All Posts Tagged With: "half a million"
Unemployment rate increases to 10.2%
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Fri, Nov 06 2009 | 2 Comments
Last month, the United States’ unemployment rate was 9.8%, the newest figures show that the unemployment rate has increased to 10.2% and it is the highest it has been since April of 1983. Official figures show that the country lost 190,000 jobs with the majority of the losses coming from construction, retail, and manufacturing.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there are 15.7 million unemployed people in the country, which is up over half a million from the previous month. The number is up 8.2 million from the time the recession officially began in December 2007.
The number of people who are long-term unemployed (those who have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks) has remained pretty steady. There were 5.6 million long term unemployed people in October; meaning that 35.6% of those who are unemployed have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks.
According to the New York Times, the “underemployment” rate (part-time workers and people who have given up the job hunt altogether) is at 17.5%.
Of course this is more bad news, but it is right on track with what analysts were thinking. After all, they did say that unemployment would hit 10% by the end of the year.
There are fields that aren’t doing so badly; the health care profession has added over half a million jobs since the beginning of the recession.
Perhaps with the holiday season, some of the merchants will be hiring at least temporary workers. While temporary work isn’t the most ideal for a lot of workers, it is something that will help pay the bills for those who are cash-strapped right now.
Related posts:The Job Market is Quite Tough.
Tags: time workers, bureau of labor statistics, temporary work
The last weekend of cash for clunkers proved to be quite successful
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Mon, Aug 24 2009 | 0 Comments
This was the last weekend of the Cash for Clunkers program and it looked like car buyers came out in droves to trade in their old gas guzzlers for the discount. The program, which ended two weeks earlier than the government had intended, burned through the $3 billion that was allotted quickly and the entire program will be over by 8:00 pm Eastern time tonight.
Many dealerships have decided to stop their participation in the program sooner than the 8:00 pm deadline just to make sure that the government doesn’t run out of money before they have the chance to collect on the money. Of course, this deadline meant that customers would be flooding in the dealerships to participate in the program.
The program was seen as a success to some, as I have mentioned before. It spurred a huge deal of new car sales and was able to meet its goal of getting gas guzzlers off the roads.
On Friday, the program has boasted that half a million new cars had been sold through the program. Of course, many dealerships have been worried that the government won’t be reimbursing them for the car sales that were created through the program. As of Friday, many of the dealerships had only been reimbursed for a small percentage of the sales done through the program.
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Tags: half a million, car buyers, Money
The Senate has reached a deal to save Cash For Clunkers
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Thu, Aug 06 2009 | 1 Comment
The billion dollar drain on the economy known as CARS or Cash for Clunkers has been suspended for a few days, but will be getting an extra $2 billion thanks to the Senate approving the measure today.
The news came after some very long and tedious negotiations between senate Democrats and Republicans. There were also a number of changes that have been added to the bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last week.
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid called the measure something that needed to be accomplished.
Yesterday, the government said that an amount greater than $775 million had been spent on the bill. There was only $1 billion allocated to it in the first place. This means that somewhere in the range of 185,000 new cars have been sold thanks to this bill. With an extra $2 billion, another half a million cars can be put on the road.
So far with the bill, the Toyota Corolla is the top seller. This is followed by Toyota’s other gas sipper – the Prius. Other cars that have been selling well with the Cash for Clunkers program include the Ford Focus, Honda Civic, and even the Ford Escape, an SUV whose hybrid model can reach up to 32 miles per gallon.
There have been several problems with Cash for Clunkers. Initially, it was a good idea that seemed to be able to work, but then there were rules and restrictions put on the bill that made it difficult for some people to trade in their cars. Then, more news came out about scrappers and the problems they had with the deal.
Related posts:Once Cash for Clunkers was finished, September auto sales plummeted.
Tags: dollar drain, half a million, hybrid model
