Unemployment

DEBBIE SMITH Over 50, in a jam that's 'hopeless and desolate' Debbie Smith is a victim of California's real estate meltdown. In September, she lost her job as an office manager and marketing assistant for a chain of magazines that showcased available homes and acreage. Smith, 54, of Port Hueneme, hit all the online job sites hard but came up with nothing but responses from "bogus recruiters" seeking her personal information. Money got tight. Smith lost her home to foreclosure and moved into a rental with her son. After her unemployment benefits ran out, Smith began selling her belongings on the Internet and baby-sat her grandchildren for $20 a day. "To me, it's hopeless and desolate," she said.

New claims for state unemployment insurance fell last week but still hovered at a level suggesting that employers' demand for workers has eased. The Labor Department said that initial applications for jobless benefits declined by 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 370,000 for the week ended March 3. The week before, claims shot up by 41,000, according to revised figures. That was a bigger increase than the government previously estimated.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday that improved education was the best long-term solution to the job losses caused by globalization and other economic gyrations, but he acknowledged that an extension of unemployment benefits might help in the meantime. Testifying before the House Education and Workforce Committee, Greenspan warned that a retreat to protectionist policies would be the wrong response to trends that have contributed to the loss of 2.

With unemployment levels at a four-year high, the government on Saturday urged Mexicans to create their own jobs, even if that means just making tacos or baking cakes at home. Economy Minister Fernando Canales said in a national radio address that the government would use federal funds to help people who came up with good ideas for jobs. "Simple ones are no less important: Set up a taco stall, a hairdressers' salon, bake cakes at home ... products that give you added value," Canales said.

An estimated 117,000 Californians haven't received their unemployment checks -- some for more than a month -- because of what state officials blame on an archaic computer system. The people whose checks have been held up are among the neediest of the unemployed -- those who have been out of work so long that their benefits have expired. Under legislation signed by President Obama on Nov. 6, they were supposed to get unemployment checks for an additional 14 weeks or more. State Employment Development Department officials say they are doing everything they can to issue the checks, even postponing some staff furloughs to deal with the demand for services.

President Bush will propose expanding a federal grant program for emergencies and using it to help laid-off workers, a senior White House official said. The proposal was among several that Bush was expected to present to congressional leaders today. Bush would more than double the $200-million-a-year grant program, aides said. The proposal comes as Democrats insist that any economic stimulus package contain help for workers who have lost jobs in the fallout from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

A sharp falloff in local-government payrolls, mostly at public schools, added an ominous new weight to the depressed labor market last month as the American economy lost 95,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained at 9.6%. In the last monthly employment report before the Nov. 2 midterm elections, which many see as a referendum on the economy, the Labor Department said Friday that private employers added just 64,000 jobs in September ? not nearly enough to offset the large cuts in public payrolls.

Millions of unemployed Americans face the prospect of a huge increase in health insurance costs, thanks to the looming expiration of a government subsidy. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February, launched a temporary government program to subsidize the often crippling cost of buying health insurance through a former employer's plan after a layoff. However, the so-called COBRA subsidy was designed to last no more than nine months for each person who was unemployed.

Even though the labor market is improving, thousands of unemployed Californians are caught in a bind: Some employers only want to hire them if they already have a job. Some companies state that plainly in employment ads. Others are more discreet, screening out jobless workers during the initial application process. Discrimination? Perhaps. But so far it's legal. But it won't be if a bill introduced this week by Assemblyman Michael Allen (D-Santa Rosa) is approved by California lawmakers.

A trio of economics scholars, including an MIT professor whose nomination to the Federal Reserve board has been held up in the Senate, won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for helping to explain such phenomena as high unemployment at a time when jobs are available. Peter A. Diamond of MIT; Dale T. Mortensen, a Northwestern University economics professor; and Christopher A. Pissarides, a British and Cypriot citizen and professor at the London School of Economics, will share the $1.5-million award.