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Thursday, August 20, 2009

New Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly


But total benefit rolls show little change at around 6.2 million

WASHINGTON
- The number of first-time claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly for the second straight week, a sign that jobs remain scarce even as other data show the economy is stabilizing.

The Labor Department said Thursday the number of new jobless claims rose to a seasonally adjusted 576,000 last week, from a revised figure of 561,000. Wall Street economists expected a drop to 550,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a side of this coin that it seems nobody is talking about.
With all the Americans now collecting unemployment benefits, the INSURANCE companies are going to be even richer.
This is why. A business pays unemployment insurance based on a rating. In this rating, they factor in how many unemployment claims filed on your business and how many dollars were paid out with those claims. If you've had a bunch, then your rate is very high. If you've never had any, then your rate is low.
Where I work, there had never been an employee claim unemployment on us and our rate was low.
However, we have had to lay off a number of employees this year (over 50%), so imagine what our rate is going to be at our next insurance renewal time!?
There have already been something in place to prevent the insurance companies from gouging businesses due to the economic downturn, but there is not and they are not regulated so guess the businessman gets screwed AGAIN!
THIS will definitely prevent new jobs from being created and will probably also affect the number of those laid off workers who are brought back.
I have not seen this discussion anywhere but it troubles me greatly that people just don't realize another one of the ramifications of this economy.

Chimera said...

People assume its just free money from the state,I guess.
Heres something else to chew on....how many of these people in the new wave of unemployment claims have just traded in a "clunker" for a new car-that they now cannot afford to make payments on?

Anonymous said...

Thank You Obama for you stimulus package must be "Mission Accomplished"