Unemployment Benefits

More people applied for unemployment benefits last week, but the overall job numbers are looking good, with the unemployment rate falling to 6.1% – the lowest since September 2008.

Ross Perot coined the phrase “giant sucking sound” in the Presidential debates of 1998. He was talking about the jobs he (correctly) predicted that would leave the United States in the search for cheaper labor if we passed NAFTA. Today’s giant sucking sound is the $25 billion not going into our economy if Congress doesn’t pass an extension of the federal supplemental unemployment insurance for those facing long-term joblessness due to the Great Recession.

In 1934, when President Franklin Roosevelt first proposed the idea of unemployment insurance during the Depression, business lobby groups and their allies in the media and politics created an echo chamber to justify their opposition to this idea to cushion widespread hardship and help jumpstart the economy.

With more news of strikes in the fast food industry and concerns about low wages in other retail industries, economic inequality continues to emerge as a growing issue heading into 2014. According to results of a new study, there's good reason for concern: Among developed countries, only in Italy and the UK is there less economic mobility than in the U.S.

The White House is asking members of congress to extend unemployment benefits for the approximately four million Americans who've been unable to find gainful employment post-recession. Republican reports that benefits keep wages 'too high' for employers to hire more workers are flawed, says the Council of Economic Advisers.