Two videos: one serious, one funny about the costs of unemployment.
First, PBS NewsHour analysts Mark Shields and David Brooks take a look at the political costs of the still-high unemployment rate.
Then, take a look at this fun “Unemployment Game Show” from Mint.com. What ‘counts’ as employed?
The unemployment numbers have leveled off at 9.7% — certainly a lukewarm sign at best for the country by any measure. Particularly for veterans, reentering the workforce is a challenge. Male veterans between ages 18 and 24 have a nearly 22 percent unemployment rate, according to the Labor Department.
PRI’s The World reports on a group of vets in Wisconsin who are having trouble finding work since returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Wisconsin veterans aren’t alone, but new programs and opportunities are trying to make a difference for veterans around the country. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Program recently announced a $2 million grant competition to help vets get jobs in the growing field of renewable and sustainable energy.
The green jobs blog Intelligent Energy Portal reports:
[The] grants are intended to provide services to assist in reintegrating eligible veterans into meaningful employment within the labor force and to stimulate the development of effective service delivery systems that will address the complex employability problems facing eligible veterans.
In West Virginia, job fairs are introducing recently returned veterans to new kinds of careers. West Virginia Public Broadcasting reports:
Derek Brown is the vocational rehabilitation officer for the VA. He says it can be tough for veterans to figure out how to find a job.
“I think it’s a unique challenge, in the military it’s a lot different for employment you get assigned from one assignment to the next assignment it’s not like you really go out and interview for a job,” Brown said.
The PBS News Hour’s Patchwork Nation analyzes military communities around the country. In Hampton Roads, Va., the GI Bill has increased college enrollment in one local college and is working to put students on career tracks that have high employment rates:
Compared with other TCC [Tidewater Community College] students, those on the GI Bill are taking more career and technical programs such as in information systems technology. A higher percentage are on the transfer track, meaning they will move on to a four-year college.
We got a tip ahead of the jobless numbers being released tomorrow:
Unemployment drops to 1% because the government is now counting walking to Starbucks, looking for the remote control, and updating your Facebook status as partial employment.
(April Fool! Credit for this one goes to EconomyBeat‘s Jon Brooks.)
It’s that time of year again. The time when all the procrastinators start fretting April 15: tax day. Paying taxes isn’t what most of us would consider fun, but here are some great resources for getting your filing in on time and taking advantage of credits along the way.
Nightly Business Report’s Tax Tips with Kevin McCormally of Kiplinger’s Finance reviews the best ways to get the most out of your possible credits. This week he explores college tax credits:
For 2009, the hope credit is replaced by a more valuable American opportunity credit for most students. The new credit is worth up to $2,500 for up to four years of college. If you paid bills for three undergrads last year, you could knock $7,500 off your tax bill. And if you earned too much in the past to qualify for the hope credit, don’t give up hope for the American opportunity credit.
Now that it’s crunch time, should you still try to file on your own, or is it worth it to hire an accountant? NPR’s Tamara Keith asked Facebook fans of NPR to tell their stories of tax preparation, including this one from David Falcheck, who is happy to go it alone:
“This year I think I really got over the hump and it took me less time than I thought it was going to take,” says Falchek. But there was a time when Falchek decided his taxes had gotten too complicated to handle on his own.
And there are several stories of marital tension (and at least one of bliss) about tax season:
In Lincoln, Neb., Jody Boyce and her husband do their taxes together on the same date every year. The tradition started several years ago… But taxes don’t spell romance for everyone. One person who commented said she and her husband turned to an accountant after doing their own taxes caused the ugliest argument in their eight-year relationship.
Whether you’re an early starter who has already filed and put your refund safely in the bank, or you’re still procrastinating, here are some tips from Marketplace about how we can all do better end-of-year planning in 2010.
Former Wall Street Journal tax columnist Tom Herman suggests:
Start by taking a fresh look at your investments. Focus on your losers, that are now selling for less than you paid for them. If you were thinking of dumping them between now and the year end, this is a good time to do it. I know that it’s painful to admit you’ve lost money on a stock.
The woes of the auto industry have been well-publicized throughout this recession, and with good reason. But there are projects that show some hope in the embattled Michigan city.
WNYC’s Soundcheck music program visited the Detroit music scene and how it’s changed in the past year. Soundcheck host John Schaefer reflected in a blog post about how an arts scene can flourish in a bad economy, and the challenges existing art institutions face.
Unfortunately, the things that allow a musical underground to form don’t usually work as well for bigger arts institutions, like the Detroit Symphony Orchestra or the Detroit Institute of the Arts. So the question is, what to do about these institutions. If you just let them disappear then it becomes much harder for younger generations to acquire a taste for the so-called fine arts. Plus, there is evidence that a high-profile arts scene can be help drive a city’s economy: the so-called “Bilbao Effect,” named after the Spanish town where Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum transformed the city into a major destination. And if the auto industry isn’t doing it for Detroit, something has to fill that void.
One developer in Detroit is reinvigorating interest in the area by recruiting “inchvestors” – people who are giving a small amount to one project and in return giving them a small piece of ownership in the land. Michigan Public Radio reports:
Some inchvestors have sentimental ties to the city, and they just liked the idea of having a physical stake in the place where they or their parents or grandparents grew up. But a lot of them are attracted by the project’s virtual possibilities and say Loveland is sort of like the SimCity computer game, but with real land.
PRX and public radio stations KCUR-Kansas City, WDET-Detroit, WUNC/The Story-North Carolina, WFPL-Louisville are getting ready to launch a new nationwide program, Shifting Gears, which will explore issues in the auto industry. Have a car photo or story of your own to share? Submit it to the Flickr group .
Shifting Gears will be available free for broadcast to public radio stations. More information is here.