Prepared by Dr. David Brockman, Workers’ Rights Board
* Nearly one in ten Americans is out of work (as of January 2010).1
* Nine million Americans currently depend on unemployment benefits.2
* For every one job opening nationally, there average 6.3 applicants.3
* Four in ten Americans (6.3 million) have been out of work for more than six months.4
* 1.1 million Americans have stopped looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. This is up from 734,000 last January.5
* The unemployment rate in Texas as of December 2009 was 8.3 percent—up from 5.6 percent the previous December.6
* One million unemployed Americans will lose federal unemployment insurance benefits on February 28, 2010 if Congress does not pass an extension.7
* The jobs crisis has hit African Americans, Hispanics, and female heads of households especially hard:
* While the nationwide jobless rate stood at 10 percent in January 2010, the rate for African Americans was 16.5 percent, and for Hispanics, 12.6 percent.8
* In September 2009, more than 1.1 million working-age female heads of household nationwide wanted a job but could not find one.9
* While U.S. GDP grew 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2009, given the depth of the jobs-hole the recession has left, it will take the addition of 10.6 million jobs to bring the economy back to its immediate pre-recession unemployment rate.10
* Even if GDP continued to grow at 5.7% for all of 2010, it would only reduce the jobless rate to around 9 percent.11
NOTES
1 Bureau of Labor Statistics, “THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION – JANUARY 2010.” The national unemployment rate was 9.7 percent. URL: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm.
2 National Employment Law Project, Dec. 21, 2009 Press Release. URL: http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/PR.arra.extension.pdf?nocdn=1.
3 National Employment Law Project, Dec. 21, 2009 Press Release. URL: http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/PR.arra.extension.pdf?nocdn=1.
4 Bureau of Labor Statistics, “THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION – JANUARY 2010.” URL: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm.
5 Bureau of Labor Statistics, “THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION – JANUARY 2010.” URL: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm.
6 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics for Texas. URL: http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LASST48000003.
7 National Employment Law Project, “NELP Clarifies its Position on the Current Extension Campaign and the Continued Fight for Additional EUC (January 28, 2009).” URL: http://unemployedworkers.org/sites/unemployedworkers/index.php/content/blog.
8 Bureau of Labor Statistics, “THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION – JANUARY 2010.” URL: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm.
9 Women’s Economic Security Campaign, Creating Opportunity for Low-Income Women in the Green Economy (2010). URL: http://www.wfnet.org/sites/wfnet.org/files/WESC/WESCGreenEconFINAL.pdf.
10 Economic Policy Institute, “Inventory blip boosted growth but won’t last,” January 29, 2010. URL: http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/gdp_picture_20100129/.