According to Alan Fein with AXcess News, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) has presented a bill in the House of Representatives to extend unemployment benefits one more time which is expected to pass by an overwhelming majority before states run out of money. Workers are entitled to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits under most state programs which Congress has already extended 53 weeks. But with workers still not able to find a job, lawmakers are moving to add yet another extension to the program. According to the National Employment Law Project, a consumer watchdog group, 5 million Americans have been without jobs for six months or longer, three-times more than year-ago levels.
All this talk about a jobless recovery is pure nonsense. And let's not forget, we are only a year into the current crisis. The worst unemployment numbers -- 25 percent -- during the Great Depression didn't occur until at least 3 years after the start of the Depression.
"PhD economist John Williams and Paul Craig Roberts - former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and former editor of the Wall Street Journal - both said in December 2008 that if the unemployment rate was calculated as it was during the Great Depression, the December 2008 unemployment figure would actually have been 17.5%. Williams says that unemployment figures for July 2009 rose to 20.6%."
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