Bringing The Pain, Part 2

Note 1: This links to last week’s Area Votes in Congress writeup. Basically, Mikey the Beloved and his Repug playmates voted for Cut, Cap and Balance, which has no shot in the Senate (though “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey voted for it of course), and the House also voted on a bill to try and gut the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as part of their non-jobs agenda (that crap piece of legislation isn’t going anywhere either). Aside from that, I don’t have anything else to say on that subject.

Note 2: Part 1 with the setup for what I’m trying to do in this series of posts is here.

Connecticut

This tells us that The Land of Holy Joe Lieberman added 7,900 jobs last April, though “as (unemployed) benefits lapse, Connecticut’s unemployed face tough decisions” here (duuuh!).

When it comes to employer discrimination against the jobless, though, Dem U.S. House Reps Rose DeLauro of the My Left Nutmeg state along with Hank Johnson of Georgia introduced a bill in response here, and it looks like the WWE of one-time Repug U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon from that state was notified here that it owed about 7 grand in unemployment compensation (wow, that’s what I call a shot to the solar plexus! And more on Johnson a little later, by the way.)

Delaware

This tells us that that state’s “troubled” trust fund for paying benefits was solvent for the next six months as of last February, and I don’t have any further word on that. The state’s unemployment rate was 8.4 percent as of last April (here).

This also tells us that, along with Connecticut, Delaware is one of the worst states to collect unemployment (don’t know how our beloved commonwealth of PA managed to escape the list…I’ll refer back to this list again). Also, this tells us of free colon screenings offered for the jobless in Newark a year ago last March (don’t laugh, that’s a good idea – prevention makes better sense than an urgent trip to the ER).

District of Columbia

The unemployment rate was 10.4 percent as noted here in June (ugh). However, as noted here, the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va., area averages about 5.7 percent (probably explains why there’s no talk of jobs on the Sunday morning Beltway media gab fests, also noted here).

If there was ever a politician who you could consider an advocate for the unemployed, though, it would be Dem U.S. House Rep Eleanor Holmes Norton, as noted here (a stinking disgrace that, after all this time, D.C. still doesn’t have actual voting congressional representation).

Florida

Talk about the land that time forgot…

As noted here, that state’s lawmakers approved deep cuts in jobless bennies (listed as one of the worst states on the Daily Finance list with Delaware and Connecticut). It gets better, though – this tells us the state considered forcing the jobless to volunteer to receive unemployment (how many ways is that a stupid/cruel/counterproductive idea?). And on top of that, for something truly surreal, they were actually considering handing out shiny red superhero capes to unemployed people to wear as part of some PR campaign (no, this isn’t Halloween, and yes, I’m serious - here).

Good news? Well, the Metro Orlando area is apparently leading the state in hiring, as noted here (Wonder if The Mouse has anything to do with that? Maybe so).

Update 8/2/11: Maybe Lex Luthor should get recalled before Hosni Mubarak Walker and Snyder because of this (yeah I know, fat chance with the "sheeple" voters of this state).

Update 8/18/11: Add this to the pile also.

Update 8/26/11: And why am I not surprised that the state is engaged in this odious practice (defending it, of course)?

Update 9/14/11: Leave it to the "U.S." Chamber to pick Florida as a state for this.

Update 9/23/11: Florida, you deserve him (here).

Georgia

As noted here…

Paula S., from Acworth (who) said she was “sixty-something,” described “two eye-opening experiences of blatant age discrimination . . . . One twenty-something supervisor asked me if I had ever thought about coloring my hair . . . . Another manager told his assistant with the door open when I showed up to complete an application and interview: ‘We can’t hire any more old people’.”

Nice.

This tells us that the unemployment rate hit 10.4 percent in that state in January, and the state has to borrow $635 million from the Feds to cover hundreds of thousands of jobless Georgians (So what happened? Well, as noted here)…

In 1999, the state’s Unemployment Trust Fund — fueled by record growth — had squirreled away an astounding $2 billion for hard times. Far more than any recession required, thought the new governor, Democrat Roy Barnes.

He proposed and passed what he called the largest business tax cut in state history — a four-year payroll tax holiday that spared businesses $1 billion. (The tax hike applied only to state payroll taxes. Businesses also pay federal payroll taxes that roll into a separate fund.)

All was good until 9/11 and a 2001 shutdown of the American sky. Unemployment zoomed in airline-friendly metro Atlanta. The payroll tax holiday continued, which meant money gushed out of the trust fund — and none flowed in.

By the time the holiday and Barnes’ tenure expired in 2003, the trust fund was down by nearly two-thirds, to $703 million, according to a report released this week by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

And of course, the second a Dem tries to end a payroll tax holiday, a Repug automatically starts screaming “Tax Hike! Tax Hike!,” so nobody does anything and we end up sinking further into debt (yes, blame the politicians, but gullible voters sop up this stuff every time).

Also, this tells us that Dem U.S. House Rep Hank Johnson, along with Rose DeLauro, has looked into bias against the jobless (more on Johnson in a minute).

Update 10/11/11: And people actually wonder why we have a federal government to tell some of these idiots what to do, or not do in this case (here).

Guam

Not much to say here, except that unemployment was 13.4 percent there last month (yikes!). And speaking of Johnson, this tells us about his quote at a Congressional hearing concerning the possibility of Guam tipping into the ocean, or whatever (yes, it was a dumb thing to say, but he was trying to make a point about a huge influx of military personnel on the island).

Hawaii

This tells us that the state’s unemployment dipped in June, but this tells us that it rose again in July (and this tells us that Gov. Neil Abercrombie vowed to cut Kauai’s unemployment by half).

And returning to the Daily Finance list, this tells us why Hawaii was rated as the best state for unemployment compensation…

Hawaii is the only state to provide the unemployed with an average of more than 50% of weekly wages, and its average weekly benefit is also the nation's highest…In Hawaii, the unemployment insurance program is entirely funded by employers.

Great tourism and UC too…must be a bunch of socialist heathens (and you-know-who came from there, after all, too busy to show that birth certificate while he was making sure bin Laden was killed – snark mode off).

I’ll plan to pick this up next week.

Update: And by the way, speaking of Number 44, as you read about this, think about this also (yes, he caves way too easily, but consider the alternative...and I wonder when Yahoo decided that The Daily Tucker was a "news" site?).

Update 8/1/11: Once more, another reason for these posts (here)...

Update 8/3/11: I think this is something else that's important to consider about job creation.