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A Majority Of States Are Now Insolvent: Quantifying The Disastrous Unemployment Situation  Zero Hedge

Zero Hedge recently highlighted the ever increasing Federal outlays on unemployment insurance, leading to questions on whether the true unemployment rate, as indicated by actual cash outlays, may be materially higher than indicated in increasingly dubious governmental reports. One proposed alternative has been that the Federal government is directly subsidizing standalone states' depleted unemployment insurance trust funds. Using data provided by ProPublica we have been able to confirm that indeed standalone states are for the most part now bankrupt and have no reserves left in their coffers when it comes to funding ever increasing insurance benefits. As ProPublica indicates, there are now 26 states which have depleted their trust funds, among these are the usual suspects including California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, which now rely exclusively on borrowings from the Federal government to prevent the cessation of insurance payments to recently unemployed workers. Currently all states collectively posses $10.7 billion in trust fund assets(with the bulk held by less impacted states such as Washington ($2.6 billion), Louisiana ($1.1 billion) and Oregon ($1.1 billion). On the other hand, 26 states currently rely exclusively on the Federal Government, and have borrowed a combined $30 billion through December to fund payments. ProPublica estimates that another 8 states will be insolvent within 6 months, as their trust funds also approach 0.



Just one reason the pending >$1.9 Trillion dollar increase in the federal debt limit will have to be revisited, possibly within a year from now.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Mon Feb 1st, 2010 at 03:01:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
So... is this why all the business rags are fretting about Greece?

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 06:24:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Shhh! Don't spook the troops!

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Tue Feb 2nd, 2010 at 09:47:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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