Result of the federal cutoff of Extended Unemployment Benefits?

San José, CA – On Sept. 5, the Department of Labor’s monthly report on the job market said that employment grew more slowly in August. There was a rise of only 142,000 jobs, much less than the average of about 240,000 for the last six months. In addition, the Labor Department revised down the job gains for June and July by 28,000.

_Obama administration begins to speed deportations _

San José, CA – As more Central American children flee violence and poverty and seek to reunite with their families already in the U.S., anti-immigrant vigilantes are targeting buses carrying children. Republican politicians have likened the children to an invading army and have called for changing the law to allow for faster deportations.

San José, CA – On June 6, the Labor Department released the May report on the job market. While the unemployment stayed the same at 6.3%, a broader measure, called the labor force participation rate, remained at a 35 year low, of 62.8%. The labor force participation measures both those working and looking for work as a fraction of the adult population. At 62.8%, this is lowest rate since March of 1978, when far fewer women were in the workforce.

Berkeley, CA – I just heard about the passing of Yuri Kochiyama from my father, another Nisei (second generation Japanese American) political activist, who lives in Berkeley about a mile from where Yuri was living. I didn’t know Yuri well, having only met her once when we were both attending the same program in the Asian American community. Nevertheless, she was the single most prominent individual Asian American activist of the 20th century and her life and politics pioneered the Asian American movement born in the late 1960s.

San José, CA – On May 27, President Obama told the head of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, to postpone his recommendations for changing deportations policies until after Congress wraps up in August. Under pressure from immigrant rights activists to stop the record number of deportations, more than 2 million, the President had promised a review of deportations back in March.

San José, CA – March 11 marks the third anniversary of the tsunami that overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. The power plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company or TEPCO, says that it will take at least six more years to begin to remove the melted and radioactive uranium fuel, and even worse, that they don’t know how they are going to do it. The cleanup could go another 10 or 20 years and cost $50 billion or more.

San José, CA – On Feb. 16, more than 250 people gathered at the Buddhist Church hall in San José Japantown to commemorate the 34th annual Day of Remembrance. Days of Remembrance events are held in Japanese American communities to commemorate Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Feb. 19, 1942, which led to the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II. The San José event was organized by the Nihonmachi (Japantown) Outreach Committee (NOC).

Jobless hit by end to Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC)

San José, CA – For the second month in a row, the Department of Labor employment report was weak, with only 113,000 new jobs created in January. Combined with the revised 75,000 jobs created in December, the two month average was only 94,000 new jobs each month, less than half the average increase in 2013 of more than 190,000. While the recession officially ended in the summer of 2009, there are still 850,000 fewer jobs than when the recession began in December of 2007.

China and other Asian countries protest

San José, CA – On Dec. 26, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan’s capital, Tokyo. This shrine honors Japanese war deaths and includes 14 of the most prominent Japanese convicted of war crimes during World War II, as well as more than a thousand other Japanese war criminals. The shrine also includes a museum, the Yushukan, which portrays Japan’s war of conquest during World War II as aiming to kick out European colonists and covers over some of the worst war crimes, such as the Rape of Nanjing.

Federal Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits expire as Republicans block vote

San José, CA – While people around the world are celebrating the New Year, 1.3 million long-term unemployed Americans will be facing an immediate cut-off of their Federal Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits. In addition, an estimated 1.9 million unemployed workers will lose their benefits as their six months of state Unemployment Insurance (UI) runs out in the first half of 2014. These cuts came about as Republicans in both the House and Senate opposed votes to extend the benefits.

San José, CA – The Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program, which provides federal aid to jobless workers whose state Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits have run out will expire at the end of 2013. This will cut off 1.3 million unemployed people immediately. Another 800,000 jobless workers who would have qualified for EUC won’t be able to extend their benefits in the first three months of 2014.

San José, CA – On Nov. 19, President Obama stated in an interview at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council that he was willing to go along with the piecemeal approach to immigration reform advocated by Republicans in the House of Representatives. Obama said that he wanted all the parts put forward by the Senate bill, which include legalization, more militarization of the border, expansion of temporary worker programs, expansion of workplace enforcement and shifting legal immigration from family reunification to employment and education-based visas to meet the needs of business.

Another step toward first U.S. debt crisis in history

San José, CA – Today, Oct. 15, right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives stopped the House Republican leadership from trying to pass a compromise measure to re-open the federal government and raise its debt ceiling. This marks another step towards the first U.S. debt crisis in history.

San José, CA – Four years after the Great Recession of 2007-2009 officially ended, millions of working people are being left behind by the expansion of the economy. While the stock market and corporate profits reached new highs, there are still millions of fewer jobs than before the recession began, and the official unemployment rate is closer to its recession high than the low before the recession. Things are bad.

San José, CA – On Oct. 1, millions of Americans without health insurance overloaded the opening of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or so-called Obamacare) online exchanges. Almost 3 million people tried to log on to the national www.healthcare.gov web site, while the California web site www.coveredca.com had more than 5 million hits.

San José, CA – At midnight on Oct. 1, the federal government began a partial shutdown. Later that morning, hundreds of thousands of federal workers showed up to wind up work – putting up closed signs at national parks and monuments across the country and updating web pages saying that many functions were no longer available. Then they went home for an indefinite furlough without pay.

San José, CA — On Sept. 29, the House Republicans passed a temporary spending bill for ten weeks, starting Oct. 1 if the Affordable Care Act (often called Obamacare) is delayed for a year. With the Democrat-controlled Senate already having turned down similar measures and a veto promise from President Obama, the federal government is headed for its first shut down since 1996.

Labor Force Participation Rate drops to 35 year low

San José, CA – On Sept. 6, the Labor Department announced that the official unemployment rate dropped to 7.3% in August, down from 7.4% in July. But even though 110,000 fewer people were working in August than July, 310,000 people gave up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed. The Labor Force Participation Rate, or the fraction of the adult population who are either working or looking for work, fell to 63.2%, the lowest since August 1978.

A commentary on the tuberculosis outbreak in rural South Carolina

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) has been criticized for its slow response to an outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) which has infected more than 100 people in rural Greenwood County, South Carolina since last March. More than 400 children at Ninety Six Primary School in Greenwood County were not tested for almost three months after TB was first reported.