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Good and Bad News for America’s Unemployed

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labor_dept_onpageThe Department of Labor released its weekly unemployment claims report of last week’s data with numbers showing a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week.

The number is the largest drop in initial claims for jobless benefits in two months. The department said the claims dropped to a seasonally adjusted 456,000, which is slightly below economists’ forecast of 460,000.

These numbers are a sign of slow recovery as businesses are beginning to cautiously hire in accord with the economic trends.

While this bodes well for the unemployed, the Senate remains stuck in its attempt to come to a compromise for the unemployment-benefits bill that would extend aid to states and continue providing benefits to America’s jobless. The Senate meeting last night delivered no results as Democrats and Republicans failed to come to a decision on the package.

Unless Congress comes to a decision soon, roughly 900,000 people will have their jobless-aid checks cut off by the end of the month.

The bill extends unemployment benefits through November and business tax breaks, but lawmakers are wary of adding to the nation’s financial deficit. Senate Democrats revised the bill with a new round of cuts in hopes to reduce the impact on the deficit, but Republicans remain hesitant to break the filibuster.

Sen. Olympia Snowe commented on the Democrat’s recent provisions in the bill:

“They’re responding to some of the issues,” she said. “We just haven’t finalized anything.”

2 Comments

  1. Does this drop in claims number/percentage include the hundreds of thousands of people that have lost their benefits due to the cut-off of Federal funds?

  2. This is a really stupid headline! This isn’t “good” news for me! I’m still unemployed!!!!

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