Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Loss of Unemployment Benefits will Drop Unemployment Rate

U.S. Winds Down Longer Benefits for the Unemployed

Hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Americans are receiving their final unemployment checks sooner than they expected, even though Congress renewed extended benefits until the end of the year.

The checks are stopping for the people who have the most difficulty finding work: the long-term unemployed. More than five million people have been out of work for longer than half a year. Federal benefit extensions, which supplemented state funds for payments up to 99 weeks, were intended to tide over the unemployed until the job market improved.

In February, when the program was set to expire, Congress renewed it, but also phased in a reduction of the number of weeks of extended aid and effectively made it more difficult for states to qualify for the maximum aid. Since then, the jobless in 23 states have lost up to five months’ worth of benefits.

Next month, an additional 70,000 people will lose benefits earlier than they presumed, bringing the number of people cut off prematurely this year to close to half a million, according to the National Employment Law Project. That estimate does not include people who simply exhausted the weeks of benefits they were entitled to.

Note: Now think about this for a moment. Think about the timing. They will lose their benefits, but they will still be unemployed.  Because these people will fall off the roles, however, that will reduce the unemployment rate. . . just in time for the election. And the gullible people, as with all of the other manipulations of the employment numbers (reduction of the universe of jobs, etc.), will not think about it, and will believe the propaganda put out by the liberal democrats and the media.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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