Tag Archives | Unemployment

A distinction is drawn in economics between demand-constrained systems and resource-constrained systems (which for simplicity and symmetry we shall call supply-constrained systems).

While handing over tax concessions to capitalists to ‘promote employment’, the Centre is not spending to fill the large number of government vacancies, or on MGNREGS.

THE data on unemployment brough out by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) present a grim picture. Not only has the unemployment rate increased sharply for some years now, starting from even before the pandemic, but the figure which had shot up during the pandemic has not come down much despite the recovery that has occurred in the level of GDP from its trough.

With the Federal Reserve pushing up interest rates, we appear headed for a new recession.

As rioters target supermarkets, activists call on the government to help those who cannot survive amid rising prices and mass unemployment.

Yves here. Get a cup of coffee. This is another meaty talk with Michael Hudson, this time focusing on his classic Super Imperialism. Hudson has an updated and expanded version set to go to print soon.

Our unemployment insurance system has failed the country at a moment of great need. With tens of millions of workers struggling just to pay rent and buy food, Congress was forced to pass two emergency spending bills, providing one-time stimulus payments, special weekly unemployment insurance payments, and temporary unemployment benefits to those not covered by the system.  

With the continuing pandemic–and expiring housing and unemployment benefits across the country–millions of people may have their utilities cut off soon.

Both the number of initial unemployment claims for unemployment compensation and the number of continued claims for unemployment compensation are once again on the rise, signaling a worsening of the Pandemic Depression.

The general strike occurred in the context of the devastation brought about by the coronavirus pandemic in India. Added to this are the millions of people who have lost income and who now face increased poverty and hunger, in a country where even before the pandemic 50 percent of all children suffered malnourishment.

The current economic crisis has hit workers hard. Unemployment rates remain high, with total weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits continuing to grow.

The number of continued claims for unemployment compensation, while below its peak, rose from the previous week and was more than 29 million American workers—a figure that includes workers receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

The American economy gained 1.8 million jobs last month, even as the coronavirus surged in many parts of the country and newly reintroduced restrictions caused some businesses to close for a second time.

The existing alphabet soup of possible recoveries—V, U, W, and so on (which I discussed back in April)—is clearly inadequate to describe what has been taking place in the United States in recent months.

Yesterday morning, the U.S. Department of Labor (pdf) reported that, during the week ending last Saturday, another 1.3 million American workers filed initial claims for unemployment compensation. That’s on top of the 48.7 million workers who were laid off during the preceding fifteen weeks.

Today’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows two months in a row of payroll employment gains, an increase in jobs of 4.8 million in June on top of 2.7 million in May. But, because so many jobs were lost in March and April, we are still 14.7 million jobs below where we were in February, before the pandemic spread.

All told, 38.6 million American workers have filed initial unemployment claims during the past nine weeks.

This secret memo was discovered in the waste basket of a high-ranking staffer in the European Commission. The memo from “the Coalition” begins “Dear Angela, Teresa, Emmanuel…” and has a further list of first names—heads of state and secretaries or ministers of finance, health and human services—were mostly scribbled over with marker.