Free Republic

More than 2 million workers could see their jobless benefits slashed or eliminated altogether next month as more states opt out of federal unemployment programs. Some of the hardest hit will be out-of-work Black Americans. “The states are giving them 30 days to find a job,” Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation, told Yahoo Money. “Most of those workers won’t find a job within those 30 days. Most of them are going to have zero in unemployment benefits.” Those workers stand to collectively lose $10.9 billion, averaging out to potentially thousands of dollars...

As states begin to ease indoor dining restrictions, the food service industry is having a hard time hiring employees, a difficulty owners blame in part on the disincentivizing effects of supercharged federal unemployment benefits, which are paid to individuals on top of their state benefits. The federal benefit that Congress created in response to the coronavirus pandemic was $600 per week, which amounted to $15 per hour before state benefits were added in. The number of workers eligible for jobless benefits expanded during the pandemic. For the first time, self-employed workers are also able to collect unemployment benefits. House Majority...

At a time our country faces a massive recession brought on by the coronavirus lockdowns, America’s welfare state exacerbates that stagnation. Ronald Reagan had an old adage about the nine most terrifying words in the English language: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Recently, a new paper reinforced that truth and adds to the existing literature showing how America’s welfare state often traps generations in a cycle of poverty.At its core, a complicated set of welfare programs and tax breaks generate sizable incentives for many low-income Americans not to increase their incomes and improve their station in...

A total of 3.1 million Americans quit their jobs in December, the highest number since December 2006. That pushed the quits rate, which the Fed looks at as a measure of confidence in the jobs market, to 2.1 percent - the highest level since April 2008. The dollar pared losses against the yen after the data, while U.S. stocks briefly reversed losses. Prices of long-dated U.S. Treasuries were trading higher. The report came ahead of Fed Chair Janet Yellen's testimony to Congress on Wednesday. A raft of weak economic reports, plummeting oil prices and a stock market sell-off have raised...

Full Zero Hedge Article At This LinkIn the recent past we noted [6] the somewhat startling reality that "the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045." While mathematics is our tool - as opposed to the mathemagics of some of the more politically biased media who did not like our message - the painful reality in America is that: for increasingly more Americans it is now more lucrative - in the form of actual disposable income...

AS CONGRESS and the administration wrangle over a new farm bill before the current version expires next Saturday, here are two numbers that may help clarify the issues: $5.74 and $92.3 billion. The former is the price of a bushel of corn on Wednesday, a historic high. The latter is the Agriculture Department's estimate for farm income; it is 4.1 percent above the $88.7 billion farmers made in 2007 and 51 percent above the average for the past 10 years.Yet in this flush time for farmers, House and Senate conferees are contemplating a farm bill that might cost $10 billion...

For most teenagers, going to college is part of the American dream. But the cost of fulfilling that dream has become a source of controversy, as illegal immigrants sometimes pay less than U.S. citizens to attend the same college. Illegal immigrants living in nine states can now attend public college at in-state tuition costs. But legal U.S. citizens still have to pay out-of-state tuition at schools outside of their home state. That price difference can be tens of thousands of dollars. Many say it's discrimination if states offer a cheaper public college education to illegal immigrants, and some out-of-state American...

WASHINGTON, June 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- While many advocates of high immigration argue that today's immigration is no different from the previous great wave a century ago, the data tell a different story. A new analysis of birth records from the Center for Immigration Studies shows that immigrants (legal & illegal) accounted for a larger share of births in 2002 than in 1910, during the peak of the last great wave of immigration. The children born to immigrants are arguably the most important long- term legacy of immigration and are a key measure of its magnitude. The new report provides...