Word: joblessness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...recession hits, the long gray jobless lines begin to form...
...last week it looked as if the President's promises of a tame little downturn for 1980 were wishful thinking. The Labor Department reported that during April the nation's jobless rate ballooned by a startling .8%, pushing unemployment to a full 7%, tossing some 825,000 workers into the street, and swelling the ranks of the nation's unemployed to 7.3 million. It was the largest rise in overall unemployment since January 1975 and the biggest climb in the jobless rate among males since 1949. Their unemployment rate leaped a full 1% during the month...
...jobless surge shows that the Administration's painful, but unavoidable, policy is at last beginning to take hold. Supporting evidence that the economic downturn could be a lot sharper than previously expected came from the Commerce Department. It reported that its index of leading economic indicators, which predicts future economic movements, plunged 2.6% in March. That was the largest one-month drop since the 1974-75 recession. Anti-Inflation Adviser Alfred Kahn, with his characteristic candor, said last week: "The country now faces the dilemma we have so long feared, the twin ugly evils of accelerating inflation...
...Experts are concerned because the U.S. is entering the current recession with a much higher number of unemployed. Also trou bling is the rising so-called full employment level. Until a decade ago, Washington officials considered 4% unemployment to be in effect full employment. Any attempt to push the jobless rate below that would only result in higher inflation. Today many specialists believe that such a rate is much steeper. Says Stanford Economist Robert Hall: "For the foreseeable future, we may have to adjust to a full employment or sustainable unemployment rate of between 6.5% and 7%." That would mean...
Whatever the term, many jobless workers will feel little immediate financial hardship. Generally, anyone who has been employed between 14 and 20 weeks during four of the last five quarters can draw unemployment compensation that averages about 50% of gross weekly wages. Large unions now have also obtained from employers regular layoff benefits for their members. In addition, workers such as those in the steel, auto and shoemaking industries can count on receiving substantial supplemental payments under a 1962 federal program that grants special aid to employees whose companies suffer from foreign competition. In fact, some steelworkers can be laid...