Free Republic

Here are some new charts from reader Tim Wallace on "Covered Employment" (working in a job eligible for unemployment benefits). First a few notes .... Typically, hours worked and wages paid to employees in covered employment are used as a basis in establishing unemployment benefits should an employee becomes unemployed by no fault of their own. Self-employed people are not covered by unemployment insurance but we still have to pay into the system. Covered employees are entitled to unemployment benefits if they earn enough wages and meet eligibility requirements of their state. For example, the State of Washington requires 680...

Of all the depressing facts about the once great City of Detroit, this to me is the most upsetting: In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Today, there are less than 27,000. Government -- federal, state, and local -- made this happen. I know this from experience. Government corrupted the Detroit work force. That corruption drove away my company too. Until 1984, I was a business owner in the city, employing about 20. I moved my business 60 miles away. I didn't want to leave, but I was, in effect, forced to. Many think that crime spurred...

Why did the unemployment rate rise so rapidly -- from 7.2 per cent in January to 10.2 percent in October? It was clearly the administration's "stimulus" bill -- which in February provided $40 billion to greatly extend jobless benefits at no cost to the states. As Larry Summers, the president's top assistant for economic policy, noted in July, "the unemployment rate over the recession has risen about 1 to 1.5 percentage points more than would normally be attributable to the contraction in GDP." And the rate has moved nearly a percentage point higher since then, even though GDP increased. Countries...