nmap
08-27-2009, 15:57
This is one of the developments that may have wide implications, both for the economy and the political landscape.
Rhetorical question: What will 1.5 million people do when (if?) they hit the wall financially and have zero income?
Rhetorical question: What happens to the housing market, and hence the banking system, if large numbers of new foreclosures hit the market?
Rhetorical question: What happens to the overall economy if large numbers of consumers can no longer buy...anything?
Totally unnecessary snarky comment: You remember that spare bedroom you had? :p
I've posted brief excerpts, and attached a PDF of the entire article.
LINK (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32555445/ns/us_news-the_elkhart_project/)
Despite repeated extensions of the unemployment compensation program — up to a record 79 weeks in many states, compared to the standard 26 weeks in normal times — some 1.5 million people are expected to exhaust their benefits by year’s end.
In the first big wave, some 540,000 are expected to fall out of the program by the end of September, according to the nonprofit National Employment Law Project.
“Every state is going to experience a substantial increase in people exhausting their benefits,” says Chris Owen, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based worker advocacy group. “That means more people who will not be able to pay their mortgages, and who will not be able to shop and buy things. It will be a blow for the national economy, and for state and local economies.”
Despite some recent signs that the unemployment situation is improving, the odds of actually getting a new job are grim.
Federal statistics indicate that there were more than five times as many people seeking jobs in the United States in June as there were positions available. In especially hard-hit areas like Elkhart, where the unemployment rate is 16.7 percent — compared to 9.4 percent nationwide — the odds against job seekers are even tougher.
Inbody owes $600 a month on her house, a simple gray bungalow on Elkhart’s historic Bank Street. She fears that without some new source of income, she will lose it.
“Sell my house, rent out my house?” she says, running through some scenarios. She adds wryly: “I could stand on a street corner, but those are all taken too.”
Rhetorical question: What will 1.5 million people do when (if?) they hit the wall financially and have zero income?
Rhetorical question: What happens to the housing market, and hence the banking system, if large numbers of new foreclosures hit the market?
Rhetorical question: What happens to the overall economy if large numbers of consumers can no longer buy...anything?
Totally unnecessary snarky comment: You remember that spare bedroom you had? :p
I've posted brief excerpts, and attached a PDF of the entire article.
LINK (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32555445/ns/us_news-the_elkhart_project/)
Despite repeated extensions of the unemployment compensation program — up to a record 79 weeks in many states, compared to the standard 26 weeks in normal times — some 1.5 million people are expected to exhaust their benefits by year’s end.
In the first big wave, some 540,000 are expected to fall out of the program by the end of September, according to the nonprofit National Employment Law Project.
“Every state is going to experience a substantial increase in people exhausting their benefits,” says Chris Owen, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based worker advocacy group. “That means more people who will not be able to pay their mortgages, and who will not be able to shop and buy things. It will be a blow for the national economy, and for state and local economies.”
Despite some recent signs that the unemployment situation is improving, the odds of actually getting a new job are grim.
Federal statistics indicate that there were more than five times as many people seeking jobs in the United States in June as there were positions available. In especially hard-hit areas like Elkhart, where the unemployment rate is 16.7 percent — compared to 9.4 percent nationwide — the odds against job seekers are even tougher.
Inbody owes $600 a month on her house, a simple gray bungalow on Elkhart’s historic Bank Street. She fears that without some new source of income, she will lose it.
“Sell my house, rent out my house?” she says, running through some scenarios. She adds wryly: “I could stand on a street corner, but those are all taken too.”