Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
Today marks the publication of the 1,500th post on Policy Points. Many thanks to all the readers who regularly have visited the blog since its launch in October 2009.
Check back on Monday as Policy Points begins its next set of 1,500 posts.
Enjoy the weekend.
The PBS NewsHour reports on the “Georgia Works” program and asks if it actually helps unemployed workers to any meaningful degree.
Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
For the benefit week ending on September 24, 2011, some 13,702 North Carolinians filed initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits, and 105,022 individuals applied for state-funded continuing benefits. Compared to the prior week, there were more initial and more continuing claims. These figures come from data released by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Averaging new and continuing claims over a four-week period — a process that helps adjust for seasonal fluctuations and better illustrates trends — shows that an average of 12,228 initial claims were filed over the previous four weeks, along with an average of 104,871 continuing claims. Compared to the previous four-week period, the average number of initial claims was higher, while the average number of continuing claims was lower.
One year ago, the four-week average for initial claims stood at 13,787 and the four-week average of continuing claims equaled 117,870.
While the number of claims has dropped over the past year so has covered employment. Last week, covered employment totaled 3.7 million, down from 3.8 million a year ago.
The graph shows the changes in unemployment insurance claims (as a share of covered employment) in North Carolina since the recession’s start in December 2007.
Both new and continuing claims appear to have peaked for this cycle, and the four-week averages of new and continuing claims have fallen considerably. Yet continuing claims remain at an elevated level, which suggests that unemployed individuals are finding it difficult to find new positions.
From the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of the August version of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) …
… August marks three years straight that the job seeker’s ratio has been at or above 3-to-1. Put another way: we’ve exceeded the highest level reached in the early 2000s recession for the last three years straight. And we’ve been substantially above 4-to-1 for the last two years and eight months. A job seeker’s ratio of more than 4-to-1 means that for more than three out of four unemployed workers, there simply are no jobs. Two years and eight months—139 weeks—of a job seeker’s ratio above 4-to-1 is why the current extended unemployment insurance benefits, which last a maximum of 99 weeks, remain crucial. Furthermore, extending these benefits will not contribute to keeping the unemployment rate high, as some economists have claimed.
