7 U.S. states borrowing to pay jobless benefits

[graywarrior]

NEW YORK, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Seven U.S. states have been forced to borrow from the federal government to cover the rising cost of unemployment benefits, the National Conference of State Legislatures said on Friday.

Michigan already owes the government more than $1 billion, the bipartisan organization said in a statement.

The other states that have been forced to borrow are California, Ohio, New York, South Carolina, Indiana and Kentucky.

"Kentucky is in dire straits," said Brent Yonts, chair of the NCSL Labor and Economic Development Committee and representative for Kentucky.

"We've got to look at the whole system because the whole system is collapsing, just like everything else."

Kentucky's jobless rate stands at 7.8 percent, above the national average of 7.6 percent released in a government report earlier Friday.

Fourteen states have jobless rates that exceed 7.6 percent, with Michigan, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico showing rates higher than 10 percent.

"No one anticipated this type of increase that would put such a strain on state unemployment systems," said Diana Hinton Noel, a labor analyst for the NCSL.

States pay for jobless benefits by levying payroll taxes on employers. These are deposited into the federal Unemployment Trust Fund, which keeps separate accounts for each state, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Individual state accounts are fast dwindling as job losses shrink payroll tax revenue.

The Department of Labor earlier reported that 598,000 jobs were lost in January. More than 3.5 million jobs were lost in 2008 and more than 11 million Americans are unemployed.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=13356

[dgibby]

1. Unemployment is at 9.6% in SC, and Gov. Sandford didn't want to take the money.

In addition, he stated on CNN yesterday that he's against the bailout/stimulus programs, that we should just let everything fail, even though it would be "painful".

Easy for him to say. It won't be painful for him, he's a multi-millionaire. Just got to love these hyper-religious, rich people advocating economic collapse for the rest of us.

[Festivito]

2. People still trying to pay their loans on fake housing prices.

The actual value of houses needs to be redressed on a house by house basis.

[nichomachus]

3. OK -- so the plan is working

This was the GOP plan all along. Pretty soon, the states won't even be able to borrow and they'll have to cancel unemployment benefits. Then, people will be willing to work for $4 an hour with no benefits, just to be able to eat. And employes won't complain about anything, because they don't want to jeopardize even the $4 an hour.

This is what Grover Norquist and the corporatists wanted . . . and with the help of the GOP, the corporate media, and some compliant Dems, they're getting it.

[Poll_Blind]

4. Can we just stop foreign aid for a few years? Cause this is horrible.

PB

[DCKit]

5. Halving our military expenditures would have a bigger impact.

Some really hard decisions need to be made - dispassionately, analytically and logically.

Unfortunately, military spending seems to be yet another third-rail subject. It'll take the Republics and CorporoDems about a minute to begin calling anyone who would dare propose such cuts "Un-American" or even "traitorous", despite the fact that our military spending is completely out of control, and has been for decades.