For thousands of Central Texans and millions of Americans it’s surely hard to see what there is to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.  Millions of our fellow citizens are still suffering through the recession – dealing with prolonged unemployment, mortgage failures and foreclosure, and meeting the basic necessities for their families, etc. 

Throughout all this our government appears to be grid-locked, caught up in a war of competing ideologies and political rhetoric.  It’s all a bit confusing.  People are calling for less government, drastic cuts in spending, and no new taxes:  “Eliminate programs, cut spending, control the budget – on everything except what is important to me,” the say. 

We want less government, but we expect government to fix everything and be there when we want it; confusing times and hard times.

Many may have a hard time being thankful this year, but there are always family and friends – and life itself.  These things don’t require a special day, a fancy meal, a parade, or a football game. 

For this Thanksgiving, give thanks for what we do have – each other.

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Bring out the balloons, party horns, and confetti – the Great Recession is over!  At least that’s what the folks at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) said yesterday.  According to the NBER, the recession ended in June 2009.  I would guess it was around 9:00 a.m. on the third Tuesday of that month…  

It ended in June 2009 and it is now September 2010; I guess it took over a year for them to run all their numbers and prepare charts and graphs so they could officially tell us it was over – Mission Accomplished.  It seems a bit funny that the same economists who weren’t sure when the recession actually began now know when it ended.

Whether or not the recession ended depends on where you are in the food chain.  For the millions who are still out of work, the hundreds of thousands going through foreclosure, and the countless small businesses that cant’ get loans, the recession is far from over.

The banks and financial institutions that were “too big to fail” and that received taxpayer bailouts have money (that they’ve borrowed from the feds at next to nothing), but they don’t seem to be lending much of it out.  Employers are still reluctant to begin hiring, unsure of where exactly the economy is going.  Jobs are still being lost.  The Great Recession may be over, but the Great Mess is still with us.

Some economists say it may be 2 or 3 years before we recover from job loss and get back to where we were in 2007.  Others say this is a jobless recovery and we may never get back all the jobs that were lost.  I think the one thing that is safe to say is that things will never be exactly as they were.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, that now is the time for people to upgrade their skills or retrain.  Use the time now to prepare yourself for the future.  I can’t promise you that there will be a job waiting at the end or how long it will be before it arrives, but I do know it will come.  Those who are prepared will move forward and those who aren’t may get left behind.

Thanks NBER for sharing the news that the Great Recession is over.  But let’s wait before we throw a victory party.

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Goal:  To put 100 unemployed local residents back to work by July 31, 2010.

Employers who hire qualified unemployed individuals referred by Workforce Solutions can receive up to $2,000 per individual hired. 

For details, visit www.wfscapitalarea.com or call 512.485.3790.

Put Austin/Travis County back to work.  Join the TBTW - 100 Club today!

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Recently, the Texas Back to Work initiative (TBTW) of the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) received criticism for paying employers to do what they were going to do anyway – hire.  TBTW was created to help put Texans who are receiving unemployment benefits back to work.  Basically it works like this:  an employer that hires someone who has been receiving unemployment insurance benefits and who made $15 per hour or less on their last job, and retains them for 120 days, can receive up to $2,000.

The criticism centered on the fact that the workforce system is paying employers to do something they were going to do anyway - hire.  That may well be true.  But let’s look at in a bit of a different way.  Under extended benefits, a person can now receive unemployment for over 90 weeks.  The average weekly benefit in Texas is about $265.  A person who draws unemployment for 90 weeks could earn $23,850.  The average duration in Texas for UI benefits is about 17.4 weeks.  Multiply that by the average weekly benefit ($265), and it amounts to $4,611.

If providing an employer a $2,000 incentive helps puts a UI recipient back to work quicker it would seem that the program pays for itself by potentially saving benefits that would otherwise be paid to UI claimants.  In the long run, it may also help ease the tax burden paid by employers.

Texas Back to Work is putting qualified UI recipients back to work and off the benefit rolls, and isn’t that what we all want?

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