New Jobs Being Created Are Nearly All Low-Wage

by Tula Connell,AFL-CIO Blog

So, even as there are still 4.7 workers for every one job, the jobs that are being created are primarily low-wage—and the wages in those jobs have fallen disproportionately, according to a new report by the National Employment Law Project (NELP).

From the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011, the most recent data available, lower-wage occupations grew by 3.2 percent, with retail salespersons, office clerks, cashiers, food preparation workers and stock clerks topping the list. Mid-wage occupations, including paralegals, customer service representatives and machinists, grew by only 1.2 percent, while higher-wage occupations declined by 1.2 percent, which includes occupations like engineers, registered nurses and finance workers.

While overall, wages have fallen 0.6 percent since the start of the recession, lower-wage jobs have declined by 2.3 percent since the start of the recession. In mid-range occupations, wages declined by -0.9 percent while wages in higher-wage jobs actually rose by 0.9 percent.
The trend toward low pay preceded the recession. As Holly Sklar points out:

Today’s retail clerks, health aides, child care workers, restaurant workers, security guards and other minimum wage workers have $6,500 less in annual buying power than their 1968 counterparts.

Let’s see. We have employers who won’t hire unemployed workers, an historically wide wealth gap between black and Latino workers and white workers, a 9.2 percent unemployment rate with almost no job creation and the few jobs that are created don’t pay a living wage.

All this means lawmakers on Capitol Hill are focused on America’s jobs crisis, right? Right? Hello…

Who's Afraid To Hire The Jobless?

Unemployment Discrimination
8/11/11

WASHINGTON -- Job advertisements that require applicants to be "currently employed" are easy to find online. Yet attempts to trace the origins of such discriminatory job ads yield plenty of "It wasn't me" responses from the companies involved.

Many of the businesses insist they don't want to screen out the unemployed and blame the discriminatory language on the middlemen directly responsible for placing the ads.

Discrimination against people who are out of work is a phenomenon that's been in the news since last year, and lately it has been getting a lot more attention. Democrats in both chambers of Congress now want to make it a federal crime.

A recent report by the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group, called out 73 businesses for asking in job postings that applicants be currently employed. "This perverse catch-22 is deepening our unemployment crisis by arbitrarily foreclosing job opportunities to many who are otherwise qualified for them," NELP said in the report.

The Huffington Post reached out to half the organizations cited in the report, and nineteen responded. While several staffing firms defended the ads, employers disavowed them, saying they'd been written by a person outside the company and that they were completely unaware of the language used.

For instance, a spokesperson for AIELLO Home Services, an HVAC company based in central Connecticut, said his company would never run a job ad that specified applicants should already have jobs.

"If you like to make money and have a flexible schedule, then a challenging and exciting opportunity awaits you," an online job ad for the company said. "And if you are currently employed, believe enough in yourself and your abilities to make a positive career move...you and your family will be glad you did." (The ad also specified: "NO prior industry experience required!")

After HuffPost forwarded the ad to the spokesperson, marketing manager Phil Clement, he looked into it and then said it was a mistake. "The ad is a pick-up from some consultant who has helped us in the past find sales people," said Clement. "The ad is even copyrighted by him. We've just put our address at the bottom and hoped to uncover one or two experienced sales people along the way."

Clement said his company has no policy against hiring the unemployed. "AIELLO simply wants to hire good people. There is absolutely no policy written or 'understood' that we will only recruit from the employed," Clement said, adding that he himself had been out of work for two months when the company hired him this year.

"As my own hiring should testify," Clement said, "AIELLO definitely hires the unemployed."

Some staffing firms, when questioned by reporters, are upfront about their intention to recruit only people who currently have jobs. Martin Recruiting Partners, a restaurant staffing agency based in Georgia, ran ads which stated candidates "Must be currently working & ready to move for the right reason."

George Seed, the company's vice president of operations, defended the policy.

"When my clients hire me, they want people who are motivated to go to work for the right reasons," Seed said. "And if someone is currently employed in a good position, then their motivation to move to a different company would be that the company offers better benefits or offers more growth for advancement, or whatever. They're not people who have to have a job, they're people who want to move for the right reasons."

Seed, along with representatives from four other staffing agencies listed in the NELP report, said many of his clients will only consider job applicants who are presently employed and claimed they had requested the language.

But when contacted by HuffPost, representatives from some of Martin Recruiting's clients denied having a policy against recruiting the unemployed.

"We hire people all the time that are not employed," said a representative from restaurant chain Golden Corral. "I can tell you that it's not part of our criteria that they be currently employed."

A representative from Cracker Barrel also said it has no policy excluding the unemployed from applying -- nor do they request that such language be included in job postings. A spokesperson for Wendy's, another client, said hiring decisions are made by franchisees and are usually done with local candidates.

When asked to comment on the fact that some of his clients said they did not wish to discriminate against the jobless, Seed did not respond.

NELP policy co-director Maurice Emsellem, who worked on the report, said hiring firms may be amplifying the anti-unemployed message. Emsellem said that since these agencies are one step removed from the hiring decision, they may feel less responsibility to remain open to all applicants.

"I don't think these big employers are saying to these big staffing agencies, 'Do me a favor: just don't send me anyone who's unemployed,' because it's contrary to their interest," Emsellem said. "If you're one day, two days unemployed, how does that make you ineligible for the job? It doesn't."

Roughly half of the companies named in the report were staffing agencies, and many of the ones HuffPost talked to passed responsibility for any discrimination to their clients, since the agencies don't make the hiring decisions themselves. Others defended the screening as legitimate.

Cypress Hospitality Group, a Florida-based staffing agency listed in the report, defended the ads it posted. "I don't see how 'current or very recent tenure' is discriminatory," a spokesperson said.

Express Employment Professionals, a staffing agency based out of Oklahoma City, listed an ad for a "reputable manufacturing firm" which sought a "motivated, self-directed full time receptionist" who was "currently employed."

In response to an inquiry about the NELP report, Express Employment said that the ad was not designed to discourage the unemployed, but to recruit people who will take the job seriously.

"We understand the impact the recession has had on today's workplace," the company said in a statement. "It has always been, and will always be, in our best interest to recruit from the unemployed, underemployed, or those looking for new opportunities. Unfortunately, some people mistakenly view job opportunities with staffing companies as short-term or temporary in nature. The ad in question was meant to define the job as long term. It was not intended to discourage unemployed job seekers."

Three companies said the ads cited by NELP were six months to a year old, but NELP said its review happened during a four-week period in March and April of 2011.

Several non-staffing companies named in the report disavowed the ads completely.

"We have no knowledge of the language [in the job postings]," said a representative for Allstate Insurance in Huntsville, Ala. "Perhaps for a part-time position, we have no problem hiring unemployed people. We actually receive state support to hire the unemployed."

Lakeshore Technical College, whose ad for a teaching job in Cleveland, Wis. called for a "currently employed" applicant, said that campus police officer was the only position for which they would require someone to be currently employed. Human resources director Kathy Kotajarvi explained that this is because of a policy with the local sheriff's department.

"The reason we said that is all our campus police have to be currently certified and employed by our local county sheriff's department," Kotajarvi said. "The sheriff has to certify them, and if they're not currently employed he will not certify them."

Lakeshore Technical College has a large number of unemployed workers who enroll in classes there trying to get retrained. Kotajarvi also said she knows they've hired several people who were unemployed in recent months.

"We hire unemployed persons for student help positions. We serve the dislocated workers, we understand what their needs are," Kotajarvi said. "We would never discriminate against anyone who's unemployed."

The report cited a Craigslist ad for Knight Transportation, a truckload company, that said candidates should be "currently employed" if they did not meet other background and experience criteria, such as 12 months of on-the-road experience in the past five years. A spokesman for Knight told HuffPost they consider all applicants on a case-by-case basis and that current employment is not a requirement.

Though the practice of restricting hiring to only those who are currently employed is legal under federal law, a NELP-commissioned survey, conducted last month by polling firm Hart Research Associates, found that 80 percent of of respondents felt discriminating against the unemployed was "very unfair. Ten percent called it "somewhat unfair."

The survey also found that 63 percent of respondents would support a law "making it illegal for companies to refuse to hire or consider a qualified job applicant solely because the person is currently unemployed."

Unlike race or gender, unemployment is not a protected status in most of the country because it has the ability to change. Helen Norton, associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Law, testified earlier this year before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that discriminating by employment status would only be illegal if it is done to screen out a group like older workers, workers with disabilities, or minorities.

Yet at that same hearing, William Spriggs, assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Labor, pointed out that because blacks and Latinos have a higher unemployment rate, discrimination against the unemployed could disproportionately affect those groups.

"When employers exclude the unemployed from the applicant pool, they are likely to be excluding Latinos and African-Americans," Spriggs said.

In April, it became illegal in the state of New Jersey to use language in ads that discriminated against unemployed people, though lawmakers did not explicitly ban the practice of refusing to hire those who are jobless.

On July 12, Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Henry Johnson, Jr. (D-Ga.) introduced the Fair Employment Opportunity Act of 2011. The legislation, if enacted, would prohibit employers and employment agencies from refusing to consider job applicants solely because they are unemployed. (Since that sort of discrimination is difficult to prove, employers would likely retain the ability to discriminate against the jobless, at least covertly.) Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) introduced the same bill in the Senate last week.

"Losing your job through no fault of your own should never disqualify you from finding a new job," Gillibrand said.

Reverse Offshoring? More Evidence of the Corporate Squeeze on Workers?

The global economy is shifting and developing countries are catching up
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on May 24, 2011

It's a tempting narrative for a lazy trend piece: Indian companies, buoyed by a booming economy and facing demands for higher wages at home, are now “offshoring” their work to the U.S., where they can take advantage of our high unemployment rate to grab American labor on the cheap.

“As Indian companies grow in the U.S., outsourcing comes home,” read a recent headline in the Washington Post. “Is this a taste of the future? Outsourcing goes full circle as Indian firms look to the U.S. for cheap labour,” was how the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, put it. It's not a new narrative – “Bangalore wages spur reverse offshoring,” claimed a headline in the Financial Times back in 2007.

Only the first headline is accurate, as outsourcing and offshoring are two different things. The Post story is about Indian firms with clients in the U.S. hiring more American workers to service them rather than shipping Indians to the U.S. That's different from what most people think of when they hear "offshoring," with U.S. firms sending jobs abroad to service their customers here at home or produce goods for the U.S. market.

To some degree, the trend is related to our high levels of unemployment – there are lots of excess workers in this country -- but there's also a policy component; the feds are cracking down on the use of H1-B visas, which were intended to attract high-tech talent to our shores, but are widely abused by corporate America. The Post notes that a 2008 government study found that one in five such applications were plagued by “fraud and technical violations,” and adds that the number of H1-B visas issued this year has declined by 43 percent since the same period last year.

But there is a larger story here. The global economy is shifting and developing countries are catching up. The wage differential isn't as great as it once was – after all, our working-class wages have stagnated for years. The first wave of offshoring – with U.S. firms shedding huge amounts of relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs, many of them union gigs – may be slowing, but a second wave appears to be gaining speed, with U.S. multinationals expanding their operations overseas because that's where a growing number of customers are to be found.

Consider this much-disseminated graphic for a moment:

At first blush, it appears to confirm Ross Perot's “giant sucking sound” of American manufacturers moving abroad. But it's important to look past the headline numbers and see what kinds of jobs U.S. multinationals are creating here at home and abroad.

Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta did just that. They found that while American multinationals lost over 1.9 million manufacturing jobs here at home, they created only 243,000 new jobs overseas.

It's true that the decline in American manufacturing jobs is a long-term trend:

But what began with big companies opening up factories overseas to produce goods to sell here at home is now largely a result of dramatic increases in productivity in the manufacturing sector – the amount of goods that can be created by one worker – over the past decade.

So, what kinds of jobs are these U.S. multinationals creating abroad these days? About 70 percent of them are in retail sales, management and administration, accommodations and food services, real estate, health care and “miscellaneous services.” So, rather than just shipping jobs overseas to fulfill affluent Americans' demand at home (while pocketing the difference in labor costs as profits), these firms are shifting services and retail operations overseas.

What does this all mean? At the risk of oversimplifying some complex dynamics, it means we're getting an answer to the question of how far working Americans can be squeezed before we reach a point where domestic demand can no longer sustain our middle class.

Consumer spending typically accounts for around 70 percent of our economic activity. The simple, common-sense truth that seems so elusive in Washington is that demand, rather than giving rich people tax cuts, is what creates jobs. And although we have seen a rebound in consumer demand since the depths of the recession, we are still well below the trend-line of where we should be, compared to past recessions.

In 2007, the Center for Budget and Policy priorities noted that just “51.6 percent of total national income went to wages and salaries in 2006,” a “lower share than in any of the 77 previous years for which these data are available.” And in 2009-2010, labor costs – the value of wages and benefits – saw their steepest decline since 1962-'63. According to the latest data, wages and salaries have now dropped to just 49.8 percent of our income.

And while corporate profits are at a (nominal) all-time high, that doesn't mean they're being pocketed by Americans to pour back into the domestic economy – anyone, anywhere in the world can buy shares in U.S. multinationals.

Sadly, as I noted in April, the squeeze continues apace. According to research conducted by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the recovery “has been disproportionately driven by industries that pay median wages below $15.00 an hour.” Three out of four jobs the economy added last year were in the bottom 40 percent of the wage scale, while only one in 20 were in the top 40 percent.

In March, House Republicans laid out a perverse plan to lower working Americans' wages, supposedly in a bid to get employers to hire more of them (PDF). They called for “decreasing the number and compensation of government workers,” which they said would spur job creation because “a smaller government workforce increases the available supply of educated, skilled workers for private firms, thus lowering labor costs.”

“Labor costs,” of course mean “wages and benefits” – Americans' paychecks and health care. We're in a deep hole, and our elites appear quite happy to blithely keep digging.

Ultimately, it's good news that people in erstwhile developing countries like India are getting higher wages and seeing the growth of a domestic middle class. But people in rich countries need jobs too, and the only way we can remain a wealthy country is to stop the upward redistribution of wealth achieved by union-busting, outsourcing – both domestically and overseas – and distortions of the tax code.

Consumers need to have money in their pockets if we're to maintain decent-paying jobs. While profits are easily sent anywhere, the jobs will always follow the consumers with money in their pockets.

The “Real” Long-term Unemployment Report.

Unemployed 99er Population Rises Dramatically in March

by Layofflist.org

 

The March Employment Report was again pumped as another victory in the war against unemployment. But for millions of long-term unemployed, it’s still a brutal battle to find work. That’s why it’s unfortunate that most main stream media outlets and politicos seem incapable of understanding, or chose to ignore the “real” unemployment numbers.

The BLS reported that unemployment (U3) for March was 8.8%, which is a slight improvement from February’s 8.9%. 216,000 jobs were created, but that’s a relatively small monthly number of jobs for what is supposedly a strong economic recovery from the Great Recession. In comparison, during the 2004 economic recovery, 338,000 jobs were created in March.

The Obama administration and media mouthpieces seem preoccupied with the U3, 8.8% measure of unemployment, but you need to dig into the numbers to reveal the “real” state of unemployment.

A disconnected news media conveniently forgets to mention that the US needs to create about 125,000 jobs a month to simply keep up with new entrants to the workforce. If you subtract 125,000 from 216,000 jobs created in March, you end up with 91,000 “extra” jobs for 13.5 million unemployed.

Underemployment remained quite high at 15.7%, or 11 million workers who want full-time work, but are forced to work part-time jobs of 34 hours a week or less. Yes, full-time work is considered 35 hours or more per week, although many “real world” workers consider jobs of less than 40 hours a week as part-time.

But what was most striking about the March jobs report was the continuing increase in the number of long-term unemployed. According to the BLS, March showed 1,899,000 workers who have been out of work for 99 weeks or more, an increase of 127,000 from February. The real 99er population is growing quickly and shows no signs of abating.

NELP estimates (PDF) that “throughout 2010, 3.9 million unemployed workers exhausted all of their unemployment benefits without finding new work.” Exhausting unemployment benefits also includes those unemployed that exhausted benefits after 60, 73, 79, or 93 weeks, so NELP’s estimate is larger than the BLS estimate for those out of work 99 weeks or more.

Not only are more unemployed out of work 99 weeks or longer, but those out of work 52 and 27 weeks or more are increasing as well. Those out of work 27 weeks or more now accounts for a record 45.5% (6.14 million) of all unemployed, while for those out of work 52 weeks or more the rate is 31.5% (4.25 million) of all unemployed; again a record high.

The participation rate is another employment issue rarely discussed on the national media stage. According to the BLS, “the participation rate is the share of the population 16 years and older working or seeking work.”

The labor force participation rate was unchanged, 64.2%, the same as the previous two months. This is the lowest labor participation rate since March 1984.

The March Employment Report showed some job gains, but not nearly enough jobs were created to put a dent in the long-term unemployment problem. Media talking heads and politicians looking for 2012 votes touted the March jobs report as a winner, but it was a loser for millions of increasingly desperate long-term unemployed who are struggling without jobs or unemployment benefits. Let’s not hang those “Mission Accomplished” banners just yet…

8 Unemployed for Every Job Opening

By Joshua Holland

What Are They Supposed to Do Once Their Benefits Run Out? Is there any hope of help arriving for the "99ers"?

There are now approximately 14 million Americans who want a job and can't find one. According to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), if they stood side by side, they'd stretch from Bangor, Maine to Los Angeles, California and back. Added to that figure are 11 million more "underemployed."

While plenty of ink has been dedicated to distant crises in the Middle East and Japan, and a wholly trumped up “deficit crisis” that haunts the sleep of the Beltway media, this disaster occurring right here at home has received far less attention than it should.

Those who have been out of work for an extended period of time face not only extreme economic suffering, but also unique barriers to getting back into the workforce. Yet the political establishment has all but ignored the pain being felt by this broad swath of working America. Economist Paul Krugman called them the “forgotten millions,” and warned that “we’re well on the way to creating a permanent underclass of the jobless.”

That disconnect has left a gap that some individuals and grassroots organizations have attempted to fill. Their efforts are commendable, and at times innovative, but a number of activists interviewed by AlterNet said that absent a serious effort by the federal government, they are merely tinkering around the edges of a deep and avoidable catastrophe.

36 Weeks

In February, the average length of joblessness for all unemployed workers was a record 36 weeks. Many of those people relied on their unemployment insurance to get by until it ran out and still haven't found work -- they've come to be known as "99ers," as extended unemployment benefits in many states last a maximum of 99 weeks. NELP researchers estimate there were 3.9 million 99ers out of work last year, and project a similar number for 2011.

“It's pretty tragic out there for a lot of people,” says Mike Thornton, a writer and activist who runs a Web site dedicated to providing information and resources for the jobless called the LayoffList. “The long-term unemployed are discriminated against for being long-term unemployed,” he said. Employers are hesitant to hire those who have been out of work for a lengthy period of time because they think there must be something wrong with workers who haven't been picked up by another firm by now, but the reality is that there are now five unemployed people for each job opening. According to NELP, when you include people who are working part-time while looking for a full-time gig, that ratio jumps to eight to one.

Making matters worse, extended periods of unemployment crush people's sense of self-worth. “There are a lot of self-esteem issues there,” says John Dodds, director of the Philadelphia Unemployment Project. “There are obviously issues of maintaining the basic necessities – people are losing their homes. It's a very depressing situation for the long-term unemployed – they have to worry about their benefits running out, and many of them have.”

“It's not easy on anyone,” says Mitchell Hirsch, who was out of work for more than six months after being laid off from his retail job of over 20 years and has since become an organizer with NELP. “The first thing that hit me,” Hirsch said, “is just the loss of the place to go. Whether people have worked in an office or a factory or a store or a restaurant, most working people go to work at a place, and when that place no longer exists, it's like a part of your soul is removed,” he said, adding, “You find yourself very much alone.” Despite the number of Americans who don't have a job, “people unemployed these days feel virtually invisible.”

“Age is another factor,” Thornton told AlterNet. “You know, people over 45 years old seem to have a more difficult time finding positions the longer they've been out of work." That claim is born out by the numbers – the average length of unemployment is 44.1 weeks for those between 55 and 64 years of age, compared with 29.2 weeks for those 20 to 24.

Many people who have been out of work for a lengthy period of time – especially those whose unemployment benefits have expired – have had to max out their credit cards to keep afloat, or have missed mortgage payments or other bills. “I can speak for myself here,” said Nicole Sandler, a talk-radio host who started the Web site HelpThe99ers.com and who has herself been “underemployed” for over a year. “I've basically lost my house. I stopped paying my mortgage and moved in with my boyfriend six months ago.” Sandler says she's found a buyer and will do a "short sale" – getting less than she paid for the property – but, she adds, “my credit is shot, and we know that potential employers can check your credit, and if you have bad credit that's another reason for employers not to hire you. And once you're in this vicious cycle, it's very hard to get out of it.”

The unemployment crisis also has an impact on those who are able find work after being laid off. In an employers' market, over half of all full-time workers laid off after three years at the same job return to the workforce with lower wages. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than a third of them lose 20 percent or more of their previous income.

What many don't understand about the grim reality of the American labor market is that its impact on workers who have faced extended unemployment can reverberate for decades – long after the economy has recovered. Columbia University labor economist Till von Wachter studied the fortunes of workers who faced sudden lay-offs during the 1981-1982 recession in the period since that time. He found that even after 15 to 20 years, those workers' wages were still 20 percent lower than comparable workers who had held onto their jobs in the early 1980s downturn.

According to the Journal, the impact of this kind of joblessness can span generations:

Research shows that children of workers who lose jobs and go back to work at lower wages appear to suffer from lower wages, too. In a 2008 study, a group of economists tracked the wages of 60,000 father-child pairs from 1978 to 1999. Children whose fathers went through mass layoffs in the 1982 recession ended up with 9% lower earnings than similar children whose fathers didn't experience the job cuts.

Into the Chasm

Joe Carbone heads Workplace Inc., a non-profit that does research on the labor market and provides services to struggling workers in Connecticut. He told AlterNet the organization judges success “not just by people getting a job, but really getting empowered through credentials and knowledge so that they can traverse the system and make their way into the middle class.”

Carbone says that since the recession began he's seen a surge in demand for his organization's services. “What it's done is completely stressed out the capacity of our system,” he said. The stimulus package helped, but, says Carbone, “we had that funding for two years, but now that's gone. So, we've got the same numbers in terms of the people who have a need for our system, but we've gone back to the 2009 funding levels that we had before the worst of the recession.”

Carbone's organization is launching a project, in tandem with the private sector, to ease 99ers back into the grind of the workplace and overcome the discrimination they face among employers. “We're developing an instrument whereby for $6,000 per person, these 99ers would be given an opportunity to work for a business for eight weeks while they were officially employed by Workplace, Inc.,” he said. “There would be no liability, no risk on the part of business – it would be an eight-week trial period to see if we could establish a good comfort level between that person and whatever company we assign them to.”

Carbone says he “doesn't expect a federal response to this,” and is going to foundations and various family trusts in order to launch a pilot program for the first 100 workers this summer.
Radio host Sandler says she was inspired to start Helpthe99ers.com after getting an email from a listener whose benefits had just expired begging her to report on their plight. “It was right around the time that Obama negotiated with the GOP to extend the Bush tax cuts, and yet so little was being done for the 99ers,” she says. “And here was this group, growing in numbers and being ignored.”

Sandler describes Helpthe99ers.com as a “message board to put people who have needs – who are out of work, have exhausted their benefits and have nowhere else to turn – to put out their stories, and a place where people who have the means and compassion to help can get in touch with them directly. There's no middle-man involved, no foundation that people have to go through.”

She says the project has been slow to take off, but some connections have been made, including a man who sent a space heater to a woman in upstate New York who was unable to pay her heating bill. “I know that some people have gotten help with rent – a couple of people got their rent paid for a month or more – at least a handful of people have gotten help.”

Like Workplace, Inc., the Philadelphia Unemployment Project (PUP) has been around for a while – since 1975 – but has seen a surge in its clientele. “We do have a lot more people around,” says John Dodd. “We have a computer lab for job searches that is always packed. We have about a dozen computers that are always taken by people looking for work.”

Dodd says his organization offers “housing counselors, a job developer, a jobs club, a health-care navigator – helps people access health care – and we help people with unemployment appeals.” PUP has also organized to help people threatened with foreclosure stay in their homes.

“The fact that people are organized and working together is something that makes people feel better,” Dodd told AlterNet. “We have regular committees that meet on the unemployment issue, on the foreclosure issue, so in a way we provide some support so people don't feel all alone.”

According to Mitchell Hirsch of NELP, 40 percent of eligible workers don't file for benefits. NELP, in addition to its political advocacy on behalf of working America, runs UnemployedWorkers.org, which Hirsch describes as a place “to get information about benefits availability, a resource that allows you to speak out and tell your story and a resource of news and information” for the jobless, “all of which is ultimately a way for us to organize unemployed workers and their supporters on behalf of things that matter for working people.” The site gathered over 100,000 signatures for a petition urging Congress to re-authorize the extended unemployment benefits program.

These efforts, and others that have popped up across the country, provide valuable assistance to the relatively small number of jobless workers who take advantage of them, but all of those interviewed by AlterNet agreed that the depth of the jobs crisis plaguing the U.S. merits a massive response from policy-makers. They lamented the fact that a second stimulus package, direct, WPA-style job programs like those established during the Great Depression and much more help transitioning the long-term unemployed back into the workforce had never been on the table in any serious way.

Some members of Congress have taken a few small steps. Reps. Barbara Lee, D-California, and Bobby Scott, D-Virginia, introduced legislation that would extend benefits for 14 more weeks, and Rep Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, has a (difficult to enforce) bill that would make it illegal to discriminate against workers for being unemployed.

But both bills face a steep hill in the GOP-controlled legislature. A previous effort to get an additional extension of benefits was killed when it faced opposition from Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats last year. Meanwhile, Missouri lawmakers are filibustering an extension in federal benefits that wouldn't cost the state a dime – they're willing to sacrifice the well-being of 23,000 Missourians in order to “send a message to Washington” about the deficit. And in Michigan, conservatives are opposing a technical fix to the extended benefits program that, if defeated, would leave 150,000 state residents without eligibility for federal benefits.

The 10 Worst States in Which to Lose Your Job

The recession has hurt the whole country, but not equally -- here are the worst states you can live in when a pink slip arrives.
By Joshua Holland | Alternet

The recession has hurt the whole country, but not equally. For example, the unemployment rate in North Dakota, a state with its own bank, which helped insulate it from the financial crash, stands at just 3.6 percent, while Nevada's rate last month was 13.2 percent.

Obviously, it's much harder to find a job in places where unemployment is high and there are lots of other people vying for open positions than it is in a tight job market. But looking at the top-line unemployment rate alone doesn't tell the full story of what it's like to be jobless in any given part of the country. While being unemployed sucks for everyone, the benefits available to keep the unemployed afloat vary significantly from state to state.

We decided to dig into state-level data and try to flesh out which are the very worst states in which to lose one's job. We looked at several factors.

It's not just the rate of unemployment that matters, but the length of time people are unemployed – long-term unemployment comes with unique problems that people who are jobless for a brief period don't experience.

Nationwide, the average length of unemployment stands at 39 weeks, shattering the previous record of 23 weeks set in the early 1980s. Unfortunately, on the state level, the most recent data are from 2009. But we used the median length of joblessness that year to give a relative sense of how long it takes to find a job in various states.

We also looked at underemployment – people who aren't counted in the headline numbers. These include those who are working a part-time job because they can't find a full-time gig, and others who have been out of work for so long that they've given up the search.

On the benefits side, states have a lot of leeway in how they administer their unemployment insurance programs. The policies set in state houses determine who is eligible for unemployment insurance, how much of their salaries are covered and how long they're eligible to receive benefits.

We looked at the following info:

• The percentage of unemployed workers receiving benefits provides a rough measure of how restrictive a state's eligibility requirements are. This measure isn't perfect, because there are various reasons people don't receive benefits for which they're eligible, but it gives us a good sense of how restrictive the requirements are. In the United States (in the second quarter of 2008), 37 percent of jobless workers received unemployment benefits – so we looked at how states stacked up against the national average.
• The average weekly check received by unemployed people varies from state to state, as does the share of their working incomes those benefits represent. Among developed countries, the US offers some of the stingiest unemployment benefits around, which is why conservative spin that the jobless are living it up on their unemployment insurance instead of trying to find work is so ludicrous (though there is evidence that this is actually true in places like Scandinavia, where people who lose their jobs still take in 70 percent or more of their income). In 2008, those unemployed Americans who qualified for benefits got $293 per week, or about 35 percent of their lost income. We looked at how states compared with those nationwide numbers.
• Congress has authorized extended unemployment benefits – totaling up to 99 weeks – during this recession. That's why people who have seen their benefits expire before finding a job have come to be known as “99ers.” But not every state with high unemployment offers 99 weeks of benefits. We looked at which ones don't.
• The federal COBRA law offers laid off workers the ability to stay in their group medical plan for up to 36 months, but it only applies to companies with 20 or more employees. That doesn't help people who lost jobs at smaller companies, and many states have stepped in to fill the gap by enacting “mini-COBRA” laws for smaller firms. Not all have done so, and the details of those plans vary. We looked at these laws as well.

In considering all these factors, we get a better picture, beyond what the unemployment rate tells us, of what it's like to lose one's job in a given state. For example, we considered including California because of its 12 percent rate of joblessness and long duration of unemployment, but ultimately rejected it because its programs cover more people than the national average, offer above average benefits and feature mini-COBRA coverage for a full 36 months. Tennessee is included, despite having a lower unemployment rate, because its benefits are stingy and don't cover a lot of its jobless citizens.

This isn't a scientific study, so you can argue over which states you think should have been included or excluded:

Mississippi
Unemployment rate: 10.2 percent
Underemployment: 17 percent
Maximum extended benefits: 79 weeks
Median duration of unemployment in 2009: 13.1 weeks
Share of jobless receiving unemployment benefits: 25 percent
Average weekly check: $177.73 (29.4 percent of lost earnings)
Mini-COBRA for health insurance: 12 months

Arizona

Unemployment rate: 9.5 percent
Underemployment: 18.7 percent
Maximum extended benefits: 99 weeks
Median duration of unemployment in 2009: 14.5 weeks
Share of jobless receiving unemployment benefits: 29 percent
Average weekly check: $211.19 (27.4 percent of lost earnings)
Mini-COBRA for health insurance: None

Florida

Unemployment rate: 11.1 percent
Underemployment: 18.8 percent
Maximum extended benefits: 99 weeks
Median duration of unemployment in 2009: 18.1 weeks
Share of jobless receiving unemployment benefits: 25 percent
Average weekly check: $177.73 (29.4 percent of lost earnings)
Mini-COBRA for health insurance: 18 months

Georgia

Unemployment rate: 10 percent
Underemployment: 17 percent
Maximum extended benefits: 99 weeks
Median duration of unemployment in 2009: 16.2 weeks
Share of jobless receiving unemployment benefits: 25 percent
Average weekly check: $267.04 (34 percent of lost earnings)
Mini-COBRA for health insurance: 3 months

Kentucky
Unemployment rate: 10.2 percent
Underemployment: 16.3 percent
Maximum extended benefits: 99 weeks
Median duration of unemployment in 2009: 16.2 weeks
Share of jobless receiving unemployment benefits: 30 percent
Average weekly check: $291.49 (42.9 percent of lost earnings)
Mini-COBRA for health insurance: 18 months

Nevada
Unemployment rate: 13.2 percent
Underemployment: 23.7 percent
Maximum extended benefits: 99 weeks
Median duration of unemployment in 2009: 15.2 weeks
Share of jobless receiving unemployment benefits: 41 percent
Average weekly check: $288.49 (35.9 percent of lost earnings)
Mini-COBRA for health insurance: 18 months

Michigan

Unemployment rate: 10.3 percent
Underemployment: 20.3 percent
Maximum extended benefits: 99 weeks
Median duration of unemployment in 2009: 19.4 weeks
Share of jobless receiving unemployment insurance: 39 percent
Average weekly check: $296.35 (36.3 percent of lost earnings)
Mini-COBRA for health insurance: Only for children

Rhode Island
Unemployment rate: 11 percent
Underemployment: 19 percent
Maximum extended benefits: 99 weeks
Median duration of unemployment in 2009: 17 weeks
Share of jobless receiving unemployment benefits: 42 percent
Average weekly check: $367.70 (46.5 percent of lost earnings)
Mini-COBRA for health insurance: 18 months

South Carolina
Unemployment rate: 9.9 percent
Underemployment: 17.5 percent
Maximum extended benefits: 99 weeks
Median duration of unemployment in 2009: 19.4 weeks
Share of jobless receiving unemployment benefits: 34 percent
Average weekly check: $236.08 (35.7 percent of lost earnings)
Mini-COBRA for health insurance: 6 months

Tennessee
Unemployment rate: 9.5 percent
Underemployment: 16.2 percent
Maximum extended benefits: 79 weeks
Median duration of unemployment in 2009: 15.3 weeks
Share of jobless receiving unemployment benefits: 28 percent
Average weekly check: $211.11 (29.6 percent of lost earnings)
Mini-COBRA for health insurance: 3 months

Sources:

Unemployment rates are March figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/lauhsthl.htm

Underemployment is averaged from the second quarter of last year through the first quarter of 2011, also from BLS: http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt11q1.htm

Median duration of unemployment are numbers from 2009, courtesy of the Economic Policy Institute:
http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/job_searches_take_longest_in_michigan_and_south_carolina

The length of extended UI benefits are from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3164

The National Employment Law project brought us the average weekly checks sent to the unemployed in various states, what they represent in terms of replacing lost wages and the share of jobless people who are covered by the states. The data is from the second quarter of 2008. They have it broken down by region:

East: http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2008.2.%20Eastern%20States.pdf
Mid-west: http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2008.2%20Mid-Western%20States.pdf
South: http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2008.2%20Southern%20States.pdf
West: http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2008.2%20Western%20States.pdf
 
Mini-COBRA info from the State COBRA Law Directory: http://www.cobrahealth.com/statelawdirectory.htm

The Process of Creating a New and Enduring American Underclass

Will this bleak economy become “the new normal,” consigning millions to an emerging American underclass?

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on April 19, 2011

Corporate America appears to be prospering with far fewer workers than it employed before the crash. Wages are down, the stock market is up and firms are expanding their operations overseas. Meanwhile, Congress is suffering from the delusion that our greatest problem is the deficit, rather than the extreme economic insecurity so many Americans are suffering from today. And that focus will only exacerbate the crisis on “Main Street.”

The question is whether these trends will become “the new normal,” consigning millions to an emerging American underclass. Is our notably cruel brand of capitalism ultimately leading to something that looks more like feudalism – with low-paid serfs feeling fortunate just to have an opportunity to toil for their lords' enrichment?

Consider a bleak snapshot of our ailing economy: Real corporate profits are now near an all-time high, yet one out of six working people are either out of a job or have no choice but to work part-time.

We just saw a huge two-year gain in productivity – the amount of goods and services produced per worker. In 2009, it rose by 3.5 percent, and last year we saw a 3.6 percent increase, the largest in eight years.

At the same time, labor costs – the value of wages and benefits – have seen their steepest decline since 1962-'63.

This is the result of companies putting the big squeeze on their workers – threatening to cast them into a sea of unemployed Americans if they don't produce more for the same wages. These numbers tell us that an economy that now employs seven million fewer workers than it did in 2008 can produce the same amount of stuff, albeit at a great social cost.

Lower Wages, Fewer Jobs

According to an analysis of Census data by USA Today, just 45 percent of the population now holds a job, the lowest share since 1983. Over the past decade, the number of non-working adults in the U.S. has increased by 27 million.

Those who have been laid off and were then lucky enough to get rehired aren't faring well. In an employers' market, over half of all full-time workers laid off after at least three years at the same job return to the workforce with lower wages. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than a third of them lose 20 percent or more of their previous income.

The average length of joblessness among the unemployed is now 39 weeks, shattering the record set during the 1981-'81 recession by around 17 weeks. The long-term unemployed face unique barriers to reentering the labor force – many have bad credit and anecdotal evidence suggests that employers tend to discriminate against them for the crime of being unemployed for an extended period. There are about five jobless workers for every full-time opening, but when you include involuntary part-timers, that ratio rises to 8:1.

The impact of that kind of extended unemployment can reverberate for decades, long after the economy has recovered. Columbia University labor economist Till von Wachter studied the fortunes of workers who faced sudden lay-offs during the 1981-1982 recession in the period since that time. He found that even after 20 years, those workers' wages were still 20 percent lower than comparable workers who had held onto their jobs in the early 1980s downturn.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the impact of this kind of joblessness can span generations: 

Research shows that children of workers who lose jobs and go back to work at lower wages appear to suffer from lower wages, too. In a 2008 study, a group of economists tracked the wages of 60,000 father-child pairs from 1978 to 1999. Children whose fathers went through mass layoffs in the 1982 recession ended up with 9% lower earnings than similar children whose fathers didn't experience the job cuts.

Race to the Bottom

But it's not just the overall number of jobs that tell the tale. Lost in the celebrations over last month's modestly improved unemployment report was any discussion of what kind of jobs are being created. According to research conducted by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the recovery “has been disproportionately driven by industries that pay median wages below $15.00 an hour.” Three out of four jobs the economy added last year were in the bottom 40 percent of the wage scale, while only one in 20 were in the top 40 percent.

The squeeze is widespread. A survey of American businesses conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management found that over the last six months of 2010, almost four in 10 companies laid off workers, froze wages and suspended bonuses. Twenty percent reduced employee benefits and six in 10 said they hadn't rehired any laid-off workers. Only 11 percent had “restructured executive compensation” – those in the executive suite appear to be doing OK.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, told NBC News. “Employers in financial trouble are tightening their belts and squeezing employees,” he said. “In other cases, profitable employers are taking advantage of a dismal job market to squeeze workers harder.”

What Is Corporate America Doing With All Its Loot?

U.S. firms are now sitting on $1.9 trillion. What are businesses doing with all that cash sloshing around? First, they're investing more overseas – in the first half of 2006, the last year before the crash, American multinationals invested $30 billion more abroad than foreign companies invested here. In the first half of last year, that number was up to $220 billion. Companies are investing abroad because that's where the customers are.

That continues a longer trend – between 1999 and 2008, U.S.-based multinationals cut 1.9 million net jobs in this country while creating over 2.4 million overseas.

Annie Lowery, writing for Slate, notes that companies are also pursuing a variety of strategies that “make investors wealthier.” They've increased dividend payments to investors, bought up smaller companies and bought back stock.

Those are the big boys. But with demand in a trough, the “Main Street” economy has seen a steep decline in entrepreneurship – people aren't starting new businesses. According to the New York Times, “In 2009, 115,795 fewer employer businesses were founded than in 2007, a 17.3 percent decline in firm formation.” New layoffs have slowed dramatically since the peak of the recession, but the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high because there aren't enough new jobs being created.

Meanwhile, the mortgage crisis rages on unabated. Home prices are still in decline, which will further squeeze consumer demand – which accounts for around 70 percent of our economic activity – through what's known as the “wealth effect”– the more accumulated wealth people own, the more they spend. For every dollar lost in U.S. housing wealth, economists estimate that the economy will lose between 5 and 7 cents in consumer demand.

It's important to understand that this bleak economic picture is an extension of our broken politics. Washington could have approached these problems with the seriousness they merit. They could have passed a much larger stimulus package, as many economists argued was necessary. They could have ameliorated the foreclosure crisis by allowing judges to reduce the outstanding principle on “underwater” mortgages. They could have directly created jobs like we did during the Great Depression. But all of that was, and is, off the table.

While Obama's deficit address this week drew praise for its political acumen, he conceded the debate over cutting public spending at a time when private consumer spending remains in a trough. The discussion will now focus on what will be cut, and by how much. And what we're really talking about in this age of austerity is cutting "transfer payments" that put spending money in the pockets of the unemployed, the poor and the elderly, and sending more government workers to the unemployment lines. Those newly jobless people will, in turn, cut down on their spending and some will be unable to make their mortgages, adding to the foreclosure crisis nobody's talking about anymore. Both trends will further depress demand.

More troubling is the fact that nobody knows what the next “engine of job growth” might be. The big winners in this economic recovery appear to be large financial institutions that have less competition after several large players went under during the crash, and that's not the kind of broad growth that will help the job market.

These trends raise the frightening prospect that we're in the process of creating a permanent underclass in the United States. At the very least, history tells us that the big squeeze corporations are now putting on American workers will have enduring effects on our economic wellbeing for many years to come.