Worst Unemployment Exhaustion Rate in over 25 Years

The US Department of Labor publishes numbers that detail how the annualized rate of exhausting unemployment insurance benefits changes over time.

The current rate is almost 50% of UI recipients are slated to have their benefits expire in the coming year. This is the highest rate since around 1940---And as you can see in the chart below---by far the highest rate seen in the last 25 years.

Click Image for a Clearer View

So what's the significance of this? On a social stand-point that means more and more people will be losing the government safety net this year and may be forced to look for other government assistance (food-stamps, welfare)---and it also means that in the coming months when economic reporters start telling us about how the "Continuing Claims" for UI benefits is declining, we'll have to be asking, "sure, but how many people have exhausted all their benefits rather than actually finding work?"

Decade of Lost Jobs

Business Week recently published data that shows how many jobs were created and lost by industry during the last decade (May 1999 to May 2009).

The data is plotted below

Click image for a larger chart

What is most noticable is that 5.4 million jobs were lost in the American manufacturing sector---This is a result of cheaper foreign labor driving more Americans from the goods-producing sector and into the service sector.

In total, a little over 3 million jobs were created---With 2.9 million of thoes jobs coming from Private Health Care... It's easy to understand why---health care inflation has significantly outpaced overall inflation for the entire decade, and with the aging baby boomers---more and more people are qualifying for government care---People go to where the money is and money is in health care.

NPR Reports on Long Term Unemployment

NPR reports that the rate of Long Term Unemployed (people out of work for 6 months or more---has tripled in the last year to over 4 million people).

The 3 minute story also includes a couple of human interest stories about some jobless Americans.

Oregon Increases the Maximum Weekly Unemployment Benefit Payment

According to the Portland Business Journal, the maximum weekly unemployment insurance benefit for Oregon's jobless is going to climb to $493/week beginning June 28th, 2009.

Oregon reported an unemployment rate in May 2009 of 12.4%--This is one of the nation's worst unemployment rate and the state's jobless will really be able to put the increased weekly payments to meaningful use.

White House states the obvious--unemployment will breach 10%

According to the AP the White House has finally recognized something that seems completely obvious---"The United States will see 10% Unemployment in a few months".

Now with the may unemployment rate being 9.4% and more than a dozen states suffering from double-digit unemployment, it's all but guaranteed that you'll be seeing the average unemployment rate breach double-digits in July 2009.