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Economix Blog: Where the Jobs for the Young Are and Aren’t

May 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment

In three regions – the upper Midwest, New England and the area around Washington – the job market for younger adults is considerably stronger than in the rest of the country. These three regions are the closest thing to an exception to the trend I described in a Sunday column: the sharp decline in employment rates for adults 25 to 34 years old. Whereas the United States had perhaps the highest employment rate for this age group among large, wealthy economies in 2012, it has one of the lowest today.

When you look at the three regions that are doing better, you quickly notice they are among the country’s best educated. According to the Census Bureau, the 10 states with the greatest share of bachelor’s degree holders are, in descending order: Massachusetts, Colorado. Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Minnesota. And the District of Columbia has a higher share than any state does. Many of those also have relatively high employment rates for people 25 to 34.

The state with the lowest share of bachelor’s degree holders is West Virginia, which also has the lowest share of employed 25- to 34-year-olds. Only 67.1 percent of West Virginians in that age group were employed, based on the most recent data, from 2012. The next nine states from the bottom of the bachelor-degree ranking don’t have high employment rates, either: Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, Alabama, Indiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

This pattern is especially striking because the employment measure here — the employment-population ratio – counts as non-employed everyone who does not have a job, including people in graduate school. No employment metric is perfect. I used this one because I wanted to capture people who would prefer to be working but who are not officially unemployed — that is, actively looking for work. (For more on the flaws with the official unemployment rate, listen to Stephen Colbert.)

States with a relatively high proportion of college graduates are also states where a larger number of people in their late 20s are likely to be enrolled in graduate school and thus not working. Yet these states are nonetheless the one with some of the highest employment rates.

To be clear, education is not the only explanation. Workers in the Washington metropolitan area benefit from the federal government, and parts of the Midwest can thank an energy boom. North Dakota has the highest share – 84 percent – of 25- to 34-year-olds who are employed.

The state data here comes from Moody’s Analytics, based on underlying numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and my colleague Alicia Parlapiano created the map. Sometime soon, we will look at employment rates by metropolitan area.

Article source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/where-the-jobs-for-the-young-are-and-arent/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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For Many, Being Out of Work Is Chief Obstacle to Finding It

February 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Kevin Johnson tells people he works off the books rather than admit to being unemployed, because he fears being seen as lazy and unmotivated.

And Barbara Brown, a former office manager, has learned that a telltale sign that she is not getting a job is when she is asked why she has been job hunting for a year and a half.

These Bronx residents are among the growing ranks of New Yorkers who say they are trapped in a vicious circle of unemployment — rejected time and time again for jobs that could put food on the table, resurrect stalled careers and pull them out of a downward spiral of debt.

Despite their qualifications and experience, these job seekers contend that they have not been given a fair shot because of one counterintuitive reason: They are already unemployed.

“I’ll do anything — but somebody has to be willing to hire me,” said Mr. Mango, 43, who has not worked in nine months and said he lost his home because he could not pay the rent. “If you’re not working, that’s already Strike 1 against you.”

New York City appears likely to adopt a law that would allow unsuccessful job applicants to sue businesses who they believe hold their unemployment status against them in making hiring decisions. The measure is widely seen as the toughest step yet in a flurry of recent efforts by the Obama administration and elected officials in at least 18 states, including New York, to help the long-term unemployed.

The District of Columbia passed a law last year that made it illegal for employers to refuse to consider or hire candidates because they were out of work, and barred advertisements from suggesting that the unemployed need not apply. Laws prohibiting discrimination in job listings have also been adopted by New Jersey and Oregon; a similar measure in California was vetoed by the governor.

Though businesses are reluctant to acknowledge bias in their hiring practices, some human-resource managers and consultants say privately that unemployment can be a red flag on a résumé, signaling that a worker may have outdated skills, or may be a short-timer who is desperate enough to take any work now but will leave when something better comes along. The National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit advocacy group, reported that companies across the country often posted job notices explicitly excluding applicants who are unemployed.

Such discrimination against the unemployed is becoming more widespread as jobs are in short supply and employers can have their pick of applicants, according to labor and community leaders. They say it has created a blacklist of the unemployed, many of whom were laid off in recession-driven downsizing rather than because of performance issues.

In New York City, on average, 372,000 people were unemployed in 2012, 38 percent for a year or longer, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Blacks and Hispanics accounted for disproportionately large shares of the long-term unemployed.

“It’s the ultimate kick in the tuchis and completely unfair,” Christine C. Quinn, speaker of the City Council, said in an interview. Ms. Quinn, a leading Democratic contender for mayor, rallied council members to adopt the unemployment bill by a vote of 44 to 4 last month. “We want to do everything we can to help people work.”

But the measure has been criticized by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has called it “misguided” and intends to veto it. He and other opponents, including many business leaders, say that an employer has a right to consider what a person was doing before applying for a job, and that the legislation could spur numerous lawsuits by unsuccessful applicants and deter companies from hiring anyone at all. In a rare public split with Mr. Bloomberg, Ms. Quinn said she had enough support to override a mayoral veto.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/nyregion/for-many-being-out-of-work-is-chief-obstacle-to-finding-it.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Bucks Blog: Late Credit Card Payments Low and Expected to Stay There

December 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Credit card delinquencies are likely to remain low, even as riskier consumers open more card accounts, according to an annual forecast from TransUnion, a consumer credit reporting company.

Meanwhile, the mortgage delinquency rate is expected to fall to 5.06 percent by the end of next year, from an estimated 5.32 percent at the end of this year. (The delinquency rate is the ratio of borrowers who are at least 60 days past due on their payments. The mortgage delinquency rate peaked at the end of 2009 at 6.89 percent.)

Mortgage delinquency rates, considered a precursor to foreclosure, will fall in 34 states and the District of Columbia, TransUnion predicted.

While delinquency rates are moving in the right direction, they are dropping slowly and remain well above the historic “normal” rate of roughly 2 percent. The slow pace of improvement seems to be tied to a generally slow foreclosure process for mortgage holders who have been delinquent for a long time, said Steve Chaouki, group vice president in TransUnion’s financial services unit. The company’s analysis suggests that the delinquency rate would fall to about 2.5 percent — near normal — if borrowers who haven’t made a mortgage payment in over a year are excluded from the calculation.

The outlook remains good for credit cards, he said. Credit card delinquency rates — the ratio of borrowers who are at least 90 days behind on one or more cards — are expected to remain low, even though they may rise to 0.87 percent at the end of next year from 0.83 percent now. That’s still remarkably low. From 2000 to 2011, the rate has averaged 1.24 percent in the final three months of the year.

Mr. Chaouki said consumers are taking care to keep their credit cards current even if they are behind on their housing payments, because they have come to rely on cards as a means of liquidity in a slow economy.

Card delinquencies have moved somewhat higher in the last year, in part, he said, because the number of new cards issued has been increasing, and nonprime borrowers make up a larger share of new account holders.

Data from TransUnion shows the share of nonprime cards being issued was 29.55 percent in the second quarter of this year, compared with 23.86 percent two years earlier.

The average credit card debt per borrower is expected to rise in the next year to $5,446 at the end of 2013 from $4,996 currently. That would be the highest credit card debt level since early 2009, when average debt per borrower was $5,776.

How are you handling credit card and mortgage debt these days?

Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/late-credit-card-payments-low-and-expected-to-stay-there/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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More States Look to Legalize Online Gambling

January 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Nevada and the District of Columbia have already taken steps to authorize online poker, and state officials in Iowa have been studying the issue closely. Lawmakers in New Jersey and California are redoubling their efforts to legalize it, bolstered by a recent Department of Justice decision that reversed the federal government’s long-held opposition to many forms of Internet gambling. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey spoke this month of making his state an “epicenter” of the online gambling industry.

But as desperate as states are for new revenue, after four years of often painful austerity, there are questions about just how much income they can expect to receive from online gambling. The state of Iowa released a study last month that found that legalizing online poker might net it $3 million to $13 million a year, far less than private companies had estimated. The American Gaming Association, a casino industry trade group, has estimated that legalizing online poker would generate roughly $2 billion a year in new tax revenues, a fraction of what states get from their lotteries.

Supporters of legalizing online poker in California estimate that it would net the state $100 million to $250 million a year — a tidy sum, to be sure, but still only enough to put a small dent in the $9.2 billion budget shortfall California faces.

Still, advocates of online poker in California say that the state should not throw away a winning hand just because the pot is not big enough to solve all of its problems.

“Two hundred and fifty million dollars buys you a lot of teachers,” said State Senator Lou Correa, a lawmaker from Orange County who sponsored one of the bills seeking to legalize online poker in California. He thinks legalization could bring in more than the estimates show. “Half a billion dollars buys you even more teachers. When we’re cutting social services to the poorest in our state, it buys you a lot of social services. The budget deficit is tremendous, but you take $500 million here, $500 million there, and pretty soon you’re talking serious money.”

One reason that the yields are not expected to be huge is that many states are considering legalizing only online poker, which they argue involves more skill and less chance than other forms of gambling. Since poker pits players against one another — unlike, say, roulette or slot machines, in which gamblers play against casinos that have the odds stacked in their favor — online poker sites make their money by taking a small percentage, or “rake,” from each pot. States could make money by taxing the rake, and by selling licenses to run the sites.

Supporters of online gambling say the current estimates may undercount how many people would play poker online. Many of the forecasts are based on how many people have played on illegal Web sites in the past. But placing bets on illegal Web sites requires a leap of faith — that the electronic cards are shuffled fairly, that other players cannot see your hand and that the Web site will pay you if you win. Legal, well-regulated Web sites, supporters say, would attract more players.

In fact, the proposal to legalize online poker in Iowa is more about protecting consumers than about raising money, said State Senator Jeff Danielson, a Democrat from the Cedar Falls area who is drafting a bill. “We are not doing this to expand our state budget,” he said. “Our purpose is to make sure every Iowan who wants to play poker has a fair game, has protections, and, if they win, is able to retain those earning in a fair and safe way.”

Iowa has studied the potential impact of online poker on public health. “Given the ease, convenience, and constant availability of online gambling, it is speculated that legal Internet gambling could exacerbate problems for an unknown number of Iowans with, or at-risk of developing, gambling problems,” a report commissioned by the state found.

Most states are looking to legalize online gambling only within their own borders — so that both the gamblers and the computers that process their bets would be in the state. But Mr. Danielson said he believed that the recent Justice Department opinion — which was issued this fall in response to questions by New York and Illinois about whether the Wire Act of 1961 prevented them from selling lottery tickets online — could pave the way for Iowa to join other states in a bigger online poker game.

Some states are looking to legalize other forms of online gambling — which could yield them much more money. The District of Columbia has authorized a plan to offer not only poker online but also blackjack and bingo. And New Jersey lawmakers passed a bill last year — which was vetoed by Mr. Christie — that would have legalized all sorts of casino gambling on the Internet.

Mr. Christie vetoed the bill in part over concerns that it would undermine his administration’s efforts to prop up Atlantic City, whose gambling revenues has suffered as neighboring states have opened casinos. In his veto message, he noted that “nothing contained in the legislation would prohibit commercial establishments outside Atlantic City such as nightclubs, bars, restaurants, cafes and amusement parks from offering Internet gambling opportunities.”

But this month Mr. Christie said that “given the Justice Department’s go-ahead,” the state should move forward with its plans. “I think New Jersey should be in that business, I think we should be an epicenter for that business, but I want to do it right,” he said.

Analysts expect states to act quickly. I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School in California who writes a blog called Gambling and the Law, predicted that states would move faster to approve Internet gambling than they did to establish lotteries, which are now run in 43 states.

“The speed of the Internet is more like dog years,” he said. “It is not going to take four decades. It won’t even take one decade.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=25be2c2b5444e2243ad8e0d6b72a6936

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Bucks: Already Sick? You May Be Able To Afford New Government Health Premiums

June 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

If you have had trouble getting health insurance because you were already sick, the federal government is trying to make it easier for you to get coverage.

As of July 1, premiums for special government-administered health plans designed for people with pre-existing medical conditions will drop drastically in some states. The plans were established last year by the Affordable Care Act to help cover people with conditions like cancer, diabetes, asthma and other illnesses that made it hard for them to get coverage.

People with employer-based insurance generally can’t be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition. But those who are self-employed, or whose employers don’t offer insurance, must buy through the private market, and are often denied coverage.

Eventually, in 2014, the health reform law will require all plans to stop denying coverage to people because they are already sick. Until then, the law authorized the federal government to fund special plans as a temporary solution. In 23 states and the District of Columbia, the federal government administers the plans; in the other 27 states, the states run the programs using federal funds.

The plans have been available since last summer, but just 18,000 people have enrolled—far below the number the government estimates are in need. A big hurdle, says Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, is that even with a government subsidy, the plan premiums are too high for many to afford. “They’re sick, so it’s expensive,” Mr. Levitt said. “It’s a big barrier.”

To help get more people enrolled, the government is lowering the premiums in states where it administers the plans, to bring the monthly cost more in line with what a healthy individual would pay for private insurance. In some states, including Alabama, Arizona, Florida and Virginia, premiums will drop by 40 percent.

In Florida, for instance, the monthly premium for a 45- to 54-year-old will drop to $270 for the “standard” plan, down from about $450.

The drop in other states will be smaller but still significant: Nearly 16 percent in Georgia, 38 percent in Minnesota, 26 percent in Indiana. A complete list can be found here.

In states that administer the plans themselves, premiums may not change at all; it’s up to the states to decide and it’s unclear whether they will go along with the change. Even though they are using federal money for the plans, Mr. Levitt said, some states have been concerned that if they enroll too many people, they may feel pressured to contribute to the funding. That hasn’t proven to be a problem so far because so few people have enrolled. In Maine, for instance, just 13 people were enrolled as of March 31.

Applicants must still have been without insurance for six months to be eligible, but the government is easing other criteria. Previously, applicants had to submit a letter of denial from a health plan; now they can provide a letter from a doctor stating that they have a medical condition or illness.

The government is also going to start paying insurance brokers and agents for signing up customers for the plan and is working on getting the word out about the plans through consumer advocates in each state.

For information on how to enroll, visit www.pcip.gov.

Have you been denied insurance because you are ill? Would the government’s special plans be a possible option for you?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=3eeee185ce03d43d8e9df704f94c565a

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