Word: joblessness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Peoria, Ill., the Caterpillar Tractor Co. will lay off 1,700 workers this week, and those who are about to join the jobless are still disbelieving. "It's like being wounded in battle," says Jim O'Connor, president of United Auto Workers Local 794. "The initial shock is buried. Until a couple of months ago, people were walking around here with Reagan buttons on. Now I'm asking them if they liked inflation and a job better than no job. And they're saying, 'I'd rather have a job and raise hell about...
Some of the jobless who stayed put are struggling to cope. From the Detroit suburb of Hazel Park, Larry Hampton, 26, sets out once or twice a week in his pickup truck to search the streets for scrap. Sheet metal brings a penny a pound; cast iron $45 a ton. On a good day, Hampton earns $15, and it keeps him busy. "I've just got too many bills and not enough money to pay them," says Hampton, who lost his job in a machine shop last November. "It's scary...
...billion in 1975 but not funded since then; restore CETA public service jobs; and create a new reconstruction finance corporation that would extend loans, loan guarantees and tax benefits to hard-hit companies in basic industries. The union also wants to get more help for the long-term jobless by renewing the 13 weeks of nationwide unemployment benefits that the Administration canceled last year...
...unemployment lines are growing longer across the country, the jobless are discovering a painful lesson of Reaganomics: fewer of them are eligible for unemployment benefits, and many of those who do receive benefits are getting smaller checks. Begun in 1935, under the auspices of the Social Security Act, unemployment compensation is funded by a combination of federal and state payroll taxes imposed on employers. Though benefits vary, most states give eligible workers a maximum of 26 weeks of unemployment pay. The checks, which are based on workers' previous earnings and length of employment, range from a weekly maximum...
Congress raised unemployment benefits considerably during the 1970s. If joblessness among workers covered by unemployment insurance reached 4% within a state, or if the rate nationwide topped 4.5%, for example, an additional 13 weeks of benefits were paid out; Washington and the states split the extra costs evenly. Under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program, as amended in 1974, employees who lost their jobs because of foreign competition, such as auto and steel workers, received up to 70% of their wages for a maximum of 18 months. These jobless workers, whose numbers reached 281,000 in fiscal 1981, also received regular...