Patrick warns of 2,000 job cuts
As many as 2,000 state jobs could be eliminated, Governor Deval Patrick warned yesterday, unless unions agree to concessions necessary to help close an estimated $600 million budget shortfall that could trigger spending cuts throughout state government.
Executive branch managers will be asked to take an unpaid furlough of up to nine days, Patrick said, and the administration will look at other potential money-savers, including consolidating state agencies, farming out some public programs to private agencies, selling surplus state property, and making other service and program cuts.
I wonder how many other agencies will finally see an end to their free lunches...
Unemployment at 33-year high; insurance fund running dry
Unemployment in Massachusetts has reached its highest level since the 1970s, officials said yesterday as they also disclosed that the state will exhaust a fund that helps laid-off workers pay for health insurance by the end of next month.
State officials said they are considering a number of emergency measures, including imposing higher costs on the unemployed and raising fees on employers, to close a gap that could exceed $50 million by April.
"Higher costs on the unemployed"? Can someone translate that from bureaucratese to English for me? Because it sure sounds to me like they want to charge unemployed people more money. The unemployed. The folks what don't have jobs. Blood? Stone? Bueller?
Contrast those two stories with this:
Recession over, unemployment seen at 10 percent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The worst U.S. recession since the Great Depression has ended, but weak household spending as the labor market struggles to create jobs will slow the pace of the economy's recovery, according to a survey released on Monday.
The survey of 44 professional forecasters released by the National Association for Business Economics, also known as the NABE, found that 80 percent of the respondents believed the economy was growing again after four straight quarters of declines.
So, which is it? Is MA so incompetently governed that it can't pull out of the recession, or is the rosy picture of the economy painted by the 0bama administration not entirely correct? That's a tough one - I'll be the first to admit that Cadillac Deval is the worst thing to happen to this state since Michael "Tank" Dukakis; however there's a strong case to be made for the national media once again providing cover fire for the current administration...
"May you live in interesting times" indeed...
That is all.
6 comments:
Things are better here (Nebraska), and we don't get arrested for stupid stuff like having an handful of empty brass in our pockets....
wv- bioneker Wuzzat? The Dutch description of the Six-Million Dollar man?
Whoops! That url with my name don't go where it's supposed to!
Just wait - the numbers are looking like they're all going to be revised downwards.
Under Bush, revisions were a regular occurrence, but the revisions were always positive (e.g. growth was revised upwards from early results). Under Obama, it looks like the other way around.
I figure the MSM is happy to bury this information to keep the Happy Ears going.
If you use the percentage of people actually collecting unemployed, then yes, unemployed is running about 10%, but what about all those people that have exhausted their unemployment benefits? I strongly suspect that unemployment is well over 10% and that the percentage of people that are underemployed (the ones that lost their $50K job and are now saying "Welcome to Walmart") is also high. Is that all the current administration's fault, of course not, but their actions will make things worse not better.
As inflation begins to take a bite (they keep printing money.... and are fudging w/ the CPI by including the price of crap nobody NEEDS to buy (computers and flatscreens?) and fudging USDA crop reports to help hide the mess), the underemployed are in for it. "Welcome to Walmart" ain't going to cut it w/ 6$ gasoline and $8 milk..... I see a crash coming, and this little rally on Wall St. is doing nothing bu destroying wealth.
Michael, I seem to remember reading a couple of weeks ago that if you count people who have run out of benefits, those who aren't actively looking for work, and the people who used to have full time jobs, but only have part time work now, the real number is around 19%.
There might be some seasonal employment because of holiday shopping, but even if there is, it will be temporary. It will get worse after the New Year.
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