March job openings were the highest in almost four years, By Martin Crutsinger (AP), May 8, 2012, USA Today: “U.S. companies in March posted the highest number of job openings in nearly four years, a sign that hiring could strengthen after slowing this spring. The Labor Department said Tuesday that employers advertised 3.74 million job openings in March. That’s up from a revised 3.57 million in February. The March figure was the highest since July 2008, just before the financial crisis erupted. The increase in job openings suggests that weaker hiring gains in March and April could be temporary. It usually takes one to three months for employers to fill openings. Even with the increase, roughly 12.7 million people were unemployed in March. That means an average of 3.4 people competed for each open job. While that’s far better than the nearly 7-to-1 ratio when the recession ended, in a healthy job market, the ratio is around 2 to 1…”
Long-term unemployment affects nearly 30% of jobless Americans, By Tiffany Hsu, May 3, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “Nearly 30% of jobless Americans have been out of work for at least a year, according to the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative report on the first quarter. The report found that of the 13.3 million unemployed workers in the country, 3.9 million had been jobless for all or most of 2011. That’s more people than live in Oregon. That 29.5% long-term unemployment rate is slightly off the peak reached in the third quarter of last year, when 31.8% of jobless Americans were out of work for a year. But the current rate is still more than triple the 9.5% from the beginning of the recession…”
For the chronically unemployed in Calif., another blow ahead as federal benefits come to end, By Tracie Cone (AP), May 2, 2012, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “With her anti-poverty budget stretched beyond its limits, Brenda Callahan-Johnson is braced for next Saturday: the day California’s chronically unemployed will be cut off from the nation’s jobless benefits. A drop in the state’s unemployment rate to 11 percent – its lowest mark in three years – is triggering the federal cutoff of emergency, long-term unemployment pay to at least 93,000 Californians. But in the state’s agricultural heartland, where Callahan-Johnson runs the Merced County Community Action Agency, a jobless rate of more than 20 percent – two and a half times the nationwide average of 8.2 percent – makes it difficult for some to believe an economic recovery has begun…”
Medicaid officials seek changes to Medically Needy Program, By Jim Saunders, May 8, 2012, Pensacola News Journal: “Florida Medicaid officials have asked the federal government to approve major changes in a program that serves tens of thousands of people with costly medical conditions, seeking to install a type of managed care and require monthly premium payments. The Agency for Health Care Administration, carrying out a 2011 law, requested changes in the state’s Medically Needy program. In a document sent to the federal government in late April, the agency said the proposed changes would improve care for beneficiaries…”
Private Medicaid providers enrolling in northwest Louisiana, By Melody Brumble, May 8, 2012, Shreveport Times: “Rhonda Matthews hopes Louisiana’s privately run Medicaid program, dubbed Bayou Health, brings more benefits than changes. Matthews quizzed representatives of five health plans at a recent enrollment meeting in Haughton before signing up with Amerigroup. Her sons, ages 16 and 5, have ADHD. She wants them to keep the same doctor and get the same level of care. She’s also covered by Medicaid. Louisiana started working to privatize its Medicaid program in 2010 primarily to save money. In theory, the health plans will provide greater access to preventive and prenatal care and specialists. The savings would come from keeping people with chronic illnesses out of the emergency room and babies out of newborn intensive care units…”
