End of Extended Benefits May Lower U.S. Jobless Rate

[Purveyor]

By Shobhana Chandra on May 21, 2012

The declining U.S. jobless rate may soon get another push downward as Americans lose extended unemployment benefits.

From April 7 through May 12, about 370,000 Americans in 23 states stopped getting the benefits, which provide payments for as long as 99 weeks, according to estimates from the National Employment Law Project. People in the remaining six states and the District of Columbia who still qualify may lose eligibility by September, bringing the program to an end, the report showed.

Some recipients who lose their benefits may decide to accept jobs they view as less than ideal. Others may give up looking for work and drop out of the labor force, eliminating them from the ranks of the jobless. Those outcomes may trim the unemployment rate by 0.1 percentage point to 0.2 point in the next few months, according to economists Dean Maki at Barclays and Michael Feroli at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

“The unemployment rate would be the place where the effect is likely to show up most,” said Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays in New York and a former economist at the Federal Reserve. “It may put some modest downward pressure” on the jobless rate.

MORE...

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-21/end-of-extended-benefits-may-lower-u-dot-s-dot-jobless-rate-economy

[Brickbat]

1. It's all about the numbers, not the reality.

[Lionessa]

2. So, the jobless numbers will go down even if joblessness doesn't, again. Whooptido!

At least it will have the illusion of improvement for the election cycle.

[coalition_unwilling]

3. thereby illustrating the truth behind Mark Twain's witticism that "there are

lies, damned lies and statistics."

I'm one of the unemployed affected. Saw my 99 weeks abruptly cut to 82. Still looking for a job though, so they would still be counting me as unemployed.

[dmallind]

4. The headline is 100% bullshit. The body 90% so.

Despite every mouth-breathing moron's insistence across the political spectrum, eligibility for or receipt of benefits per se has ZERO to do with the unemployment rate, which is derived entirely from a household survey that does not even ask about benefits, and is administered by a different department.

Then there's this nugget of shite: "Others may give up looking for work and drop out of the labor force, eliminating them from the ranks of the jobless."

First the factual problems. People have to stop looking, entirely, for a month to even drop out of U3. To drop out of the labor force in toto they have to not have looked for a job once in an entire year, so willingness to look based on upcoming benefit changes is unlikely to affect UE until 2013. Then there is the logical problem which is even worse. Why would not being paid benefits make you LESS likely to look for work? Does anybody see the problem with the sentence "well I looked diligently for a job every day when they paid me $300 a week in UI but now I get no money at all I'm going to stop trying to get a paid job"?

The only part of this that makes any sense at all is: "Some recipients who lose their benefits may decide to accept jobs they view as less than ideal."

It's horrible that it comes down to this but yes no doubt plenty of $50K earners will be forced to take $25k jobs if they can get them now the benefits are gone. Sure even the most generous UI benefits aren't much more than $30k but most people will choose that with perfect freedom to network and interview and look for openings over working 40 hrs for less money in a CV-busting job far beneath their career level. However, when those benefits run out, that $25k option will seem better than 0.

So the only way this headline is even vaguely true is in how much it will increase underemployment.

[former9thward]

5. Probably they will move to eliminate unemployment altogether.

That will drop the rate even more.

[corazonroto]

6. part of the REAL reason that the UI numbers cannot be trusted

You nailed it...but there is another layer below the truths you have uncovered...

This is the story of my whistle blower efforts. I have tried to expose the errors that I discovered in the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Program, but the Feds don't want their multi billion dollar error to be exposed. The Department of Labor published mistakes in the Q&A sections of the EUC08 'implementing and operating instructions" over four years ago. This mistake does not comply with the federal administrative law for the ARRA emergency designated funds. I tried to point this out after I won an appeal victory that exposed this.

Ever since I have been fighting to help millions of EUC08 claimants who have had their benefits stolen from them by our own government. This affects the $96 billion dollars spent so far on over 600,000+ weeks of benefits paid on over 26 million EUC08 claims since 2008. This story proves that this should be investigated, as should the state and federal government all the way up to the white house. All of them have been involved and have worked together to try to defeat my efforts.

They have not been able to overturn the appeal case I won last October. They won't investigate nor will they comply with their oversight duties for these ARRA funds. They won't refute my evidence nor public concerns. They continue to ignore recovery fraud complaint RATB-2011-DOL-9DF2506-0, that was filed months ago. They won't respond one way or the other before the general election. I have proof that millions of claimants have been shorted billions of dollars and they don't know what to do with me...

All the FACTS are here and in the other stories linked to this one:

Mr. President, there is a serious problem with the EUC08 program
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/09/1118321/-Mr-President-there-is-a-serious-problem-with-the-EUC08-program