From Pine View Farm

Bushonomics: The Hangover 0

“The evil that men do lives after them”:

First-time applications for state unemployment benefits rose 62,000 to a seasonally adjusted 589,000 in the week ending Jan. 17, the Labor Department said Thursday. The level of initial claims is up 82% from the same period in the prior year, and the last time the level was higher was in November 1982. The four-week average of new claims was unchanged at 519,250. The number of people collecting benefits in the week ending Jan. 10 rose 97,000 to 4.61 million, a level that is 72% higher than in the prior year. The four-week average of continuing claims rose 58,750 to 4.56 million — the highest level since November 1982. The insured unemployment rate remained at 3.4%.

And the ripple effect:

New York State’s unemployment insurance system, besieged by claims from laid-off workers, ran out of money on the first business day of the year and is borrowing daily from the federal government to bridge a fast-growing and potentially huge deficit, state labor officials say.

Despite paying lower benefits to its jobless residents than other Northeastern states, the state’s unemployment fund has been borrowing about $90 million a week from the federal unemployment trust fund, state officials said. The deficit has already reached $212 million and is expected to exceed $2.5 billion by the end of 2010, they said.

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