Monday, June 6, 2011

Teen Unemployment Rate Reaches 25% In America

Ron Scherer - Only 1 in 4 teens is working today – the lowest proportion since the end of World War II, according to one researcher. Although some programs are trying to help young Americans get jobs, the unemployment rate for 16-to-19-year-olds who want to work now stands at 24.2 percent, according to the May report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Friday. Among African-American teens, the rate is 40.7 percent.
"I am not hesitant about calling it a crisis," says Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group.
It's a crisis with potentially important implications. When teens can't find work, they have time on their hands and can be prone to getting in trouble. One particular problem can be higher incidences of teen pregnancy. Also, in the long run, teens who don't work miss out on developing important skills for later on, such as learning to take orders from supervisors, getting along with co-workers, and coping with criticism.
"The more work experience they have, the higher the wage when they reach ages 20 to 25 years," says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. "Many employers who are hiring say the kids don't have the 'soft' skills, but the only way to get them is to be in the workforce. So not having a job today affects employability in the future."
The scarcity of jobs for teens comes at a time when many are starting to search for summer jobs. In 2009, as part of the Obama stimulus program, Congress set aside $1.2 billion for youth activities, including summer jobs. But that money is now gone.
As a result, even jobs such as working as a lifeguard are expected to be in shorter supply. For example, New York City will create 23,000 summer jobs, down from 52,000 two years ago.
Many mayors are scrambling to raise money from the private sector to fund summer jobs. In Louisville, Ky., Mayor Greg Fischer has collected $420,000 in pledges – enough money to provide summer jobs for a couple hundred kids, says Michael Gritton, executive director of KentuckianaWorks, a workforce development agency.
till, for many teens in that program, finding a job is very challenging. Seventeen-year-old Victoria Martin, who lives with her mother in rural Shepherdsville, Ky., will have to juggle work with caring for her two children, ages 4 months and 2 years. But it's not the children that are the problem, says Victoria, who has earned her certified nursing assistant degree as well as her GED. She says potential employers such as nursing homes and hospitals have told her she must be 18 for their insurance purposes. Skip to next paragraph
"It's just a matter of being patient. I turn 18 this September," she says.
But even some older teens are having difficulties finding work. One is Erin Allen, who is 19 and wants to get a job in a beauty salon. "I love nails and doing hair," she says, but so far she has not had any job offers.
Ms. Allen, who has a 10-month-old son, plans to go back to school for her GED in July, but in the meantime she has applied for work at a few Circle K convenience stores. She hasn't heard back.
Across America, teens have run into an onslaught of competition for entry-level jobs from older Americans who suffered financial losses during the recession and have had to supplement their income.
Some economists say many teen jobs were lost after Congress four years ago raised the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour.
"Employers with these entry-level service-oriented positions, looking for low-skilled labor, pay very little and expect very little from it," says Dennis Hoffman, an economics professor at Arizona State University in Tempe. "When told they have to pay more than the marginal product is worth, they will be deterred from hiring them."
Another teen who's finding the job hunt difficult is 18-year-old Divine Favour Anene. Originally from Nigeria and another participant in the Kentucky program, he has been unable to find work – even with a GED. He wants a job in retailing or health care. He's applied to Wal-Mart and Kroger but has heard nothing back.
"I would say there is work out there, but you have to be a little more patient in this economic time," he says.
Indeed, some companies are gearing up to hire teens. In March, the DOL asked United Parcel Service to "match up" young DOL candidates with the company's plans for summer hiring. As a result, UPS says it will take on 1,500 "working students" who will get paid $8.50 to $9.50 an hour, plus medical benefits.
"No experience is necessary. We will train you, teach you, and hopefully you move forward and grow," says Matt Lavery, director of workforce training at UPS in Atlanta. "Ideally, the employment goes beyond the summer."
In northern California, John Hogan, chief executive officer of the staffing agency TeenForce, says he has recently signed up 15 businesses that are offering part-time work for 21 youths. In the past 10 months, TeenForce, which is only a year old, has placed 67 teens, Mr. Hogan says.
One of Hogan's goals is to improve the image of teen workers.
"Right now the image is not that good," he says. "But if you build a brand that is reliable, on time, and honest, it makes it easier for the next teen as well."

Obama: Incumbents Facing High Unemployment Lost Re-Election

Tina Korbe - Just 25 percent of likely voters expect to be better off financially by November 2012, according to a poll released today by The Hill — and one in three actually expect to be worse off. Perhaps even more tellingly, 65 percent said they think the country is on the wrong track. A plurality — 36 percent — also said they have less pride in America now than they did four years ago.
The poll is anything but good news for President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection bid, which will likely hinge heavily on the economy.
But it’s not particularly surprising, given the chronically high unemployment rate and the even-more-dismal-than-expected May jobs report — the worst in eight months. (Although, to be fair, the poll was conducted last Thursday before the release of the May jobs outlook.)
In the last month, unemployment rose from 9 percent to 9.1 percent. A Senate Budget Committee press release estimates underemployment to be as high as 16.1 percent. History tells us incumbents have a hard time overcoming these kinds of disastrous statistics, as this handy chart from the Democratic group Third Way makes clear (via The Fix):

Of course, the pessimism wasn’t quite as pronounced among liberals: 41 percent actually said they expect to be better off financially by next fall. The poll report also points out that just 6 percent of blacks said they believe they will be worse off in one year, while 46 percent expect their situation to be better.
The poll’s political implications are OK by me — I don’t feel badly for what the economy might cost Obama in 2012. But overall, these stats are still highly discouraging, not least because they indicate individuals continue to suffer from depressed mental attitudes about the economy — attitudes that presumably stem from experienced or observed hardship.
But they’re discouraging from another vantage point, too: They highlight just how politicized economic matters have become. That liberal and conservative expectations of individual financial status are so inverse of each other suggests government policy has become a far more potent factor in the economy than should be the case in a capitalist country. That’s really nothing new even here in the United States, but it is a reminder of the deeper philosophical divide between those who think government spending can actually stimulate the economy (perhaps because they experience the immediate — but ultimately unsustainable — benefits of government handouts) and those who accept the reality that it doesn’t.
In other words, it’s depressing so few people expect an improved financial outlook a little more than a year from now, but it’s almost more depressing that some do expect to see some improvement, when all signs suggest this administration still hasn’t learned the lessons failed stimulus programs have to teach.
So, in the interest of putting a positive spin on what is a decidedly dejecting poll, I’m going to chalk up the optimism to good old-fashioned confidence in individual ability and a determined work ethic — and credit to the pessimism a realistic understanding of the effects of the policies of this administration.

James Carville: Unemployment 's About to Cause Civil Unrest Across The Country

Ed Morrissey - And you know who that helps? Er, nobody, really, but it certainly hurts Barack Obama. The Daily Caller provides a four-minute video from today’s Don Imus Show, in which Democratic political strategist James Carville warns that extended unemployment will have a destabilizing effect on American politics, which is hardly the kind of Hope and Change Obama was selling in 200. 
“It is going to be very difficult,” Carville said. “But the country, if that is what we are doing, this is gruesome on people. This unemployment rate for this long is humanitarian crisis of the first magnitude. This financial crisis, people have studied this by the way, they know that the things take this long to work their way through. The aftermath of these things — kind of an academic book that is dry entitled ‘This Time is Different.’ What it concluded it is not different this time. They studied it, the aftermath of the financial crisis. What we are going through is imminently predictable. But this is a terrible thing that has happened to people’s lives. I think the president at one level understands that, you know. But he is limited in what he can do. So we’ll just have to see. But it’s going to be hard. If 54,000 jobs is the new norm – this is going to be very, very tough. Some people say it just might be one more thing. We don’t know.”
But Carville said the consequences aren’t limited to politics alone. He warned of heighten risk of civil unrest with the bleak economic picture.
“You know, look – this is a humanitarian — you know, you’re smart enough to see this,” Carville said. “People, you know, if it continues, we’re going to start to see civil unrest in this country. I hate to that, but I think it’s [eminently] possible.”
Will there be riots in the streets? Doubtful, not unless we see a total collapse of the economy. Right now it’s a toss-up whether we’ll drop into a mild recession, so the civil unrest is hardly imminent, the word the DC mistakenly used to transcribe Carville’s warning. But without a doubt, high and chronic unemployment has caused civil dissatisfaction with Obama and the Democrats; we saw that in the midterm elections, while the GDP numbers were still inching up.
Now that the Keynesian bubble has deflated, Obama is left with no progress at all, and handed his opponents a good argument that far from helping, Obamanomics got in the way of a normal recovery. At the very least, Republicans can ask whether a Democratic warning of impending civil unrest is a sign of success or failure, and ask voters to reach the obvious conclusion

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Ron Paul: We Are Supporting A Future American Dictatorship

Steve Watson - 2012 Presidential candidate Ron Paul has warned that a lack of oversight from Congress, the media and the American people is enabling the rise of a dictatorship in the US.
The Congressman issued the warning via his weekly Texas Straight Talk column, noting that in light of current attitudes within the executive and legislative branches, “it would be incredibly naive to think a dictator could not or would not wrest power in this country” at some point in the future.
“Americans who are not alarmed by all of this are either not paying close attention, or are too trusting of current government officials to be concerned.” Paul writes,
“Our Presidents can now, on their own: order assassinations, including American citizens; operate secret military tribunals; engage in torture; enforce indefinite imprisonment without due process; order searches and seizures without proper warrants, gutting the 4th Amendment; ignore the 60 day rule for reporting to the Congress the nature of any military operations as required by the War Power Resolution; continue the Patriot Act abuses without oversight; wage war at will; and treat all Americans as suspected terrorists at airports with TSA groping and nude x-rays. ” The Congressman urges.
The Congressman also specifically pointed to last weeks passage by Congress of a National Defense Authorization Act that contains an alarming worldwide war provision, noting that it “explicitly extends the president’s war powers to just about anybody.”
The ACLU declared that the provision: “has no expiration date and will allow this president — and any future president — to go to war anywhere in the world, at any time, without further congressional authorization. The new authorization wouldn’t even require the president to show any threat to the national security of the United States. The American military could become the world’s cop, and could be sent into harm’s way almost anywhere and everywhere around the globe.”
Section 1034 of the Defense Authorization bill that says were are at war with the “associated forces” of al Qaeda and the Taliban.
“Would it be so hard for someone in the government to target a political enemy and connect them to al Qaeda, however tenuously, and have them declared an associated force?” writes Congressman Paul.
Paul warned that future leaders will ” inherit all the additional powers we cede to the current position holders.”

Congressmen Weiner And Lapdog Liberal Media

…or to point out that Weiner all but admits taking a photograph of himself like the infamous picture. That’s all there, of course, but only mildly interesting given what has gone before.
No, the purpose of this post is to show you how much Rachel Maddow is his lapdog in this interview.
Seriously, jump ahead to about 4:10 in the clip and watch her work her way up to the question of whether the photo is of him.  The most shameful moment is when she says, “let me ask you whether you want to answer that question…”


Now, truthfully no reporter can coerce cooperation. This isn’t like court where if a person is called to testify (and can’t invoke a privilege against testimony, such as the privilege against self-incrimination), the judge can throw that person in jail for contempt until his or her tongue loosens. But that is not the attitude a reporter should take, especially when dealing with a public official. The attitude you should take is that the people have a right to know the answers to these questions. By asking him for permission to ask a question, she is demonstrating that she has no business claiming to be a reporter, who fearlessly pursues the truth, and as appropriate speaks truth to power. She demonstrates that she is a lapdog, at least for one political party.
As for Weiner, may I suggest that if you are not following Lee’s twitter feed (@stranahan) you really, really should be. He is pursuing an interesting theory that on one hand might exonerate Weiner of the charge of sending the pic, but also might explain why he is acting like he has something to hide. It’s just a theory, but it would very eloquently explain what we are seeing.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

A Double Dip Recession Coming Soon?

Margo D. Beller - Wall Street is having a hard time figuring out what to do now that the U.S. economy appears to be sputtering and yields are so low, Peter Yastrow, market strategist for Yastrow Origer, told CNBC.
"What we’ve got right now is almost near panic going on with money managers and people who are responsible for money," he said. "They can not find a yield and you just don’t want to be putting your money into commodities or things that are punts that might work out or they might not depending on what happens with the economy.
"We need to find real yield and real returns on these assets. You see bad data, you see Treasurys rally, you see all bonds and all fixed-income rally and then the people who are betting against the U.S. economy start getting bearish on stocks. That’s a huge mistake."
"Interest rates are amazingly low and that, thanks to Ben Bernanke, is driving everything," Yastrow said. "We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it.
"We have many, many homeowners that are totally underwater here and cannot get out from under. The technology frontier is limited right now. We definitely have an innovation slowdown and the economy’s gonna suffer."
However, he said he wouldn’t sell stocks.
"Any bears out there better be careful because the dividend yields on these stocks look awesome relative to all the other investment vehicles out there," Yastrow said. "So bears are going to have to find a new way to express their discontent with the U.S. economy."

Gov. Chris Christie Will Visit Iowa Next Month

chris wysoocki -wNope, Chris Christie is not running for president. He said so, again, after meeting yesterday with a group of influential Iowa GOP donors. They flew to NJ in an (apparently unsuccessful) attempt to persuade him to enter the race.

But riddle me this Batman. How many guys (or gals) who aren't running for president have scheduled high-profile trips to Iowa this summer?
Gov. Chris Christie will travel to Iowa this summer to participate in an education summit.
The governor, who has insisted vehemently that he isn't running for president, is going at the request of Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, said Christie political strategist Mike DuHaime.
Two other big-name Republicans who aren't running for president either (yet!) also plan to visit Iowa this summer. Rep. Michele Bachmann has all but declared her candidacy already, and Sarah Palin is giving the media fits as her multi-state bus tour bobs and weaves its way to New York, Massachusetts, and … Iowa.
If we take Chris Christie at his word that he's "not ready" to be president, can we perhaps, maybe, potentially see him running for Vice President? Is there a Palin / Christie, or Bachmann / Christie ticket in our future?
He'd certainly lend a whole lotta gravitas to either lady's presidential aspirations. And he still wouldn't be running for president.