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We’re No. 2, again.
Oregon’s 12.4 unemployment rate in May was the second highest in the nation, right behind Michigan’s 14.1 percent.
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday morning that Oregon’s 6.7 percent jobless rate increase from May 2008 was the largest in the nation – again. Michigan’s unemployment rate jumped 5.9 percent from a year ago.
The 12.4 percent unemployment rate was the highest in Oregon since the state started calculating the rate in a uniform way.
According to the agency, the nation’s unemployment rate in May was 9.4 percent, an increase from April’s 8.9 percent.
In May, about 241,000 Oregonians were out of work, according to the state Employment Department.
Will this information deter fixie riding 20ish uber hipsters with too tight pants, goatees and horn rimmed glasses from moving here for the "music and art scene"?
How about the hairy armpitted hipster chicks with a worthless liberal arts degree who whine because the only "job" their degree can get them is scrubbing urinal floors in a bum shelter... Nah, they'll keep showing up until the New York Times deems another "cool" city somewhere in America.
(email verified)
Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 03:35 PM
i don't know why it bothered me to see a story about a "Day Labor Site" posted just after this article.
(email verified)
Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 05:51 PM
The hipsters are better all the conservative whiners quoting Fox or Limbaugh crap verbatim here on the Trib posts, ad nauseum.
Get a life old dudes - all you do is camp out here citing your doom-n-gloom nonsense and trying to blame every bad thing in the last 2000 years on them there libruls, 'socialism', or now 'hipsters' (i.e. young people).
I feel sorry for someone like you with such an obvious lack of joy in your life, yelling at the kids (hipsters) to get off their lawn all the time. . . .
(email verified)
Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 05:56 PM
Oregon is in the proverbial toilet. Save for a few years of being on the rim....and I'm not talking Pacific, we are back in the swirl again. Why?
1) No sales tax ( this would actually reduce personal income tax, allow for well funded schools, and stabilize state government funding)
2) no diversified manufacturing base ( the trees are gone, high tech out sourced and off shore, fishing is dead, and the jobs the green revolution spawns will quickly move off shore as well...cheaper labor costs, and lower overall overhead)
3) no leadership ( this is a tough one...political acumen will not solve the problem so finding a Tom McColl look a like won't be of any benefit..the state needs business savvy combined with vision...don't see anyone out there. Vickie Walker? No way. Betsy Johnson? Ethically challenged and a blow hard. John Kitzhaber? Old hippie in cowboy boots whose ship sailed..there are no second acts with this economy.
Without the three legs of this "stool" Oregon stays in the swirl...There is no new bubble to bail Oregon out. We see the same "indicators" now as we did in 1974-83. This is worse because there is no high tech bubble looming on the horizon, to be replaced by a housing bubble. All the bubbles are burst. We now find ourselves in a 10-15 year jobless recovery. There will now be built in unemployment compounded by a discouraged workforce. People will leave the state and move to where there is a glimmer of employment.
(email verified)
Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 06:20 PM
I really enjoy reading what people think of statistics they know nothing about. Take 'Concerned Citizen' for example - he thinks that our unemployment is directly related to no sales tax! Yet Michigan has a 6% sales tax and even higher unemployment. And Hawaii doesn't have a sale tax either, and their unemployment is 7.4% - about half of Michigan's. Poor funding and lack of state budget stability was caused by the old 'Measure 5' and the kicker refund law. Maybe you should just blame our economy and unemployment on convicted criminal Bill Sizemore!
Now what about #2? Several other states are doing well without having to rely on timber, high tech or fishing. North Dakota doesn't rely on those industries, yet only has 4.4% unemployment. How do you explain that?
So I might as well comment about #3... but I don't understand how the current governor can be blamed for the state's employment status. Isn't it an affect of the national economy? Speaking of national economy, why don't we look for blame there? It isn't like Oregon is the only state with employment issues. Why did we let the republicans give away our jobs overseas? So their corporations could make more money? And then what happened to those big corporations they feel are the heart of the American economy? You remember: Enron, MCI, AIG, GM & Chrysler... Heck, our military planes can't even be built without specific electronic components made in China!
Understanding our economy and employment rate is not as easy as a three-legged stool.
(email verified)
Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 06:33 PM
We can be assured the unemployment won't improve anytime soon with the passage of higher taxes on personal income and businesses. Oregon will now have the second highest income tax rate in the nation, behind New York and just ahead of California. Both states are broke. Too make it worse the geniuses in Salem will tax hospitals and private health insurance premiums.
Oregon had a choice of reducing the growth in spending or raise taxes. Spending won. Spending this year increased 4% in this budget on top of a 21% increase in the 2007-08 biennium budget.
Businesses are struggling so we decide to add a bigger burden on them. What incentive will there be to hire new employees when the overhead cost increases to our non-productive government?
Why is it the highest unemployment states have voted democratic?
(email verified)
Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 09:39 PM
"Why is it the highest unemployment states have voted democratic?" Good question. Oregon has also consecutively had a Democrat governor since January 12, 1987. Although it may be that the states that voted Democrat were suffering these last 8 years under the Bush Administration, Obama has only been in office since late January 2009.
However, I actually do not agree with the Democrat party or the Republican Party. I think the real change needed is equally opportunity to quality education and to reform the criminal system of marginalizing the poor. I am glad that Obama is reforming the healthcare system; many other systems need to be reformed as well, I mentioned a few. I am an Oregonian who grew up in a single-parent family and I'm interested in a hand-up (work with a livable wage/healthcare benefits) rather than a hand-out (an oppressive system in which the elites keep the poor poor while the rich grows richer). My motto: “We need real change, not spare change.” Essentially, I feel the problems with unemployment is a direct result of the unequal class structure combined of the haves and the have nots.
(email verified)
Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 12:00 AM
Good ol' Oregon trying so hard to be No. 1 at SOMETHING as usual...
Yeah come to Oregon the land of Pot, Patchoulli, dreadlocks and tie died t-shirts...
After being born here 42 years ago I'm about ready to leave it... It has been going down hill here ever since the "unwashed masses" started showing up in the late 70's and declaring it a "progressive" state....
(email verified)
Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 08:15 AM
God we need another Tom McCall!
(email verified)
Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 08:16 AM
I am glad that the Democrats control the House, Senate,the Whitehouse, and also the Oregon House, Senate, and the Governor's office!
Because now between both of them (US & State) the will finally spend us into Prosperity!
The GOP has kept us poor to long, and now we can finally all get rich through excess spending!
Thanks too the elected Democrats in office!
(email verified)
Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 08:37 PM
I'm still amazed how articules such as this one sparks the blame game. Loosely fired facts and it's their fault. Maybe it's time for us to focus inwards, on ourselves, the citizenry. Let's face it, both major political parties are failures. Oregon has had a Democrat governor since 1987. Oregon welfare services have balloned the last 35 years. Prior to the Bush administration the Democrats controlled the House for 40 consecutive years.Currrently, the Congress. During the hay day of the dot com, the Clinton administration and all 50 governors went on a spending spree. And we loved it!
Jobs are going overseas for many reasons. The cost of labor not wages. To locate closer to their customer base, (hince Toyota, and Honda have factories in the USA)),and Americans just don't buy American that much anymore.
Americans need to be realistic. Obama is just more of what has been. Taxes and hand outs are not the answer. The baby boomers spent more and saved less than any other generation in American history. Unfortunately the GenX generation is following the same path and needs to change course.
May I suggest, we demand real leaders, educate ourselves and our chidren, earn not ask, take responsibility, and turn off the TV and talk shows.
(No single rain drop feels the blame for the flood)
(email verified)
Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 08:42 AM
It amazes me how the dots don't seem to get connected between 14 million+ unemployed American workers and illegal hiring of foreign nationals who entered the U.S. illegally.
According to reputable studies, 8.3 million illegal aliens hold non-agricultural jobs in America.
Oregon’s unemployment rate is second in the nation only behind Michigan’s. Jobs and wages should go to American citizens and not people who are illegally in the country.
Over 90% of the people at day labor sites are illegal aliens. They are paid in cash, which of course means that they pay no taxes.
In a study done by the Milken Institute in partnership with the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, they found that 15 percent of the workforce in LA County is paid in cash. The result is that the public sector is shortchanged by $2 billion in just LA County per year.
They lose...
*$1 billion in Social Security taxes (from both the employers and employees),
*$266 million in Medicare taxes (from both the employers and employees),
*$96 million in State Disability (from employees),
*$220 million in Unemployment insurance (from employers) and
*$513 million in Workers Compensation Insurance payments (from employers).
This loss of tax revenue and the illegals adding additional demands on re$ource$ for social services, health care, education, and public safety (police, fire, EMS. etc.) that THEY DON'T PAY FOR is depleting budgets.
No wonder California is $24 billion in the red. And it's obvious by the illegals presence here that Oregon's situation has been impacted by the revenue lost through illegal hiring as well.
The majority of illegal workers ARE paid "under the table". It IS a complete underground economy. Just ask the Oregon Nurserymen's Assoc.
If carried on the employers books, that employer will have to pay Workman's Comp., etc.
It doesn't even matter if illegals can't access SSI benefits when using a mismatched, stolen, or false SS#. According to even the corrupted pro-illegal alien study by OSU's Prof. Yaeger, the average illegal alien makes about $14,000/yr. Most of them have kids.
Since they make less than $33,000/yr., this enables them to receive an Earned Income Credit of up to $5000/yr. regardless of little they pay in taxes.
Illegal alien workers from ANY country are taking...
*Jobs: from Hispanic Americans, blacks, and whites who have to compete with the preferred low wage illegal alien, thereby depressing wages.
*Money: most remittances go to Mexico and are NOT reinvested here in THIS economy. They amount to Mexico's second largest source of foreign income apart from oil. The loss of tax revenue from employers/illegals who operate ca$h only "under-the-table", AND the ADDITIONAL burden on services by tax evading illegals, is impacting those budgets to the point of depletion. Closed hospitals and schools in California are a classic example.
*Trust: We're being robbed blind, with the help of some politicians, all levels of government, and cheap labor businesses.
*Respect: Do the above thefts of services, ID's, S.S.#s and jobs look like "respect" and "equality" for all to you? Check out the philosophical directives of supremacist groups like MEChA, or the next time you see and up-side-down American flag UNDERNEATH a Mexican one in THIS country.
Security: See operationbodycount.com concerning the rampant assaults and murders committed by illegal aliens.
This is ASIDE from the robberies, sex offenses and RAPES, gang activity, drug trafficking, ID theft (SS#'s etc.) and bogus document industry. Anyone ready for... *ANOTHER workplace rape (Wendy's in Gladstone),
*murder AND rape (15 y/o Texas visitor Dani Countryman in Oak Grove),
*hit-and-run drunk driving fatalities involving children(Gresham and Hubbard),
*armed robbery and assault (Columbia Gorge),
*DTO's - drug trafficking organizations (Salem, Portland, Woodburn, Gresham, Hillsboro, Longview/Kelso, WA. All these above listings are just token samplings.
Below is a bulletin link and sampling from from the Immigration Reform Law Institute -
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR): - Apr 14, that relate to day labor centers. http://www.irli.org/bulletin509.html#newjersey
"Day labor centers that are sanctioned by cities or even ignored by local governments are examples of sanctuary policies that have gone past non-cooperation with federal authorities to encourage lawlessness by illegal aliens and scofflaw employers."
DLC's and those who support the committing of felonious illegal hiring, and seek to cloak the illegal foreign worker presence into a "law abiding" community of advocates by playing the race card, are practicing a world class level of deceit and hypocrisy.
"Comprehensive" immigration reform = amnesty and the PERMANENT loss of over 8.3 MILLION non-agricultural jobs to illegal aliens while over 14 MILLION Americans REMAIN jobless.
"Every effort to enact immigration legislation must expect to meet a number of hostile forces and, in particular, two hostile forces of considerable strength.
One of these is greed composed of corporation employers who desire to employ physical strength (broad backs) at the lowest possible wage and who prefer a rapidly revolving labor supply at low wages to a regular supply of American wage earners at fair wages.
The other is ethnic identity politics composed of racial groups in the United States"... (i.e. the supremacist hate group La Raza, etc.)... "who oppose all restrictive legislation because they want the doors left open for an influx of their countrymen regardless of the menace to the people of their adopted country."
Samuel Gompers (immigrant; founder and president of American Federation of Labor; quote from his letter to the U.S. Congress dated March 19, 1924).
REAL immigration reform is about:
*PROTECTING our financial institutions AND potential victims,
*STABLIZING our economy, job markets, social/health/educational infrastructures,
*ensuring FAIR business AND hiring practices,
*reducing congestion and PRESERVING UNDEVELOPED LAND,
*REDUCING CRIME (gang and employer related-it's still a felony to hire an illegal, commit visa fraud, or SEXUALLY ASSAULT illegals as a cheap labor nurseryman is charged with in the Molalla area),
*improving border control and national security.
To call these goals "racism" would be extremely ignorant and biased at best.
Rick is right. We should have demanded real leaders, educated ourselves and our children, earn not ask, take responsibility, and turn off the TV and talk shows. By educating ourselves, resisting the media's dumbing down of this issue and taking necessary action, many of those displaced by illegal workers could've been working.
The fallout of this issue and its contribution to unemployment is WAY too big to ignore or completely censor in the media.
(email verified)
Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 05:29 PM
If you read my earlier post, comment number 8, you just read a comment from a borderline Generation X/Generation Y person. I'm born in late 1978 and I relate the most to Generation Y. I did not vote for Obama, as I'm pro-life and his motto "Change"--all I could think about was spare change. I've changed my political party affiliation several times. I don't belong to one of the two major parties. Anyways, there are a lot of Democrats who work in the social services. As someone who has always been below the poverty line, I've grown to dislike Democrats due to their policies. I actually was a Democrat for a few years when I first registered to vote. As I acquired knowledge through my college education, I now have a bachelor's degree; I've decided there isn't much difference between the Democrat and Republican parties. These people are elitists, and I'm not for their ideology. Let's open up opportunities in the workforce for poor people like me who has a college education now. Especially, so I can pay off my college loans and since I'm a native Oregonian, born in Portland. I'm tired of the same old ideas that give the same old results here in Oregon. I think we will be number 1 in unemployment soon as the same road leads to the same destruction. If the employment rate goes up at all it will be because of summer temporary jobs. I predict Oregon will be number one in unemployment by the fall.
(email verified)
Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 09:59 AM
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Re: Oregon’s unemployment rate again No. 2 in nation
In April Arizona, California, Washington Hawaii and Idaho had shown modest job gains, while Oregon halved job losses from February.
But now, the job losses seem to have regained traction, and unemployment is once again rising. I hope May's numbers are a fluke, a blip reflecting graduates' entry into the workforce, losing their internships.
"gerrrg"
(email verified)
Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 01:18 PM