Auto Insurance Price Quotes

If you're recently unemployed, you really need to change your spending to get more inline with your income (i.e. a small severance and tiny unemployment insurance checks)... This means scaling back on the dining out, cutting the cable bill, no more star bucks coffee---And getting new auto-insurance quotes.

Odds are if you're no longer driving to work, your total miles driven will be lowered. Consequently, it's the perfect time to shop around on sites like esurance.com and geico.com to see if you can save money on your car insurance---Look to lower your miles and possibly raise your deductible in order to reduce your premiums.

Unemployment Medical Insurance

If you're recently unemployed, you need to figure out what to do concerning your families health insurance---Odds are pretty good that your employer will take you off their health plan real quick. So you may be asking yourself, "How can unemployed workers get the best health insurance?"

Fortunately, the state of New York has issued several health insurance options for the unemployed. These options include:

• COBRA

• • You have the right to continue your group plan through a COBRA policy. If your group has less than 20 employees, you have a similar right under the NYS continuation of coverage law. You will be required to pay the full cost of the coverage, including any portion your employer formerly paid on your behalf. Your employer should notify you of your right to this coverage upon termination of your employment. If you have not received notice, contact your employer or call this Department for assistance at 1-800-342-3736.

  
  

  • The federal stimulus package includes a COBRA premium subsidy for eligible people who were involuntarily terminated. For more information on the federal subsidy, please select this link.

• Individual Insurance Plans---You may purchase individual health insurance for yourself and your family on a direct payment basis regardless of your health status or income. However, these policies may exclude coverage for certain pre-existing conditions if you have not had health insurance coverage within the past 63 days. It is therefore very important not to wait to purchase this type of policy. Individual direct payment policies are offered by all HMOs in New York State. For a list of the HMOs currently offering these plans in your county and the rates, please select this link, or call 1-800-342-3736.
• Healthy New York-- Healthy New York program offers discounted coverage to individuals who have lost group coverage because they have lost their job and meet certain criteria, including income limits. To learn more about the eligibility for this program, please visit the site at http://www.healthyny.com, or call 1-866-HEALTHY-NY.
• Child Health Plus--Child Health Plus is a program run by the NYS Department of Health. The program provides free or low cost health insurance coverage to children under the age of 19 whose families meet the program’s income guidelines. To find out more about the Child Health Plus program and its eligibility criteria, you may call 1-800-698-4543, or visit the Web site at: http://www.nyhealth.gov/nysdoh/chplus/index.htm.

Minimum Wage Goes Up, Teen Employment Goes Down

Economist Casey Mulligan has an interesting blog-post on how the recent increase in the minimum wage rate has measurably reduced the amount of teenagers that have jobs.

Michigan's U-6 Unemployment over 20%

According to mlive the broader level of unemployment in Michigan is over 21%.

For the 12 months from November 2008 to October 2009, Michigan had 21.1% of workers either out of a job, or working part time for economic reasons.

Of Michigan's 83 counties, unemployment ranges from ~6% (Mackinac) to ~25% (Baraga County).

Average Hours Worked Per Week Down to 33 hours per week

Click on Chart for a Bigger Image

The average hours worked per week is hovering around record lows of 33 hrs/week. Data has been kept for the last 45 years, and the above chart is for a seasonally adjusted... The worrying aspect of this data is that if production workers aren't yet working close to 40 hours---they may choose to increase the hours of the existing work force before they start adding new jobs to the payroll or bringing back furloughed staff.