The kinds of records that shouldn’t be broken

Jobless claims jump unexpectedly to 16-year high
November 20, 2008
FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — New claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, providing more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market expected to get even worse next year.

The government said new applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 from a downwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week. That’s much higher than Wall Street economists’ expectations of 505,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

That is also the highest level of claims since July 1992, the department said, when the U.S. economy was coming out of a recession.

The four-week average of claims, which smooths out fluctuations, was even worse: it rose to 506,500, the highest in more than 25 years.

In addition, the number of people continuing to claim unemployment insurance rose sharply for the third straight week to more than 4 million, the highest since December 1982, when the economy was in a painful recession.

Illinois: Keeping its ladies Healthy

I’m a Healthy Woman. See?

Illinois, I have learned in my unemployed state, maintains a program called Healthy Women to keep ladies of a reproductive age fit and healthy. Had to apply here for this card — got approved, and now I can get GYN services when I need them until my work insurance kicks in.

When I got my bad news, I hopped online to see what kind of services might be available. Health insurance was at the top of the list. The journo in me looked into food stamps, too, but I was going to net too much with uninsurance to qualify. In a way that was too bad; the book of what one can cook using only the stamps could have been a fun one.

I imagine if I remain a newspaper reporter I’ll certainly have another crack.