1.3 MILLION AMERICANS LOST THEIR UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

        Washington, 1 Rabiul Awal 1435/2 January 2014 (MINA) – As 1.3 million Americans lost their unemployment benefits after Congress failed to extend an emergency federal program under which jobless American workers received unemployment insurance payments.

        An Occupy activist says the American people should stop taking “government handouts” so that they can take a firm stance against what the government does.

       “One hundred and one million people are on food stamps. Forty seven percent of Americans are receiving some sort of benefit from the welfare state,” Susanne Posel, senior editor of occupycorporatism.com, told in a phone interview on Wednesday.

        “As long as we are in a position where we are taking handouts from the government, then we are subject to whatever the government does,” she added, Press TV reported as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

        Americans should tell their government “enough is enough,” Posel said. “We don’t want your handouts. We can grow our own food. We don’t need your chemical GMO poisoning us. We can take care of ourselves with homeopathic medicines; we don’t need your medical cartels. We don’t need your hand-outs, government. We can take care of ourselves.”

         Before December 28, 38 percent of unemployed Americans received unemployment insurance through their state or federal government. But now, as the program has expired, only a quarter of jobless Americans will receive the benefits, the lowest rate in over half a century.

           However, Posel says if Americans refuse to take handouts from the US government, “all of this fear mongering about benefits being lost and government taking things away will no longer matter because the government can’t take away from you what you don’t give them to take away from you.”

           There are many domestic factors affecting the U.S. labor force and employment levels. These include: economic growth; cyclical and structural factors; demographics; education and training; innovation; labor unions; and industry consolidation. Ben Bernanke discussed several factors during a March 2012 speech.

           Economist Laura D’Andrea Tyson wrote in July 2011: “Like many economists, I believe that the immediate crisis facing the United States economy is the jobs deficit, not the budget deficit. The magnitude of the jobs crisis is clearly illustrated by the jobs gap – currently around 12.3 million jobs. That is how many jobs the economy must add to return to its peak employment level before the 2008-9 recession and to absorb the 125,000 people who enter the labor force each month.

           At the current pace of recovery, the gap will be not closed until 2020 or later.” She explained further that job growth between 2000 and 2007 was only half what it had been in the preceding three decades, pointing to several studies by other economists indicating globalization and technology change had highly negative effects on certain sectors of the U.S. workforce and overall wage levels.

           From January to November 2012, the U.S. added approximately 151,000 jobs per month on average. Each month, The Hamilton Project examines the “jobs gap,” which is the number of jobs that the U.S. economy needs to create in order to return to pre-recession employment levels while also absorbing the people who enter the labor force each month.

           Job creation would have to average 208,000 per month to close the gap by 2020; 320,000 by 2017; or 472,000 by mid-2015. During the prosperous 1990’s decade, the U.S. created an average of 182,000 jobs/month.(T/P04/E1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).