Senate Approves Unemployment Extension

If you care about this issue, you’ve probably heard that the US Senate voted 60-40 to keep emergency unemployment benefits going. Long story short: Good for jobless peeps, bad for the deficit.

Millions of people stopped getting checks in June when the program expired in June. According to the Washington Post: 8.7 million people were receiving jobless benefits at the end of June. A little more than half received state benefits, which are typically available for 26 weeks. The rest were receiving extended benefits financed by the federal government, which are due to run out soon unless the bill before the Senate passes. The Labor Department estimates that 2.5 million people had been cut off by the end of last week.

The House is expected to okay the bill this week…

Recession Briefing: Hiring Finally Happening

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Job openings rose sharply earlier this year, evidence that employers are slowly ramping up hiring as the economy improves. The number of openings in January rose about 7.6 percent, to 2.7 million, compared with December, the Labor Department said. That’s the highest total since February 2009. (Associated Press)

IRS agents will be more flexible with taxpayers who have seen their incomes drop during the recession. (USA Today)

The number of U.S. households with a net worth of $1 million or more — excluding wealth derived from a primary residence — grew 16 percent last year, according to a new report. (Huffington Post)…

Recession Briefing: Discount Strategists Shop for Free

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Discount devotees have formed vast online communities that collectively unearth and swap digital, mobile-phone and paper coupons. The cleverest shoppers combine dozens of coupons and go from store to store buying items in quantity, getting stuff free of charge. (Wall Street Journal)

The recession and continuing high unemployment are taking a psychological toll on individuals. There’s been a startling increase in the number of calls to employee-assistance programs regarding violence, psychosis and dementia in the workplace, including calls about suicidal and homicidal threats, program directors say. (Wall Street Journal)

In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave. (New York Times)…

Recession Briefing: Museums Benefit from Downturn (Sort Of)

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Many museums across the country saw a spike in visitors during the economic slump last year, even as they experienced increasing financial stress, according to results of a study released Thursday. (Associated Press)

One thing employment-services firm Manpower has got better at during the recession is figuring out quickly which job-hunters can be helped, and which to send elsewhere rather than risk leading them on. (Economist)

It cost more than $500,000 in stimulus funds to create a single highway construction job, largely because of building materials, an analysis of stimulus reports shows. Education aid and research funding are among the cheapest ways of creating or saving jobs at less than $60,000 each, the analysis shows.( USA Today)…

Recession Briefing: Why Yellow Lights Are Shorter

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Some cash-strapped cities have been shortening yellow lights in order to nab more drivers with tickets — and raise revenue. (AlterNet)

A little-noticed effect of the recession is the incredible shrinking work shift. Millions of workers are taking multiple part-time or freelance jobs, jumping back and forth repeatedly between work, other pursuits and more work. These weird schedules are creating new challenges. (Wall Street Journal)

In an era of populist outrage and nearly double-digit unemployment, the average Wall Street bonus jumped 25% in 2009 to $123,850 as financial firms rebounded from the recession with help from U.S. taxpayers’ money. (USA Today)…

Recession Briefing: Snow Slams Job Market

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

This month’s blizzards are battering jobs. Economists estimate that between 90,000 and 150,000 jobs could be lost in February, as the snow kept people home from work and stalled hiring during the month. (CNN/Money)

The Obama administration projected Thursday that the unemployment rate would fall this year by only a little, if at all, and would remain well over 6 percent until 2015. (New York Times)

About a quarter of the 8.4 million jobs eliminated since the recession began won’t be coming back and will ultimately need to be replaced by other types of work in growing industries, according to economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey. (Wall Street Journal)…

Recession Briefing: Obama Proposes Big Limits on Banks

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

President Obama expanded his new offensive on Wall Street on Thursday, proposing rules that would impede the growth of the largest banks and bar them from making what he called “reckless” investments. (Washington Post)

As a result of the recession, the U.S. Census Bureau finds itself with the most highly skilled, highly educated work force in its 220-year history. Nationwide, the bureau already has recruited engineers, former corporate vice presidents, college professors and radio disc jockeys to help manage the 2010 census, which will attempt to count everyone in the country beginning in March. (Coloradoan)

“Britain has eaten, drunk and smoked its way out of the recession” according to a new report on manufacturing production. (The Times of London)…

Recession Briefing: African-American Unemployment Rate Tops 17 Percent

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Unemployment for African Americans is projected to reach a 25-year high this year, according to a study released Thursday by an economic think tank, with the national rate soaring to 17.2 percent and the rates in five states exceeding 20 percent. (Washington Post)

Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their people about $145 billion for 2009, a record sum that indicates how compensation is climbing despite fury over Wall Street’s pay culture. (Wall Street Journal)

The federal foreclosure prevention program was designed to help struggling homeowners reduce their monthly payments, but housing advocates say they frequently see homeowners rejected or kept in a trial modification for questionable reasons. “There’s a real resistance on the servicers’ part to making permanent modifications,” said Diane Thompson of the National Consumer Law Center. (ProPublica)…

Recession Briefing: Wall Street Bigwigs Get Grilled

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Comparing Wall Street titans to shady car salesmen, a committee investigating the financial crisis grilled the nation’s top bankers Wednesday in the latest example of Washington’s smoldering anger at an industry many there feel hasn’t atoned for its role in the slump. (Wall Street Journal)

President Obama plans to call on Thursday for taxing about 50 big banks and major financial institutions for at least the next decade to recoup all taxpayer losses from the bailout of Wall Street. (New York Times)

The last time the nation’s debt was this big compared with gross domestic product — 70.4% of GDP — was immediately following World War II. How did the Greatest Generation pare it down? It didn’t. It grew the economy faster than the debt, pushing down the debt-to-GDP ratio and making debt payments easier to manage. (USA Today)…

Recession Briefing: Workers Liberated from Cubicles!

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Two years of the Great Recession have done more to liberate workers from their offices than a decade of stressed-out employees pleading to telecommute. Dilberts worldwide are losing their cubes. (Global Post)

Even when the U.S. labor market finally starts adding more workers than it loses, many of the unemployed will find that the types of jobs they once had simply don’t exist anymore. (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street firms aren’t the only banks that had a banner year. The Federal Reserve made record profits in 2009, as its unconventional efforts to prop up the economy created a windfall for the government. (Washington Post)…