Hey, our unemployment rate just went down! Go Vermont!
Except…
…according to the Brattleboro Reformer, since Vermont’s unemployment rate fell below 6%, we’re no longer entitled to federally subsidized Tier 3 benefits.
What does this mean?
Actually, I’m not entirely certain because despite my fairly high degree of literacy and post-graduate education, I can’t fully decipher the explanation on the department of labor’s web site.
I think what it means is that Tiers 4 & 3 are now closed to unemployed workers, meaning that we’re left with tiers 1 & 2, which I think are still available to us (though the web site doesn’t actually make that entirely clear).
What I do know is that regular state extended benefits are not currently available, leaving us to rely entirely on the federal tiers.
The 6% rate I referenced above? That’s not an increase in net employment. It’s based on people who are looking for work. If you are no longer eligible for unemployment and no longer looking for work because you have simply given up, you are no longer unemployed.
So when people fall off of unemployment and end up going on food stamps because they don’t have any other options left? That actually makes our unemployment numbers go down, and triggers a loss of benefit in the process. In other words, the poor, already screwed, just got screwed a bit more.
Yay us?
1) Kick everybody off unemployment, thus we won’t have any unemployment.
QED
PS–Will govern for food.
The unemployment rate is not “based on people who are looking for work.” It’s based on people collecting unemployment benefits. There are many people looking for work who either no longer qualify for unemployment benefits, or never did. Such as people who have spent the past several years as housewives, students, self employed, fired from a job, etc. People who are currently looking for work, but are not counted in the unemployment rate.
and story.
Nationwide unemployment never reached the magic number of 10%, staying @ ‘9.5-ish’.
It is estimated by those who really know what’s happening to be double that, at least, using some of the calculations used in this story.
Big whitewash to make the stats look rosy(er) & hide true cost of both Bush & Obama giveaway to corporations & the wealthy seem not quite so bad.
Underemployment is a difficult stat to measure accurately. We have a lot of skilled people who are working far below their potential in Vermont and nationally.
I find unemployment stats to be useful, but potentially misleading. It takes anecdotal evidence as well as the broad economic analysis to come up with a clear picture of what is actually going on for real people.
My thoughts: If you have means, you’re probably okay. If you don’t, then things are going from bad to worse. If you are somewhere in the middle, you’re going to have to work harder for less at a job that you never thought you’d have to do.
Still, I have faith in the power of people to come together to harness the promise of new ideas about food, energy, telecommunications and other industries to keep Vermont ticking.