Massive Jump In Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) Benefits - Up 43% In One Month!

[Joanne98]

I was intrigued by a post by Zero Hedge asking Is The Government Misrepresenting Unemployment By 32%?


"...government spent a record $14.7 billion on Unemployment Insurance Benefits as of December 30, a 24% jump sequentially from the $11.8 billion in November. Yet the DOL has disclosed a mere 1.7% increase in those to whom insurance benefits are paid: from 9.4 million to just under 9.6 million. To put the $14.7 billion number in perspective, in December the Federal Government paid a total of $14 billion ($700 million less) in Federal Salaries!

And some more perspective: in calendar 2009 the government has paid $140 billion in Unemployment Insurance Benefits. This is yet another economic stimulus that nobody in the administration discusses, yet which undoubtedly has the biggest impact on the economy, as all those millions unemployed can moderate their pain courtesy of a passable weekly check from the government which should just about cover the rent and beer.

Which is why more than anything, Obama is dead set on extending insurance benefit payments in perpetuity: because if the 10 million official and 14 million unofficial people who are on benefits (not to mention the tens of millions of unemployed unlucky enough to even get their weekly allowance from Uncle Sam) start thinking about their true predicament and their real "employability", then a landslide loss by this administration at the mid-term elections will actually be an upside surprise to what it can objectively expect.
I figured the explanation would show up in charts somewhere and I asked Chris Puplava at Financial Sense for a chart of Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) Benefits as well as an update on other charts he has graciously provided on request.

Click on any chart below for a crisper image.

From Chris Puplava ...

My answer would be a MASSIVE jump in the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits, which jumped from 3,594,253 (11/07/09) to 5,143,410 (12/19/09), up 43% in just over a month! The increase in EUC more than offset the decline in continuing claims and we are now at a new record when combining all measures of unemployment benefits. Economists were pointing out that continuing claims and initial claims were falling as a bullish sign, however what was happening was that those benefits were exhausting for people who used up that benefit, leading to the decline in the numbers which is proved by a record (52.24%) exhaustion rate.

Record Unemployment Deterioration

Continued>>>
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/01/massive-jump-in-emergency-unemployment.html

Unemployment numbers need strict rules set on the way they're calculated. The manipulation of these numbers has gone on for my entire life. Enough!

[stray cat]

1. Food stamps and unemployment - two very good investments by the administration

alot of what the administration is doing is not appreciated by those not benefiting directly

[midnight]

2. The chart didn't do much for me, but the web site is very informative...

Info.

[Larkspur]

3. I'll be facing unemployment again the end of next month, and considering I'm 48 years old

and IT managers prefer to import Indians instead of hiring Americans, Obama better damn well make unemployment benefits permanent for Americans because his financial plan of reinflating the last financial bubble isn't creating more jobs and will go bust again.

[snot]

4. And none of this includes independent contractors,

whose incomes have also vanished but who aren't eligible for unemployment benefits -- and I'd wager we have more independent contractors now than we've had for a very long time, since employers have shifted toward that kind of employment in order to avoid having to provide benefits.