April 30, 2010

A jobless recovery...State and local budget crises...Federal spending and tax policies...New jobs legislation on Capitol Hill.

• “Jobs and the State Budget Crisis: A compilation of facts for your state.” This two-page fact sheet includes federal government and state-level data on unemployment, state budget deficits, and estimates of jobs created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It also looks at trends in federal spending and tax policy that could perpetuate the budget and jobs crises for years to come.  See download section below for your state level reports.
• “U.S. Metro Area Job Recovery Estimates” for various metro areas.  This U.S. Conference of Mayors report presents data on job loss and estimated date of recovery for 363 metro areas in the country.  The report shows that the median date of recovery is the 4th quarter of 2012, but recovery in some metro areas is estimated to take decades.  Click here for data on the metro areas (listed alphabetically).  Click here (usmayors.org) for the entire 118 page report.
• “The Local Jobs for America Act” impact for your state and city. This new piece of proposed legislation, introduced by Congressman George Miller (D-CA), chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, is intended to “create and save a million public and private jobs, ensure that local communities can still operate essential services, prevent state and local tax increases, stimulate local businesses, and provide private sector on-the-job training to help local businesses put people back to work.”  The bill would cost $100 billion over 2 years.  Supported by over 300 organizations including the U.S. Conference of Mayors and National League of Cities, the bill is currently (as of May 1) seeking co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.
• The House Education and Labor website provides information about the bill for all 50 states and about 1,000 communities.  Note that the numbers on the columns “total funds @ $37.5 billion” and “total jobs @ $37.5 billion” are one year projections, and should be multiplied by 2 to show the two year impact.  Click here for the local data.  Click here (edlabor.house.gov) for more information on the bill.
• NPP Data Base information on employment-related data for your state. The labor section of our database includes annual state-by-state data in such areas as unemployment (by race), underemployment, Unemployment Insurance benefits and job training. Click here to get to the labor section of our data base.