Jobless rate in Western US tops 10 percent

Jobless rate in Western US tops 10 percent
Jobless rate in Western US tops 10 percent in May, first time since 1983; 8 states set records

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Jobless-rate-in-Western-US-apf-3224283879.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=&ccode=

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The unemployment rate in the West jumped over 10 percent last month, the first time that regional threshold has been broken in about 25 years. On the state level, eight set record-highs and only two -- Nebraska and Vermont -- did not report increases.

The Labor Department reported Friday that 48 states and the District of Columbia saw employment conditions deteriorate last month. The fallout from the longest recession since World War II, was the worst in Michigan as automakers cut tens of thousands of jobs. Its unemployment rate rose to 14.1 percent.
The West region reported the highest jobless rate at 10.1 percent. The last time any region had a rate of at least 10 percent was September 1983, when the country was emerging from a severe recession.
The region is home to California, where the jobless rate jumped to a record 11.5 percent last month, Nevada, where it's a record 11.3 percent, and other states that have been slammed when the housing boom went bust -- snatching jobs and wealth.
The other six states that set new highs on records dating to 1976 were: North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia.
Nebraska's jobless rate dipped last month, while Vermont's was flat.
On the layoffs front, Arizona and Florida suffered the largely monthly percentage decreases, followed by Oklahoma and Arkansas, Kentucky and Michigan.

Joblessness is rising as companies lay off workers and turn to other cost-saving measures, such as trimming hours and freezing or slicing wages, to survive the recession. Housing, credit and financial problems -- the worst since the 1930s -- have sent the economy into a tailspin.

Factories, construction companies, retailers and financial companies are among the industries that have slashed the most jobs. U.S. manufacturers have suffered a double whammy: customers in the U.S. have pulled back along with foreign customers, who are dealing with their own economic troubles.

True or False: U.S. Economic Stats Lie

True or False: U.S. Economic Stats Lie

How's the economy treating you? Chances are, your answer is colored largely by three things: whether you're working (if you want to), how much you're making and how quickly your expenses are rising. Economists rely heavily on the same factors to judge the nation's health. At last count, 9.4% of the workforce is jobless. Compared with a year ago, the goods and services we produce are worth 5.7% less while the ones we buy are 0.7% cheaper.
Two bright people might see sharply different things in those numbers. To one, the shrinking economy is a healthy unwinding of past excess, for example, while to another it's a dangerous downturn that calls for bold government action. But what if the numbers themselves are something we should be debating? In the alarming view of a vocal few, America's economic measures are misstated -- rigged, really.

The accusation goes like this: Surveyors collect the nation's data and statisticians compile and report it. Politicians naturally want the numbers to show improvement. Not being able to change the facts, they focus on the handling of facts, pressuring statisticians to change their measurements. It's not quite one grand conspiracy but decades of minor ones compiled. Today's reports are so perverted, the theory holds, that the numbers have detached from
common experience.

Pollyanna Creep

If the theory has a chief architect, it is John Williams, a semi-retired grandfather of five living in Oakland, Calif. The son of a chainsaw importer, Williams sold the family business in the 1970s and began consulting for corporations, recalculating government economic data to arrive at what he says were more reliable measures, and with them, truer forecasts. Today Williams runs Shadow Government Statistics (ShadowStats.com) from his home. For $175 a year subscribers get economic data and analysis adjusted to back out the accumulated effects of what Williams has dubbed the Pollyanna Creep -- Pollyanna being the orphan protagonist of the 1913 children's book who learns to play the "glad game" to find cheery perspectives on life's sorrows. In other words, he provides figures he feels are properly miserable, to offset government ones he says are too prettied-up.

If Williams is right, unemployment is over 20%, gross domestic product is shrinking by 8% and consumer prices are jumping by nearly 7%. His forecasts border on apocalyptic. The government is creating so much new money, he says, that the all but inevitable result is hyperinflation, where "your highest denomination, the $100 bill, becomes worth more as toilet paper than money." Buy physical gold, he advises. Read Article...
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/107167/true-or-false-us-economic-stats-lie?mod=bb-budgeting?sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode=

Obama's new stimulus plan same as the old

Obama's new stimulus plan same as the old
President Obama's new 'accelerated' recovery plan is neither new nor accelerated

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is promising some exciting coming attractions for his stimulus plan. But it turns out they're just summer reruns.
Obama promised Monday to ramp up spending from the $787 billion stimulus fund and create or save 600,000 jobs by the end of the summer. It was an effort to shift the focus away from persistently rising unemployment and beat back criticism that the money isn't flowing quickly enough.

Those promises aren't new.

Stimulus spending had always been expected to rise sharply this summer, and the White House has been predicting that 600,000 job total for about a month.
Obama faces souring public opinion over his handling of the economy, which has shed 1.6 million jobs since the stimulus was signed in February. That total has far overshadowed White House announcements estimating the effort has saved 150,000 jobs, a figure that is so murky it can never be verified.
Monday's announcement sought to reposition Obama in the driver's seat of America's recovery. It portrayed the president as revving up the engine of the stimulus, but it was something federal agencies were already planning to do anyway.
Obama spoke about "modest progress" in the economy, citing fewer jobs lost last month than expected. He said he hopes to build on that in the months ahead with stimulus programs.
"We've done more than ever, faster than ever, more responsibly than ever, to get the gears of the economy moving again," he said. Read on...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Obamas-new-stimulus-plan-same-apf-15473100.html?sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode=

Obama expedites stimulus
(02:15) Report Reuters Video

Jun. 8 - President Obama is expediting the economic stimulus package that Congress passed in February in order to create 600,000 jobs over the next 100 days.

SOUNDBITES:
# U.S. President Barack Obama
# Dan Mitchell, senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute,Jon Decker reports.

For many workers, fear of layoff is big motivator

For many workers, fear of layoff is big motivator
For many workers, fear of layoff is big motivator for trying to please the boss

Christopher Leonard, AP Business Writer

(Source Yahoo Finance)
Her job description says Madeline Adams is a social worker. But lately she's begun volunteering for tasks she never had before at the St. Louis marriage counseling agency where she works: planning events, ordering supplies, stocking shelves. She estimates she's put in hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime work.
Adams isn't gunning for a promotion. She just wants to keep her job.

Bosses around the country these days are discovering it's not too much ask for a little extra help around the office. Anything but.
More employees seem to be showing up early, forgoing vacation time, taking on extra projects -- and doing it all with a smile (whether real or otherwise).
It's hard to say just how widespread the phenomenon is. But Labor Department figures show workers have sharply boosted their productivity over the past year as layoffs mounted. Workers' output-per-hour jumped 2.7 percent during 2008 -- nearly double the increase during 2007 and triple the increase in 2006.

Not all that extra productivity has been voluntary. Some workers are simply forced to do more as co-workers leave, notes Steve Davis, an economist with the American Enterprise Institute.
The pressure mounted Friday, when the government said employers cut 345,000 jobs in May, and the nation's jobless rate hit a quarter-century high of 9.4 percent. Fear of being the next layoff is pushing some workers to fight harder to cling to their jobs, said Bruce Tulgan, founder of New Haven, Conn.-based Rainmaker Thinking Inc., workplace consultants.

Often, the efforts amount to common sense. People dress better and show up early. They say nice -- OK, flattering -- things to the boss. And they try to look busy.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/For-many-workers-fear-of-apf-15458805.html?sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=&ccode=