemployed?

2009-12-10T10:45:00.004-06:00

This little 2 minute video does a good job in explaining how the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures who is Unemployed, who is not in labor market, who is marginally in the labor market and who is working part time for economic reasons.

Only people who are "Unemployed" are counted in the (10%) unemployment rate. The other 3 categories may or may not be included in the U-6 Broader measurement of unemployment (~17%). The video pokes fun that the government would rather have the public and media focus on the smaller number in order to keep optimism high.

High Unemployment Makes People Fatter?

2009-12-09T08:53:00.002-06:00

According to the Chicago Tribune, the Great Recession has caused people to start eating worse---People without jobs have to buy more processed foods and less fresh foods, and those with jobs are having to work more (forgoing trips to the gym.)

Consequently, in the last year the rate of Obesity has gone up 1 percentage point to 26.4%.

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Personally, I don't quite believe that there is a cause & effect relationship here. This is because, in my own anecdotal conversations, the unemployed have discovered the gym in their down-time and according to stats, hours worked each week has actually gone down in the last year... My guess is that it's just the continuation of the trend that Americans are getting fatter.

Texas Raising Unemployment Insurance Taxes in 2010

2009-12-08T13:42:00.003-06:00

According to the Houston Business Journal, the state of Texas is going to raise the taxes from 0.46% to 0.72%.

That means an employer will pay $64.80 in tax per employee in the 2010 calendar year compared with $23.40 per employee in 2009.

The TWC attributed the rate hike from 0.26 percent to higher unemployment insurance outlays this year.

The tax revenue replenishes the fund that pays workers who involuntarily lose their jobs. About 67 percent of experience-rated businesses pay the minimum.

Meanwhile, the maximum tax rate - paid by 3.3 percent of Texas employers - will increase to about 8.6 percent, up from 6.26 percent, this calendar year. The average tax rate will rise to 1.83 percent from 0.99 percent in 2009.

Jobless Workers in Pennsylvania Now Get 99 Weeks of Unemployment

2009-12-02T15:08:00.001-06:00

Jobless workers in Pa. now eligible for 99 weeks of benefits

HARRISBURG, Nov. 6 – State Rep. Marc Gergely lauded President Obama for signing federal legislation today that will provide up to 20 additional weeks of unemployment benefits to jobless workers.

Gergely is the architect of state legislation that was enacted in September that provided seven additional weeks of benefits.

"This important action means many Pennsylvania families that are struggling to find work will have access to a total of 99 weeks of state and federal unemployment compensation benefits," Gergely said. "On the state level, it builds on the change to the law that I sponsored which extended benefits for seven additional weeks to 79 weeks using federal dollars."

Gergely said the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 8.8 percent in September means Pennsylvania is automatically eligible for the additional 20 weeks of benefits for a total of 99 weeks. Under the federal legislation, all states receive 14 more weeks and states with unemployment rates above 8.5 percent will receive 6 additional weeks of benefits on top of that.

"Extending this critical safety net helps thousands of Pennsylvania families who have exhausted their benefits or are close to having their modest unemployment compensation checks come to an end. Hard-working people who are trying to find work will be able to pay their mortgage or rent, feed their children and live with dignity."

Gergely said that in Pennsylvania, regular unemployment compensation benefits are available for 26 weeks, but about one-third of the nation's unemployed have been out of work for a longer period.

"The global economic downturn continues to make it difficult for many workers to find employment, so Congress and the states have appropriately responded by extending emergency federal unemployment compensation benefits several times in the past few months."

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry will contact unemployed people who are eligible for the extended benefits directly by mail. More information about unemployment compensation in Pennsylvania is available on the department's Web site at www.dli.state.pa.us.

Do I get 99 weeks of unemployment?

2009-12-02T15:04:00.003-06:00

According to the Wall Street Journal, the maximum amount of unemployment insurance jobless Americans can now receive is 99 weeks---That's almost 2 years of benefits while you're looking to get a new job!

In order to get the additional 20 weeks, your state would need to have had an unemployment rate in excess of 8.5% during the previous 3 months.

When Does the COBRA subsidy expire?

2009-12-01T14:35:00.002-06:00

If you are one of the millions of unemployed workers that have taken advantage of the 65% federal government subsidy for your COBRA health insurance coverage, you may be wondering when that benefit expires.

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that the subsidy lasts 9 months---so for millions of people who signed up for the coverage in March 2009, they are seeing their health insurance coverage rates rapidly increase. These people will be forced to either pay the higher COBRA rates or shop around for online health insurance quotes.

Even though, congress has extended unemployment insurance benefits to up to 99 weeks, I am not sure if Obama will extend the COBRA subsidy.

Auto Insurance Price Quotes

2009-11-24T22:12:00.003-06:00

If you're recently unemployed, you really need to change your spending to get more inline with your income (i.e. a small severance and tiny unemployment insurance checks)... This means scaling back on the dining out, cutting the cable bill, no more star bucks coffee---And getting new auto-insurance quotes.

Odds are if you're no longer driving to work, your total miles driven will be lowered. Consequently, it's the perfect time to shop around on sites like esurance.com and geico.com to see if you can save money on your car insurance---Look to lower your miles and possibly raise your deductible in order to reduce your premiums.

Unemployment Medical Insurance

2009-11-24T21:26:00.006-06:00

If you're recently unemployed, you need to figure out what to do concerning your families health insurance---Odds are pretty good that your employer will take you off their health plan real quick. So you may be asking yourself, "How can unemployed workers get the best health insurance?"

Fortunately, the state of New York has issued several health insurance options for the unemployed. These options include:

COBRA
- You have the right to continue your group plan through a COBRA policy. If your group has less than 20 employees, you have a similar right under the NYS continuation of coverage law. You will be required to pay the full cost of the coverage, including any portion your employer formerly paid on your behalf. Your employer should notify you of your right to this coverage upon termination of your employment. If you have not received notice, contact your employer or call this Department for assistance at 1-800-342-3736.
- The federal stimulus package includes a COBRA premium subsidy for eligible people who were involuntarily terminated. For more information on the federal subsidy, please select this link.
Individual Insurance Plans---You may purchase individual health insurance for yourself and your family on a direct payment basis regardless of your health status or income. However, these policies may exclude coverage for certain pre-existing conditions if you have not had health insurance coverage within the past 63 days. It is therefore very important not to wait to purchase this type of policy. Individual direct payment policies are offered by all HMOs in New York State. For a list of the HMOs currently offering these plans in your county and the rates, please select this link, or call 1-800-342-3736.
Healthy New York-- Healthy New York program offers discounted coverage to individuals who have lost group coverage because they have lost their job and meet certain criteria, including income limits. To learn more about the eligibility for this program, please visit the site at http://www.healthyny.com, or call 1-866-HEALTHY-NY.
Child Health Plus--Child Health Plus is a program run by the NYS Department of Health. The program provides free or low cost health insurance coverage to children under the age of 19 whose families meet the program’s income guidelines. To find out more about the Child Health Plus program and its eligibility criteria, you may call 1-800-698-4543, or visit the Web site at: http://www.nyhealth.gov/nysdoh/chplus/index.htm.

Minimum Wage Goes Up, Teen Employment Goes Down

2009-11-24T16:33:00.002-06:00

Economist Casey Mulligan has an interesting blog-post on how the recent increase in the minimum wage rate has measurably reduced the amount of teenagers that have jobs.

Michigan's U-6 Unemployment over 20%

2009-11-24T16:05:00.002-06:00

According to mlive the broader level of unemployment in Michigan is over 21%.

For the 12 months from November 2008 to October 2009, Michigan had 21.1% of workers either out of a job, or working part time for economic reasons.

Of Michigan's 83 counties, unemployment ranges from ~6% (Mackinac) to ~25% (Baraga County).

Average Hours Worked Per Week Down to 33 hours per week

2009-11-24T15:24:00.002-06:00

Click on Chart for a Bigger Image

The average hours worked per week is hovering around record lows of 33 hrs/week. Data has been kept for the last 45 years, and the above chart is for a seasonally adjusted... The worrying aspect of this data is that if production workers aren't yet working close to 40 hours---they may choose to increase the hours of the existing work force before they start adding new jobs to the payroll or bringing back furloughed staff.

California Has Lost 1 million+ Jobs in this Recession

2009-11-24T14:56:00.003-06:00

For the movie buffs out there, you may remember the classic movie "Grapes of Wrath" where people who lost their jobs in the dust-bowl drying up agriculture jobs in the midwest loaded everybody up in the car to head to California---Land of jobs and opportunity---Unfortunately, there weren't plentiful opportunities once they got to the golden state.

If you look at data for our Nation's most populous state, you'll see that for the first time ever it has more than 2.2 million people out of jobs (This doesn't include the likely 1 million more who are working part-time jobs even though they want full time work). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in just a few short years the jobless ranks more than doubled from less than 1 million to greater than 2 million.

One thing to note however, is that from 1976 to 2009---The state of California has seen a huge increase in population and hence a big increase in the size of its labor force. In fact over 33 years, it has increased almost 80% from less than 10 million workers to around 18 million workers.

The unemployment rate is just the # of jobless workers divided by the labor force---As you can see, California is seeing record high unemployment rates of 12.5% as of October 2009.
Click on Charts for Larger Image

What is interesting to note is that from April 2009 to October 2009, the BLS thinks that California's labor force dropped by almost 300,000 workers---If you think cynically and say that those people probably really are still in California and not working---The unemployment rate in October would have been closer to 13.9% in California...

China's Empty City

2009-11-23T13:45:00.002-06:00

One interesting thing happens during recessions---government officials have a perverse incentive to "save or create" jobs---even if those jobs don't result anything economical (i.e. Dig a Ditch and then fill it up).

Well the Chinese did this on a grand scale. They built a city for 1 million people in inner mongolia that sits empty---because the existing city (30 miles away) is still vibrant and affordable. Essentially, they wasted capital and jobs on an asset that won't be viable for years to come.

Detroit's Unemployment Rate is ~28%

2009-11-17T09:40:00.002-06:00

Click on Chart for a Larger Image

According to statistics released by the state of Michigan and BLS.gov the state of Michigan had an unemployment rate of 15.3% in September 2009, while jobs in Detroit were twice as difficult to find --- as its jobless rate from September 27.9%.

While you might find it comforting that Detroit's unemployment rate dropped from July 2009 to September; you'll be interested to know that during the same time the labor force shrunk by 8,000 people from 391,000 to 383,000. And the number of people employed dropped from 278,000 in July to 276,000 in September----So in other words, the number of jobs is still on the decline---it's just that the work force was declining at a faster rate.

Disappearing Jobs

2009-11-17T09:23:00.002-06:00

A hat tip to the the Great Depression of 2006 blog for posting a link to this video graphic that shows the US unemployment by county for the trailing 12 month average from 2007 to the present.

Latoya Egwuekwe is the creator of the multimedia graphic that shows you just how quickly and how broadly that jobs disappeared from the Midwestern, Eastern, Southern and Western parts of the US. And since the graphic shows the rolling 12 month average, you can rest assured that the next 4 - 6 months will be showing even more of the US losing jobs.

Jobless Rate Doubles; Fannie & Freddie Delinquencies Septuple

2009-11-09T17:42:00.004-06:00

Click on Chart for a Bigger Image

Here is an update of a set of data that I've been paying attention to for the last year. It compares the unemployment rate (Blue Line), the U6 Broader Unemployment Rate (Purple Line, which includes the jobless, and the people working part-time for economic reasons) with the delinquency rate on Fannie Mae (Red Bar) and Freddie Mac (Green Bar) mortgage loans on single family homes.

The picture isn't pleasing---You can see that as broad unemployment rate increased from less than 10% to 17.5% (in October, 2009)---The delinquency rate on home loans for Fannie & Freddie (which are typically Prime Loans) have increased by almost 6 - 8 Fold!

Let me repeat that---In Late 2006 and Early 2007, the prime mortgages were delinquent at merely ~0.5%. Now Freddie Mac has a 3.33% Delinquency Rate (September, 2009) and Fannie has a Delinquency Rate of 4.45%.

People should remember that in 2007, the economy & markets started tanking because sub-prime mortgages started going delinquent... Granted, those loans were going bust a significantly higher rate than the Freddie & Fannie notes---but also remember that Freddie & Fannie loan out significantly more money than what was ever given out to sub-prime borrowers... I don't have the data, but I'd venture to say that in order-of-magnitude--these loan delinquencies could be as bad or worse than the sub-prime crises.

2009-11-09T17:21:00.002-06:00

The business cycle always has an ebb-and-flow to it. The unemployment rises quickly during the onset of recessions and jobs are added back at a fraction of the pace from which they were taken away.

If you look at the jobless rate during the last 40 years, there were 6 distinct cycles of increases in the jobless rate and the related improvement in the economy. (1969 to 1973, 1973 to 1979, 1979 to 1989, 1989 to 2000, 2000 to 2007 and 2007 to the present (October 2009).

As you can see below the current Great Recession (Green Line) has taken unemployment to the highest point since the 1980's and it has done so at a faster pace.

Click on Images for a larger image

If you just want to concentrate on the change in the unemployment rate, you can see that this recession (Green Line) has risen from the trough at the fastest rate we have seen.

If this recession is going to have the duration of hard-times seen in the 1980's the peak unemployment rate won't happen for another 11 months (September 2010)... And worse yet, you can see from the chart that it usually takes 5 - 6 YEARS before enough jobs are created to bring the unemployment rate back down to pre-recession levels.
Click on Chart for a Larger Image

10% Unemployment is worse than what it used to be

2009-11-08T16:14:00.003-06:00

Yahoo News has an interesting story about how this month's 10% jobless rate is worse than what it was in the 1980's during the last time America saw a 10% unemployment rate.

Americans are carrying a lot more debt.
People are taking at least 10 more weeks on average to look for work.
Fewer people have health insurance

Jobless Rate at 10.2%; Broader unemployment at 17.5%

2009-11-06T08:33:00.002-06:00

Hat tip on the Chart to Jake at econopicdata

The jobless rate for October 2009 spiked to 10.2% and if you include the underemployed, it jumped to 17.5%---That's almost 1 out of every 5 workers is looking for a better job.

The average work week remained at a low of 33 hours a week (Usually employers will start increasing hours worked, before they start hiring new employees)...

Florida's Jobless Rate Spikes to 11%

2009-10-16T16:42:00.003-05:00

According to the Jacksonville Observer, the unemployment rate in Florida has now breached the 11% mark.

It is the highest unemployment rate for the sunshine state since 1975, and it's up over 4 percentage points in the one year since September 2008.

Fort Walton Beach, Gainesville and Tallahassee – regions known for government, education and military employment – had the lowest unemployment rates, all less than 7.5 percent.

U6 Unemployment Tops 17%

2009-10-02T12:59:00.004-05:00

This morning the Bureau of Economic Analysis put out data concerning the unemployment rate for the United States during September 2009. The reported unemployment rate climbed to 9.8% in the most recent month, and the broader total unemployment (aka the U6 Unemployment) climbed to 17%--this figure includes people who are working part time for economic reasons.

EconomPicData does a great job of plotting all types of economic data and today I'm pulling a nice chart that he created that shows just how tightly correlated the Unemployment rate and the U-6 Unemployment rate are.Another disturbing trend that EconomPicData picks up on is the fact that the number of hours worked per week times the # of people employed divided by the population (essentially the number of hours per week worked per capital). And what is disturbing is that it is at a multi-decade low and still dropping; additionally, before companies start hiring new workers they usually start increasing the number of hours worked by their existing work-force.