Word: labors
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...bountiful harvest of California strawberries, melons, grapes, peaches and nectarines overflows the nation's summer tables. But that luscious crop mostly emerges thanks to farm workers who labor in flat fields under a scorching sun - and has a price higher than the grocery-store bill. Every year many farm workers become sick, and some die. Typical of the fatalities was Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, who was just 17. In May 2008, she died after picking grapes in Merced County for nine hours in 95-degree heat. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger attended her funeral and promised to do more to protect workers...
...relief over the jobless figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday morning - 247,000 jobs were lost in July, far fewer than economists had expected - a dark problem lurks in the numbers: dangerously high levels of long-term unemployment in America. Unlike recent recessions, the current economic crisis has been characterized by skyrocketing numbers of those out of work for three, six or more months at a time. Economists worry that the shock of the past year's financial crisis may have driven the U.S. into a period of permanently high unemployment similar to what Europe has suffered...
...stimulus bill this year, Congress added an additional potential 20 weeks for the worst hit states, raising to 79 weeks the maximum time a laid-off worker can draw unemployment assistance while looking for a job. To combat "hysteresis," or the atrophying of job skills in the labor force, the Labor Department issued an opinion earlier this year that workers can still draw unemployment insurance even if they work a volunteer job during their search for a paying...
...While Washington waits for vaccines, the government is moving toward a wartime footing. The Department of Education is encouraging schools to prepare take-home study packets so kids can continue learning if their schools close. The Department of Labor has been drafting guidance for employers who may be hit by thousands of parents who need to stay home with their kids. All of it is being done very quickly for a threat that is unknowable and, scientists say, fast approaching. "Early on, there were some folks who said you can't go out and talk about this because...
...rates on health status and gender. But one variable that will persist is age, since older enrollees represent more health risks than younger enrollees, and insurers are doing their best to retain the most flexibility in that area. Current reform legislation in the House and the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee would allow insurers to vary premiums on the basis of age only by a factor of two, meaning insurers would be allowed to charge older enrollees premiums that are twice as high as those for younger ones. (In the health-policy world, this is known...