"..at the end of this century America will be destroyed economically by a series of natural disasters." - Therese Neumann, German stigmatist and mystic.
Latest disaster much more significant than most of us realized. See here.
And how much did Katrina cost the United States? Not to mention the spate of other disasters (natural and man-made) which have greatly impacted this nation's economy. Our Lady told Father Gobbi that the hour of poverty and defeat was on the verge of arriving for the United States. Has this hour arrived?
From the Providence Journal (Rhode Island):
ReplyDeleteBy Neil Downing
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — More than 170 businesses had to close up shop as a result of the floods, leaving several thousand employees out of work, state Department of Labor and Training officials said at a State House hearing on Thursday.
Partly because of the flood-related layoffs, people are now waiting on hold for more than an hour on average to reach the agency’s unemployment call center, said DLT Director Sandra M. Powell.
State Rep. Joanne M. Giannini, D-Providence, said after the meeting, “The wait is still too long.” She added, “I’m looking to see what else we can do” to reduce backlogs and delays that unemployed people are experiencing.
State labor agency officials were at the State House for a meeting of a House Finance Committee panel. The session was focused on the state budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
But Giannini, who chairs the panel, also raised questions about wait times and related issues involving the agency’s call center.
Before the floods came, in mid-March, the agency was making strides in reducing backlogs and delays, Powell said. But mainly because of the floods, “The claims load has been rising,” Powell said.
As of Wednesday, the agency had verified that 173 employers had to close because of the floods, said Raymond A. Filippone, the agency’s assistant director who oversees unemployment programs. (Some of those employers have since reopened, he said.)
Also, as of Wednesday, the agency had certified that 2,524 workers had filed flood-related claims for jobless benefits and were eligible to collect basic state unemployment benefits, Filippone said. (In general, weekly benefits under the program average $376 per person.)
An additional 154 people were approved to collect under the Disaster Unemployment Assistance program, which generally provides jobless benefits for those who would not otherwise be eligible such as the self-employed.
Thus, a total of 2,678 people have lost work so far because of the floods, down from the agency’s estimate of 3,110 as of April 14.
The agency takes the position that the jobs were or are lost temporarily. Thus, they are not officially counted as unemployed, Powell said.
Overall, there are somewhat fewer pending online claims for benefits than a week ago, and fewer calls and e-mails to return, according to figures that the agency presented to the committee.
The average amount of time that people spend on hold trying to reach the call center — assuming they get through, without busy signals — was 66 minutes as of Wednesday, down from 72 minutes a week ago, Filippone said.
Nevertheless, waiting more than an hour is too long, Giannini said. “The people do need their money,” she said.
Powell indicated that a recent increase in staff at the center should help reduce call-center wait times.
Over the last three weeks, the agency has added 24 new staff members — all paid with federal funds — to its call center, Powell said.
That brought the call-center staff to 111 as of Wednesday, probably its highest level since the late 1990s, Filippone said.
Altogether, about 33,470 people are collecting some type of unemployment benefit through the state labor agency (not including those who lost work from the floods), Filippone said. So far in April, the agency has distributed about $47 million in state and federal jobless benefits, he said.
ndowning@projo.com
They are talking about the Gulf sea-food industry being decimated:
ReplyDelete"I don't see how it's avoidable that this spill is going to have major, major impact, and not just on the coastal environment. According to the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries department, the Louisiana seafood industry is worth $265 billion annually "at the dockside," and beyond that has a $2.3 trillion economic impact."
http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/04/oil-spill-catastrophe-a-game-changer.html
We just are not healthy enough to take many hits like this.
You're right Bill. Hurricane Katrina was the costliest hurricane in U.S. history. The estimated total cost of Katrina was 110 billion. And this nation's economy, which is alreday shaky, cannot withstand too many more Katrinas or disasters such as the Gulf oil spill.
ReplyDelete