Two Dozen States’ Unemployment Funds in the Red, Nine More Within Six Months

by Olga Pierce, ProPublica – January 20, 2010 12:42 am EST

The record 20 million Americans who collected unemployment insurance benefits last year landed on a safety net that was already deeply frayed.

New Interactive: ProPublica Predicts if Your State’s Unemployment Insurance Fund Is About to Hit the Skids

A historical compromise has left responsibility for unemployment benefits largely in the hands of states, and they have fulfilled this charge with varying degrees of effectiveness.

In a series last summer with public radio’s Marketplace, we reported that only a handful of states had built up reserves sufficient to weather the Great Recession [1] – and forecast a spate of borrowing by states where reserves ran out.

Continue reading States Are Running Out of Unemployment Funds →

Exclusive: Kucinich shreds Democrats for betraying the promise of change

By Sahil Kapur
Thursday, January 21st, 2010 — 9:45 am

Slams health bill ‘madness’

WASHINGTON — Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) on Wednesday said the Massachusetts election was a “wake up call” for Democrats and that his party had better change course or it could suffer devastating losses come November.

“People elected Democrats in 2008 to change the direction,” he told Raw Story in a nearly hour-long interview. 

“And the same entrenched interests that George Bush could not shake, this current White House is having great difficulty in shaking. One could suggest they might be more entrenched than ever.

“Kucinich staunchly defended liberalism but alleged that Democrats are not behaving like liberals.

Continue reading Cong. Dennis Kucinich: Obama Must Change Course →