How's The Obama "Recovery" Working Out For You?

[dgs49]

It takes 120,000 jobs per month just to make room for those newly coming into the labor force (a couple million young adults will be graduating from college in the next month or so).

The only logical solution is for the Government to borrow a trillion dollars a year, and employ people who do nothing productive. Has anybody tried that yet?

[rubato]

The "Obama recovery" is working out better than most of the G-20 and all of the countries who are following the prescriptions of the US Republican party.

In other words he is doing better than all the GOP alternatives.


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

And there are still millions unemployed after more that 5 years this assjack has been in office!

[rubato]

And there are still millions unemployed after more that 5 years this assjack has been in office!

And if the fuckhead Repubicans who caused the worst disaster in 80 years were in office it would be worse.

He is, compared to the alternative, successful. Very successful. Even with the republicans blocking all progress.




yrs,
rubato

[dales]

Yeah, right.

Blame the half-black-boob's failures on the other party.

Give it a rest, chump!

[rubato]

You are unable to read?

yrs,
rubato

[dales]

Are you not sober?

(it is late Saturday afternoon)

[Long Run]

I'll give that a Woop Woop. Shiraz that is.

[Lord Jim]

Are you not sober?

(it is late Saturday afternoon)

Having read some of rube's latest "contributions" I assume that's a rhetorical question...

[dales]

Yannow - I remember long-forgotten sunny Saturdays lost in a fog of alcohol (and other intoxicants) as time flowed by. It was a wonderful era.

Of course that was some 40 years ago and I was only 20 at the time.

Perhaps our friend rubato is chasing the muse of long lost (and spent) youth?

Can't blame him, now rube be a good boy and stay away from machinery of all kinds, m'kay?

[oldr_n_wsr]

Yannow - I remember long-forgotten sunny Saturdays lost in a fog of alcohol (and other intoxicants) as time flowed by. It was a wonderful era.

you know you shouldn't "glorify".

[dales]

[Big RR]

And a good number of others dropped off that chart by just giving up looking/exhausting their unemployment benefits.

[dales]

Supposedly, those are included on this graph.

I don't see the start of a REAL RECOVERY till 2015 (that is if our economy does't take a double dump).

Of course there's at least ONE POSTER HERE that believes all is hunky-dory and the earth's moon is made of green cheese.

[dales]

MORE PAIN FOR THE UNEMPLOYED

EDD’s unemployment phone lines, already swamped, will close in afternoons

California Employment Development Department said Thursday it will no longer staff its unemployment insurance call centers in the afternoons as a result of federal funding shortfalls.

“Starting May 20, EDD personnel will take calls from unemployed workers from 8 a.m. to 12 noon, Monday through Friday, except state holidays. The current telephone service hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. By directing all available staff to answer phone lines in the morning when the daily demand for telephone service is at its highest, the limited staff will be able to focus on other needs in the afternoon, like processing applications for benefits, answering online questions from claimants, and determining eligibility issues to help get benefits processed and paid,” EDD said in a press release.

EDD’s customer service number for unemployment benefits (800-300-5616) is already overloaded. Many callers have to redial as many as 10 or 20 times before reaching a live agent.

A California State Auditor’s report issued in November said that “millions of callers continue to have difficulty accessing the department’s new phone system and its agents.” In fiscal 2011-12, “more than 17 million call attempts, or 24 percent of all calls, were blocked. Blocked calls are calls attempting to reach the phone system that cannot access it. Furthermore, of the 29.7 million calls in which individuals asked to speak with an agent, 24.9 million, or 84 percent, were unsuccessful.” It noted that a single caller may be responsible for multiple call attempts.

The afternoon shutdown — the first in EDD’s history — will only make things worse. “It’s a real travesty to limit the hours people can call,” says Maurice Emsellem of the National Employment Law Project.

The impending siesta is a result of federal funding shortfalls. The federal government pays states to administer unemployment programs. States figure out how much they need to administer their programs according to a federal formula based in part on how many unemployment claims they process. For many years now, the federal formula has been giving states less than the formula says they need.

EDD estimates it will get $128 million less than it needs under this formula. Its is losing an additional $30 million under the federal budget cuts known as sequestration, for a total estimated shortfall of $158 million over the next 15 months, EDD spokesman Loree Levy says.

These cuts are in addition to the weekly benefit cut that started taking effect April 28 as a result of sequestration. The benefit cut reduced federal extended benefits (which start after a person has exhausted their regular state benefits) by almost 18 percent.

EDD is urging customers to lay off the phones and use “self-help” options. They can get answers to many questions about their claims using an automated help line (866-333-4606) or submitting questions online at Ask EDD. For more options, see the EDD press release here.

Update: EDD’s Levy followed up with some figures on the number of times a caller must redial before reaching a live operator. “The number of redials increased quickly at the start of the recession, went down significantly once we got more federal money and more staff on board, and now is headed up again with our low staffing levels compared to continued high demand for (unemployment services). Our average number of redials has ranged from a high of 45 for the week ending Jan. 17, 2009 (the week EDD began tracking redials) to just under 3 for the week ending Feb. 19, 2011. Currently, our four-week average is about five.”

Gawd, talk about a kick in the crotch......thanks, Obama !

[dgs49]

So lemme get this straight: The people who answer the calls from the unemployed are getting laid off.

That's bad.

[dales]

No, I believe they're having their hours cut from mornings and afternoons to just mornings.


The afternoon shutdown — the first in EDD’s history — will only make things worse. “It’s a real travesty to limit the hours people can call,” says Maurice Emsellem of the National Employment Law Project.

[oldr_n_wsr]

It (the article) is not clear on that. It says

By directing all available staff to answer phone lines in the morning when the daily demand for telephone service is at its highest, the limited staff will be able to focus on other needs in the afternoon, like processing applications for benefits, answering online questions from claimants, and determining eligibility issues to help get benefits processed and paid,”

Sounds like all hands on deck to answer phones for 1/2 the day then all hands on deck to process claims the other half a day. I would guess they have some staff answering phones all day and some processing all day. OR, they switch tasks throughout the day but never where ALL staff is doing one or the other.

[dales]

Yeah, CA is a focking mess.

Don't get me wrong I love my home state and I plan to take the long dirt nap here.

BUT:

The Golden State has lost a lot of it's luster in the last 40 years as has the USA.

[Econoline]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2013/05/16/economically-could-obama-be-americas-best-president/

By all measures, President Obama has outperformed every modern President. The easiest comparison would be to President Reagan, who’s [sic] economic performance was superb.

Reagan had the enormous benefit of two major factors:

1. a significantly better economy than Obama inherited, even if afflicted by inflation
2. and his two terms coincided with the highest performing demographic years of the Baby Boomer generation.

Today’s demographics have shifted dramatically. The country is much older, with fewer young people supporting a much larger near-retirement age group. This inherent demographic fact makes creating economic growth monumentally harder than it was 30 years ago.

Few people think of Reagan as a stimulus addict. Yet, his administration’s military build-up added $1trillion of stimulus to the national debt ($2.3trillion adjusted for inflation) – the opposite of what is happening during the Obama years. Many like to think that it was tax cutting which grew the economy, but undoubtedly we now know that this dramatic defense and infrastructure (highways, etc.) stimulus had more to do with igniting economic growth. Reagan’s spending looked far more like FDR than conservative Herbert Hoover!

Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt during his tenure, creating what today’s Congressional austerity advocates might have called “a legacy of unpayable debt for our grandchildren.” But, as we saw, later growth (during Clinton) resolved that debt and created a budget surplus by 2000.