Progress Illinois

Further proceedings were postponed;

Yays & Neys were being counted; 3:05 PM CT

No opponents spoke

SUPPORTERS who spoke unquestionably in support:

McDermott D-WA
G. Davis, R-KY
D. Davis, D-IL
Levins, D-MI
Hoyer, House Majority Leader D-Maryland

Sounds like very positive news because we are unable to pay our bills as a family at this time, but then I read down and it says, "it could also move quickly through the upper chamber in the next few weeks." Well that helps nothing! This is too slow, too late! We need action yesterday, not in a few weeks! Let's worry about helthcare reform and taxing business that create jobs to help the environment. That makes more sense than keeping working families from losing their homes and ending up on the streets. A few weeks from now is far too late for me and my family, I hope the rest of you are in a better place than I. Looking forward to mid-term elections even if I have no address to call home!

HR 3548 Passed September 22, 2009
Yays 331
Neys 83

Now Senate...Go Senate Go ;-)

Thanks to all our US Representatives in support of these benefits.
And, good luck to all, I know I greatly appreciate it.

I am amazed at how our goverment has waited this long to even vote on this issue, people ran out back in june and july. how are these people paying their rent ect? THERE ARE NO DAMN JOBS!!! winter is just around the corner. I wonder how many people have lost their homes already? do they need a wake up call, because if they dont get their shit together and I mean fast there is going to be nation wide hell to pay!!! would you blame or look down on a man that has to turn to crime to feed his family? not anymore!!!!the terrorist might as well have this country!! these assholes can run it!! we will be the terrorist if they dont help. riseing up against our own country! what good is health care when you have a nation that has fallen apart? well at least we see their true colors! they dont give a ratts ass about us! so.....in return they will reap what they sowed. I hope its soon too. they deserve it. I for one will stand back and watch!!!! I will not raise arms for this shithole goverment ever again!!!some of us have bleed for this country, and this is how they do us? its their turn. I for one will laugh when they fall.

Thanks to all of our congress men and women who helped this bill to pass. I urge anyone reading this who has the power and authority to expedite it, PLEASE DO SO! As a previous poster mentioned, we don't have a few weeks! We have bills due NOW! The power company, gas company, mortgage company etc will not wait any longer for our payments! They're doing nothing to help us make ends meet, this needs to move very quickly, like days...not weeks! I don't know if you're considering this but once it is passed through all the hands who have to approve it, the unemployment offices still have to send their letters out and get their act together. Sometimes I think they move even slower than the federal government! Please please PLEASE get this done this week!

Also, can someone consider waiving the federal and state taxes on those of us receiving unemployment? We need EVERY penny that we get in those checks! Please consider this!

I just want to say thank you Adam Doster.

For keeping all of us well informed and not having to go search in the dark for this precious information we all so desperately needed.

Regards,
The People of Hope

Thirded, Mr. Doster. A job well done!

This is great for 27 states DC and PR. but for 23 states there is no hope at all. I live in Connecticut and have run out of benefits and cannot find work. As of right now the government is basically telling me and many others in the same boat in 23 states to go F*** yourselfs. What are we supposed to do? STARVE or STEAL? This bill should include ALL states.

Thank GOD I live in Illinois!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So does it kick in right away? I ran out of benefits over a month ago have have been struggling to get by (like many others). Just wondering if it just kicks in or do you have to go down to your local office. Thanks, and good luck!!

It should kick in automaticlly in most cases! At least it has for me this far! I'm wondering if anyone else has heard the Senate voted and has passed the bill!! I haven't yet!

Im with you Joe, this is BS ! it aint right. I am in illnois, but every state should get this, I cant belive their going to just turn their backs on that many people! and that asshole remark from a person who just found out they getting it, then you in turn, diss another, you aint real smart are ya? how you be is how youll be.

Hi. Trying to keep the links posted.

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=20090923...

We take care of other countrys , during there civil wars (Iraq , Korea , Vietnam , and many , many more some we do not even know about) we help there people , even though we had our civil war as did France , Spain , Russia , England and every other country in the world but we cannot help our homeless , unemployed , sick , and most of all our childern. Is it not time for a BIG CHANGE. THINK

O.k... I hear they passed an another extension. When does it start, because I'm struggling to make ends meet like many others. Someone please tell me. Thank you!

No... They have not yet! They only passed it through the House, but the Senate still have to pass, and they have not yet! It wont be until mid to late November before that happens! The Health Care Bill has Washington Tied up!!

Money is the root of all EVIL!!!

To Anonymous, posting on Friday, 09/25/2009-17:48: I don't want to sound like a harsh taskmaster, but rather than barge in at the end of a series of three excellent, information-packed blogs, you shouldn't say, "I heard they passed another extension. When does it start. Please tell me." Regardless of how busy you might be with kids, applying for jobs, etc., you should have read all the information contained in the comments before you decided to come in. PLEASE READ, THEN ACT!

Thank you for your answer "Hope is Fading". I also would like to thank "Dave" for taking time out to tell me to read more carefully. Thanks....

Dear Anonymous-last-Poster,
Boy, I'm glad to read that I didn't hurt your feelings or anything; I meant it in the best way. This site is one of the best on the web for updates on this crisis and I'm glad you'll continue to visit.
One other suggestion? Could you think of a "user name" so you won't be lost with all the other "Anonymous" postings? Anythiing you like! Just so we can address you by reference.
Dave

Hi Dave!!!! I see your still being a true sweetheart helping people here and posting such wonderful information, I sure would like to get you thank cup of coffie for all your hard work, where you at mabey we could like hook up? I think you deserve a special little gift for all you do...

LOL

Yeah Dave... LETS DO IT!!

You sweet lil thang you!!!!! LMAO!

Picked this up at random, which has a scary headline but's worth the read:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977826577&grpId...

Interesting article on the front page of this morning's New York Times:

September 27, 2009
U.S. Job Seekers Exceed Openings by Record Ratio

By PETER S. GOODMAN

Despite signs that the economy has resumed growing, unemployed Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse.

Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking open positions in 2000. According to the Labor Department’s latest numbers, from July, only 2.4 million full-time permanent jobs were open, with 14.5 million people officially unemployed.

And even though the pace of layoffs is slowing, many companies remain anxious about growth prospects in the months ahead, making them reluctant to add to their payrolls.

“There’s too much uncertainty out there,” said Thomas A. Kochan, a labor economist at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management. “There’s not going to be an upsurge in job openings for quite a while, not until employers feel confident the economy is really growing.”

The dearth of jobs reflects the caution of many American businesses when no one knows what will emerge to propel the economy. With unemployment at 9.7 percent nationwide, the shortage of paychecks is both a cause and an effect of weak hiring.

In Milwaukee, Debbie Kransky has been without work since February, when she was laid off from a medical billing position — her second job loss in two years. She has exhausted her unemployment benefits, because her last job lasted for only a month.

Indeed, in a perverse quirk of the unemployment system, she would have qualified for continued benefits had she stayed jobless the whole two years, rather than taking a new position this year. But since her latest unemployment claim stemmed from a job that lasted mere weeks, she recently drew her final check of $340.

Ms. Kransky, 51, has run through her life savings of roughly $10,000. Her job search has garnered little besides anxiety.

“I’ve worked my entire life,” said Ms. Kransky, who lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment. “I’ve got October rent. After that, I don’t know. I’ve never lived month to month my entire life. I’m just so scared, I can’t even put it into words.”

Last week, Ms. Kransky was invited to an interview for a clerical job with a health insurance company. She drove her Jeep truck downtown and waited in the lobby of an office building for nearly an hour, but no one showed. Despondent, she drove home, down $10 in gasoline.

For years, the economy has been powered by consumers, who borrowed exuberantly against real estate and tapped burgeoning stock portfolios to spend in excess of their incomes. Those sources of easy money have mostly dried up. Consumption is now tempered by saving; optimism has been eclipsed by worry.

Meanwhile, some businesses are in a holding pattern as they await the financial consequences of the health care reforms being debated in Washington.

Even after companies regain an inclination to expand, they will probably not hire aggressively anytime soon. Experts say that so many businesses have pared back working hours for people on their payrolls, while eliminating temporary workers, that many can increase output simply by increasing the workload on existing employees.

“They have tons of room to increase work without hiring a single person,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute Economist. “For people who are out of work, we do not see signs of light at the end of the tunnel.”

Even typically hard-charging companies are showing caution.

During the technology bubble of the late 1990s and again this decade, Cisco Systems — which makes Internet equipment — expanded rapidly. As the sense takes hold that the recession has passed, Cisco is again envisioning double-digit rates of sales growth, with plans to move aggressively into new markets, like the business of operating large scale computer data servers.

Yet even as Cisco pursues such designs, the company’s chief executive, John T. Chambers, said in an interview Friday that he anticipated “slow hiring,” given concerns about the vigor of growth ahead. “We’ll be doing it selectively,” he said.

Two recent surveys of newspaper help-wanted advertisements and of employers’ inclinations to add workers were at their lowest levels on record, noted Andrew Tilton, a Goldman Sachs economist.

Job placement companies say their customers are not yet wiling to hire large numbers of temporary workers, usually a precursor to hiring full-timers.

“It’s going to take quite some time before we see robust job growth,” said Tig Gilliam, chief executive of Adecco North America, a major job placement and staffing company.

During the last recession, in 2001, the number of jobless people reached little more than double the number of full-time job openings, according to the Labor Department data. By the beginning of this year, job seekers outnumbered jobs four-to-one, with the ratio growing ever more lopsided in recent months.

Though layoffs have been both severe and prominent, the greatest source of distress is a predilection against hiring by many American businesses. From the beginning of the recession in December 2007 through July of this year, job openings declined 45 percent in the West and the South, 36 percent in the Midwest and 23 percent in the Northeast.

Shrinking job opportunities have assailed virtually every industry this year. Since the end of 2008, job openings have diminished 47 percent in manufacturing, 37 percent in construction and 22 percent in retail. Even in education and health services — faster-growing areas in which many unemployed people have trained for new careers — job openings have dropped 21 percent this year. Despite the passage of a stimulus spending package aimed at shoring up state and local coffers, government job openings have diminished 17 percent this year.

In the suburbs of Chicago, Vicki Redican, 52, has been unemployed for almost two years, since she lost her $75,000-a-year job as a sales and marketing manager at a plastics company. College-educated, Ms. Redican first sought another management job. More recently, she has tried and failed to land a cashier’s position at a local grocery store, and a barista slot at a Starbucks coffee shop.

Substitute teaching assignments once helped her pay the bills. “Now, there are so many people substitute teaching that I can no longer get assignments,” she said.

“I’ve learned that I can’t look to tomorrow,” she said. “Every day, I try to do the best I can. I say to myself, ‘I don’t control this process.’ That’s the only way you can look at it. Otherwise, you’d have to go up on the roof and crack your head open.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Dave, thanks for the link to that article. Any info. at this point is appreciated. Hope this all goes threw very soon. I am having the hardest times of my life like many others. It seems you have to know someone to land a job here in Crook County, IL.

I want to work for Dave!! or at least with him.

Here's what I did to get a job last month:
My employer of over nine years, for whom I had made ALOT of money, laid me off in late August of 2008. I was on unemployment for 54 weeks. I decided I had to do something. I called my old employer (who is the President of the company), got some private time with him then laid out my hand: I reminded him of my memory (for which he used to compliment me on), then looked him straight in the eye and said, "I know where a helluva lot of bodies are buried and, Jack, I'm bored sitting around the house. All these memories might interest someone at the Tribune or Crain's Chicago Business, who knows? At least it'll give me something to do."

I received a call asking me if I'd like to rejoin the company; my talents were in need.
Done and done.

Remember what LBJ used to say about a political enemy: "I'd rather have 'em on the inside of the tent pissing out than on the outside, pissing in."

Any news? When is the Senate going to sign this?

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