Thursday, June 30, 2011
Meeting focuses on day laborers
"You can't really say one day is good, one day is bad," he said. "It's impossible to predict."
But when the immigrant from Mexico City does not find work by 11 a.m., he and the other men must leave the corner of Jones Ferry and Davie roads in Carrboro and try again the next day.
"It feels bad when the police show up and tell you to leave," De Latorre said in Spanish through an interpreter. "You feel like a delinquent."
DeLatorre spoke Saturday at a workshop aimed at finding better options for local day laborers. Two organizers from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network spent the week in Orange County to meet with local workers and talk about establishing an official center, possibly at El Centro Hispano in Carrboro Plaza.
"No decisions have been made," said local organizer Mauricio Castro of the N.C. Latino Coalition. Activists, government leaders and business people have formed a committee but stressed the workers must have a say.
Gathering spots
There are an estimated 700 gathering spots and 65 official day laborer centers in the United States, Chris Newman, an attorney with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told about 35 people at a meeting Saturday at El Centro Hispano.
On any given day about 117,600 people are working as day laborers or looking for day-labor jobs, according to a 2010 national study by researchers at the Center for Study of Urban Poverty, University of Illinois at Chicago and New School University.
Carrboro's corner is smaller than many. A few dozen men - mostly from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador but also black U.S. citizens - gather there each day.
But the situation has been a problem. After neighbors complained about loitering, harassment, drinking and public urination, the Board of Aldermen restricted the hours people could wait for work from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m.
But problems continue.
"It is a location that requires constant police services," Police Chief Carolyn Hutchison said Monday. "We're there every day. I can't really say that about many other locations in town."
Hutchison said the problems are caused not by the men who end up getting work, but by those who don't and by others who congregate for other reasons. The corner is a busy place with a small shopping center and nearby apartments.
"We've always said the guys that come to the corner [for work] are not generally responsible for the criminal activity in the area," she said. "It's when people are not picked up and don't move on that we see problems related to public consumption, trespassing, urination, defecation, littering and ... catcalls, rude comments."
Hutchison plans to join the task force exploring an alternative, permanent site. Besides the complaints about the corner, the chief says it's not safe for the workers.
"Sometimes the guys actually jump into the street," she said. "If people stop in the intersection it can get kind of dicey."
Law challenged
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice has challenged the constitutionality of the town's restrictions, saying they limit people's ability to find work.
"With its disproportionate burden on the community's working Latino community, [the ordinance] is a blemish on Carrboro's progressive reputation," staff attorney Chris Brook wrote to Town Attorney Mike Brough.
Instead of infringing on First Amendment rights, Carrboro police should enforce violations of the law as they occur, Brook wrote.
Efforts to reach Brough were unsuccessful Monday. In an email to the Board of Aldermen, however, he said the aldermen have three choices: repeal the ordinance, amend its hours to make sure it does not affect those seeking work, or let it stand as is.
"Applying the First Amendment usually involves some balancing of conflicting interests," Brough wrote, "and it seems to me that the balance should be struck in this case in favor of the ordinance, given the real problems it seeks to address and the extremely limited degree to which the ordinance interferes with constitutionally protected activity (all of which can occur by moving just outside the area covered by the ordinance)."
But Brough adds the fact that he believes the ordinance is constitutional does not mean the town would win a potentially costly lawsuit. He recommends the town look at how the ordinance has worked before it makes a decision.
'Wage theft'
The national study, "On the Corner: Day labor in the United States," was based on a survey of 2,660 day laborers at 264 hiring sites. It found an estimated three in four day laborers are in the country illegally, mostly from Mexico and Central America. About 28 percent of laborers' children are U.S. citizens.
Day laborers frequently encounter "wage theft," a problem reported in the Carrboro worker community. The local extent of the problem is unknown but the national study found nearly half of workers reported not being paid at least one day in the prior two months.
A day laborer center could fight wage theft by requiring employers to register with the site, Newman said. It could offer English classes and job development skills. By setting a minimum wage - the going rate in Carrboro is $10 per hour, he said - it could eliminate workers competing for cheaper wages just to get a day's work.
The town has looked at alternative sites, including near Willow Creek shopping center, that did not work out, Alderwoman Randee Haven-ODonnell said Saturday. "When El Centro moved to Carrboro Plaza, we saw a great opportunity," she said.
De Latorre said it's possible, if the location works out, that workers would use it. El Centro is less than a mile from Jones Ferry and Davie roads.
But it won't be easy, he said. The men have waited at the corner a long time. It's across the street from Abbey Court and close to other apartments where many of them live.
"The corner is a part of Carrboro," he said.
mark.schultz@nando.com or 932-2003
Monday, June 27, 2011
Anti-loitering law challenged
GROUPS SAYS DAY LABORERS SITE RESTRICTIONS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
BY MARK SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER (The Chapel Hill News)
CARRBORO - The Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice has asked Carrboro leaders to rescind the town's anti-loitering ordinance because it is unconstitutional.
The ordinance targets the corner of Jones Ferry and Davie roads where dozens of Latino and black men gather daily to wait for work. It makes it a misdemeanor for any person to "stand, sit, recline, linger, or otherwise remain within the area" from 11 a.m. to 5 a.m. the next day.
"The ordinance has interfered with workers' ability to obtain employment during these times," says a letter from the coalition signed by staff attorney Christopher Brook and others. "Workers who have risked violating the law in an effort to put food on their families' tables that evening have been subjected to humiliating herding off the street by Carrboro police officers in their cruisers."
The letter, sent to Town Attorney Mike Brough and the Board of Aldermen, was also signed by lawyers from the North Carolina NAACP, ACLU of North Carolina, N.C. Justice Center, the N.C. Immigrant Rights Project, UNC Center for Civil Rights, UNC School of Law Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity, and professors in the UNC Immigration/Human Rights Policy Clinic and UNC Civil Legal Assistance Clinic.
The aldermen have not discussed the letter, which was dated June 16. Several interviewed last week said the issue could possibly be resolved if efforts to establish a day laborer center, the subject of a meeting this weekend at El Centro Hispano in Carrboro Plaza, succeed. (See sidebar, page 5A.)
Longtime Alderwoman Jacquie Gist acknowledged the anti-loitering ordinance was controversial. But she said the board was responding to community concerns on both sides of the issue when it approved the rules four years ago and that Brough wrote the language carefully.
"This arose when people not only felt uncomfortable but threatened walking past that corner," Gist said. "We did not want to prevent anybody from getting work."
Alderman Sammy Slade, who was not on the board when it passed the ordinance in 2007, said it has always surprised him.
"I can see how that letter makes sense," Slade said. "If people do something illegal that's why we have police."
The letter cites a 2009 Court of Appeals case, North Carolina v. Mello, that the coalition letter says struck down a Winston-Salem anti-loitering ordinance. The court said "mere presence in a public place cannot constitute a crime" because it failed to prove intent and because it would curb such permissible activities as hailing a cab, distributing fliers or collecting donations.
"While the ordinance may have been adopted with legitimate ends in mind, this cannot justify encroaching on First Amendment-protected activity," the letter says.
The aldermen meet this Tuesday for the last time before their summer break. Alderwoman Lydia Lavelle, who also was not yet on the board when it passed the ordinance, said the issue needs more time than is available this week.
Lavelle is an attorney and teaches law at N.C. Central University, where she's had her students write about the ordinance. She said the aldermen have three choices: do nothing, modify the ordinance or do away with it.
"I have some concerns about it, I do," she said. "I respect [Brough's] opinion, but there are two sides of it, and I am a little troubled by it."
mark.schultz@nando.com or 932-2003
BY MARK SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER (The Chapel Hill News)
CARRBORO - The Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice has asked Carrboro leaders to rescind the town's anti-loitering ordinance because it is unconstitutional.
The ordinance targets the corner of Jones Ferry and Davie roads where dozens of Latino and black men gather daily to wait for work. It makes it a misdemeanor for any person to "stand, sit, recline, linger, or otherwise remain within the area" from 11 a.m. to 5 a.m. the next day.
"The ordinance has interfered with workers' ability to obtain employment during these times," says a letter from the coalition signed by staff attorney Christopher Brook and others. "Workers who have risked violating the law in an effort to put food on their families' tables that evening have been subjected to humiliating herding off the street by Carrboro police officers in their cruisers."
The letter, sent to Town Attorney Mike Brough and the Board of Aldermen, was also signed by lawyers from the North Carolina NAACP, ACLU of North Carolina, N.C. Justice Center, the N.C. Immigrant Rights Project, UNC Center for Civil Rights, UNC School of Law Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity, and professors in the UNC Immigration/Human Rights Policy Clinic and UNC Civil Legal Assistance Clinic.
The aldermen have not discussed the letter, which was dated June 16. Several interviewed last week said the issue could possibly be resolved if efforts to establish a day laborer center, the subject of a meeting this weekend at El Centro Hispano in Carrboro Plaza, succeed. (See sidebar, page 5A.)
Longtime Alderwoman Jacquie Gist acknowledged the anti-loitering ordinance was controversial. But she said the board was responding to community concerns on both sides of the issue when it approved the rules four years ago and that Brough wrote the language carefully.
"This arose when people not only felt uncomfortable but threatened walking past that corner," Gist said. "We did not want to prevent anybody from getting work."
Alderman Sammy Slade, who was not on the board when it passed the ordinance in 2007, said it has always surprised him.
"I can see how that letter makes sense," Slade said. "If people do something illegal that's why we have police."
The letter cites a 2009 Court of Appeals case, North Carolina v. Mello, that the coalition letter says struck down a Winston-Salem anti-loitering ordinance. The court said "mere presence in a public place cannot constitute a crime" because it failed to prove intent and because it would curb such permissible activities as hailing a cab, distributing fliers or collecting donations.
"While the ordinance may have been adopted with legitimate ends in mind, this cannot justify encroaching on First Amendment-protected activity," the letter says.
The aldermen meet this Tuesday for the last time before their summer break. Alderwoman Lydia Lavelle, who also was not yet on the board when it passed the ordinance, said the issue needs more time than is available this week.
Lavelle is an attorney and teaches law at N.C. Central University, where she's had her students write about the ordinance. She said the aldermen have three choices: do nothing, modify the ordinance or do away with it.
"I have some concerns about it, I do," she said. "I respect [Brough's] opinion, but there are two sides of it, and I am a little troubled by it."
mark.schultz@nando.com or 932-2003
Friday, June 24, 2011
Families falling into poverty as parents seek work
By MIKE KERNELS - News & Record of Greensboro
Tags: NC Newly Poor
JULIAN, N.C. -- They don't look poor.
Until they show you.
There's the refrigerator dotted with family pictures. Open it. It's empty.
The pantry: empty. Cupboards: empty.
Under the sink: watered-down dishwasher detergent.
In the bathroom: McDonald's napkins for toilet paper.
The walls are bare, not by design but by choice, in case they need to leave quickly.
Meet the Struble family: father Todd, mother Diane and their five kids, ages 6 to 17.
Pull up a chair. You're welcome to stay for dinner. As long as you like soup.
Poverty has a new face: families.
In May, 13.9 million people were unemployed - more than at any other time on record - according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Textiles. Manufacturing. Call centers. In North Carolina, their continual collapse has led to a state unemployment rate of 9.7 percent as of April - the nation's 10th worst.
That's left 433,969 people without jobs, the state Employment Security Commission estimates.
Pastor/paralegal Todd Struble is among them.
And with unemployment so high for so long, most economists predict it will take years before the country will fully recover.
To say nothing of the American family.
Since the recession hit in December 2007, they've been dropping out of the middle class in droves. And falling deeper into poverty.
The government considers a family of four to be impoverished if it makes less than $22,350.
Of the 2.2 million children who live in the state, 504,937 - roughly 22 percent - live in poverty.
The Strubles' middle son, Ben, wishes he wasn't one of them.
"It's tough trying to deal with all this," the 13-year-old says. "I'm just trying to take all this in. Some days are easier than others.
"I want to change it, but I can't."
A job isn't necessarily protection from poverty.
Consider $7.25 - the state's minimum hourly wage. Studies have shown it's not enough to pay rent for a two-bedroom apartment, much less food.
Then there's $30,000 - the median income for all occupations in the state in 2009, according to an AFL-CIO report in April.
Finally, according to The National Center on Family Homelessness, there is 18,597 - the number of children statewide who are homeless each year, with 1,717 in Guilford County.
School officials were so alarmed by that figure - up from 1,194 in 2006-07 - that they created a job this year to deal with it.
Enter Susan Eubanks, supervisor of homeless and transitional services for the school system.
"As these numbers kept growing," Eubanks says, "we realized this was not going away."
Impoverished students share some traits: Wearing the same clothes day after day. Looking disheveled. Being inattentive in class.
And being hungry.
Identifying them is easy.
Keeping tabs on them is harder. With money scarce, families become nomadic.
"They could be living in a shelter one day and a car the next," says Eubanks, 60, a veteran educator.
Once at school, they are fed, given clothes and supplies, if needed, and sent to class.
For a few hours at least, school provides an escape. But eventually, it ends.
Home, wherever that may be on a given day, awaits. And, most likely, hunger.
"I don't want to think about that. I can drive myself crazy thinking about that," Eubanks says. "We have our limits. ... We can't do enough."
Wednesday. 3:18 p.m. Alamance Church Road.
Diane Struble is making the monthly panic-filled pilgrimage to pay the power bill.
"I used to pay bills by mail, but not anymore - I bounce checks," says the 45-year-old Head Start teacher as her gold Honda goes hard into a curve. "Plus, it's the last day. I need to get this in by 5 or they'll cut off the power."
Again.
Gas. Phones. They've been cut off before, too.
Their two-story home is a rental, and they're months behind on payments.
But one crisis at a time.
She stops at a church to pick up a check.
"I don't want sympathy, pity or charity," Struble says, "but I'm taking it because I have to."
A national disgrace.
That's what the Rev. Mike Aiken calls it.
"We're the wealthiest country in the world, and we have kids who are going to bed hungry through no fault of their own," says Aiken, the longtime executive director of Greensboro Urban Ministry. "It's basic human rights. They shouldn't have to go through that."
For some in this generation of children, their lives are reminiscent of how their great-grandparents described growing up during the Great Depression.
No food. No money. Little hope.
Their future was set in motion when the area's textile companies, furniture manufacturers and call centers began eliminating jobs. It's a list that's as daunting as it is distinguished.
January-December 2007: Cone Denim, 400 jobs.
February-March 2009: RF Micro Devices, 195 jobs.
August 2010: Thomas Built Buses, 219 jobs.
January-May 2011: American Express, 1,764 jobs.
When the plant where she worked closed, Marci Stutts wasn't worried.
But that was then.
Now, she's in a Greensboro homeless shelter.
"I took working for granted," says Stutts, 37, who has a 6-month-old daughter. "I never knew finding a job would be as hard as it's been."
And it has been hard for many people.
One morning, Mike Aiken walked into his emergency shelter and witnessed the fallout.
"What I saw," he says, "was a lobby full of people."
Back in Struble's car, she's having a nuclear-family meltdown.
"Every time we pay a bill this large, I think, 'We need to get this budget under control,' but we don't have a budget.
"It's stressful. Anything can happen. If I had a flat tire, I'd have a heart attack, and not because of the tire.
"I try to say, 'This is only temporary.' But I've been saying that for 16 months, and it's getting scary."
For those who work in the area's shelters and soup kitchens, bad news about the economy's toll on the poor has become routine.
But a March report contained something that shocked even them: Roughly 25 percent of area residents said they were too broke to feed themselves or their families.
That was from a survey conducted by Gallup for the Food Research and Action Center.
Nationally, the Greensboro-High Point metro area ranked fourth and Winston-Salem third in the number of people who said they couldn't afford food.
"I was stunned," says Clyde W. Fitzgerald Jr., executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina, which serves 18 counties, including Guilford.
"We knew the problem was severe, but hearing the rankings is numbing, in spite of all we've done. Nobody should be hungry, but certainly not a child."
In 2008, Second Harvest served 130,000 people. So far this year, it's been over 300,000.
The Winston-Salem-based operation even ran out of food once.
"We deal with folks who say today wasn't their turn to eat," says Fitzgerald, a former tobacco executive.
At Mary's House, a Greensboro shelter for women and children, staffers have heard something equally as heartbreaking: former donors asking for assistance.
"You have always had the chronically poor, but this is as bad as I've ever seen," says Craig Thomas, the passionate 62-year-old executive director. "These are people who never had to ask for help in their lives. Never. The adults I feel bad for ..."
Thomas has to stop for a second.
"The children haunt me. They're innocent victims in all this."
Struble pays the power bill with minutes to spare. Crisis averted. Today's, at least.
She no sooner leaves for home when she has to pull over.
"I need to do some deep breathing," says Struble, her forehead coming to rest on the steering wheel. "There's a lot going through my mind right now.
"You really wanna know? How drained I'm going to be when I get home. I've got five kids who need this or that. And I'm tired. If I could go to bed, I would. My kids deserve to have someone who will be there for them."
As if in agreement, her cellphone rings. But she doesn't answer.
"Sometimes, I don't want to be accessible."
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/06/20/1286000/families-falling-into-poverty.html#storylink=misearch#ixzz1QCiSDYxw
Tags: NC Newly Poor
JULIAN, N.C. -- They don't look poor.
Until they show you.
There's the refrigerator dotted with family pictures. Open it. It's empty.
The pantry: empty. Cupboards: empty.
Under the sink: watered-down dishwasher detergent.
In the bathroom: McDonald's napkins for toilet paper.
The walls are bare, not by design but by choice, in case they need to leave quickly.
Meet the Struble family: father Todd, mother Diane and their five kids, ages 6 to 17.
Pull up a chair. You're welcome to stay for dinner. As long as you like soup.
Poverty has a new face: families.
In May, 13.9 million people were unemployed - more than at any other time on record - according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Textiles. Manufacturing. Call centers. In North Carolina, their continual collapse has led to a state unemployment rate of 9.7 percent as of April - the nation's 10th worst.
That's left 433,969 people without jobs, the state Employment Security Commission estimates.
Pastor/paralegal Todd Struble is among them.
And with unemployment so high for so long, most economists predict it will take years before the country will fully recover.
To say nothing of the American family.
Since the recession hit in December 2007, they've been dropping out of the middle class in droves. And falling deeper into poverty.
The government considers a family of four to be impoverished if it makes less than $22,350.
Of the 2.2 million children who live in the state, 504,937 - roughly 22 percent - live in poverty.
The Strubles' middle son, Ben, wishes he wasn't one of them.
"It's tough trying to deal with all this," the 13-year-old says. "I'm just trying to take all this in. Some days are easier than others.
"I want to change it, but I can't."
A job isn't necessarily protection from poverty.
Consider $7.25 - the state's minimum hourly wage. Studies have shown it's not enough to pay rent for a two-bedroom apartment, much less food.
Then there's $30,000 - the median income for all occupations in the state in 2009, according to an AFL-CIO report in April.
Finally, according to The National Center on Family Homelessness, there is 18,597 - the number of children statewide who are homeless each year, with 1,717 in Guilford County.
School officials were so alarmed by that figure - up from 1,194 in 2006-07 - that they created a job this year to deal with it.
Enter Susan Eubanks, supervisor of homeless and transitional services for the school system.
"As these numbers kept growing," Eubanks says, "we realized this was not going away."
Impoverished students share some traits: Wearing the same clothes day after day. Looking disheveled. Being inattentive in class.
And being hungry.
Identifying them is easy.
Keeping tabs on them is harder. With money scarce, families become nomadic.
"They could be living in a shelter one day and a car the next," says Eubanks, 60, a veteran educator.
Once at school, they are fed, given clothes and supplies, if needed, and sent to class.
For a few hours at least, school provides an escape. But eventually, it ends.
Home, wherever that may be on a given day, awaits. And, most likely, hunger.
"I don't want to think about that. I can drive myself crazy thinking about that," Eubanks says. "We have our limits. ... We can't do enough."
Wednesday. 3:18 p.m. Alamance Church Road.
Diane Struble is making the monthly panic-filled pilgrimage to pay the power bill.
"I used to pay bills by mail, but not anymore - I bounce checks," says the 45-year-old Head Start teacher as her gold Honda goes hard into a curve. "Plus, it's the last day. I need to get this in by 5 or they'll cut off the power."
Again.
Gas. Phones. They've been cut off before, too.
Their two-story home is a rental, and they're months behind on payments.
But one crisis at a time.
She stops at a church to pick up a check.
"I don't want sympathy, pity or charity," Struble says, "but I'm taking it because I have to."
A national disgrace.
That's what the Rev. Mike Aiken calls it.
"We're the wealthiest country in the world, and we have kids who are going to bed hungry through no fault of their own," says Aiken, the longtime executive director of Greensboro Urban Ministry. "It's basic human rights. They shouldn't have to go through that."
For some in this generation of children, their lives are reminiscent of how their great-grandparents described growing up during the Great Depression.
No food. No money. Little hope.
Their future was set in motion when the area's textile companies, furniture manufacturers and call centers began eliminating jobs. It's a list that's as daunting as it is distinguished.
January-December 2007: Cone Denim, 400 jobs.
February-March 2009: RF Micro Devices, 195 jobs.
August 2010: Thomas Built Buses, 219 jobs.
January-May 2011: American Express, 1,764 jobs.
When the plant where she worked closed, Marci Stutts wasn't worried.
But that was then.
Now, she's in a Greensboro homeless shelter.
"I took working for granted," says Stutts, 37, who has a 6-month-old daughter. "I never knew finding a job would be as hard as it's been."
And it has been hard for many people.
One morning, Mike Aiken walked into his emergency shelter and witnessed the fallout.
"What I saw," he says, "was a lobby full of people."
Back in Struble's car, she's having a nuclear-family meltdown.
"Every time we pay a bill this large, I think, 'We need to get this budget under control,' but we don't have a budget.
"It's stressful. Anything can happen. If I had a flat tire, I'd have a heart attack, and not because of the tire.
"I try to say, 'This is only temporary.' But I've been saying that for 16 months, and it's getting scary."
For those who work in the area's shelters and soup kitchens, bad news about the economy's toll on the poor has become routine.
But a March report contained something that shocked even them: Roughly 25 percent of area residents said they were too broke to feed themselves or their families.
That was from a survey conducted by Gallup for the Food Research and Action Center.
Nationally, the Greensboro-High Point metro area ranked fourth and Winston-Salem third in the number of people who said they couldn't afford food.
"I was stunned," says Clyde W. Fitzgerald Jr., executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina, which serves 18 counties, including Guilford.
"We knew the problem was severe, but hearing the rankings is numbing, in spite of all we've done. Nobody should be hungry, but certainly not a child."
In 2008, Second Harvest served 130,000 people. So far this year, it's been over 300,000.
The Winston-Salem-based operation even ran out of food once.
"We deal with folks who say today wasn't their turn to eat," says Fitzgerald, a former tobacco executive.
At Mary's House, a Greensboro shelter for women and children, staffers have heard something equally as heartbreaking: former donors asking for assistance.
"You have always had the chronically poor, but this is as bad as I've ever seen," says Craig Thomas, the passionate 62-year-old executive director. "These are people who never had to ask for help in their lives. Never. The adults I feel bad for ..."
Thomas has to stop for a second.
"The children haunt me. They're innocent victims in all this."
Struble pays the power bill with minutes to spare. Crisis averted. Today's, at least.
She no sooner leaves for home when she has to pull over.
"I need to do some deep breathing," says Struble, her forehead coming to rest on the steering wheel. "There's a lot going through my mind right now.
"You really wanna know? How drained I'm going to be when I get home. I've got five kids who need this or that. And I'm tired. If I could go to bed, I would. My kids deserve to have someone who will be there for them."
As if in agreement, her cellphone rings. But she doesn't answer.
"Sometimes, I don't want to be accessible."
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/06/20/1286000/families-falling-into-poverty.html#storylink=misearch#ixzz1QCiSDYxw
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Unemployment applications jump by most in a month
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON — The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week rose by the most in a month, signaling growing weakness in the job market.
Applications rose by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the second increase in three weeks and the 11th straight week that applications have been above 400,000.
The four-week average for unemployment benefit applications, a less volatile measure, was unchanged at 426,250 last week.
Applications dipped below 400,000 in February and stayed under that threshold for seven of the following nine weeks. Applications fell as low as 375,000, a level that signals sustainable job growth. But applications surged in April to an eight-month high of 478,000 and have shown only modest improvement since that time.
Stocks appeared to be headed for another losing day. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 175 points in early-morning trading.
Analysts said the June trend in unemployment applications was consistent with modest payroll growth of around 130,000 per month.
The economy needs to generate at least 125,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth. And at least twice that many jobs are needed to bring down the unemployment rate, which rose to 9.1 percent in May.
"We need initial claims to fall back below 400,000 to signal stronger economic growth than the area we seem to be mired in," said analysts John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros at RDQ.
Companies pulled back on hiring in the spring in the face of higher gas and food prices. That has cut into consumer spending on other discretionary items, such as furniture and appliances, which help boost economic growth.
Employers added only 54,000 net new jobs in May, much slower than the average gain of 220,000 per month in the previous three months.
The Federal Reserve acknowledged on Wednesday that the economy has slowed in recent months. Fed officials also said in a statement summing up their two-day meeting that "recent labor market indicators have been weaker than anticipated."
As a result, the Fed reduced its forecast for employment and growth this year. It projects that unemployment at the end of 2011 will be around 8.6 percent to 8.9 percent. That's more pessimistic than its forecast from two months ago, which had put the unemployment rate at 8.4 percent to 8.7 percent by year's end.
That pessimism is also seen in projections by private economists. According to an Associated Press Economy survey last week, the nation will add only about 1.9 million jobs this year and the unemployment rate will fall to only 8.7 percent at the end of the year.
The Labor Department reported that computer processing problems forced the agency to make estimates for five states and one territory last week. The states affected were Ohio, Mississippi, Oregon, New Hampshire, Washington state and the Virgin Islands. That means the national figure could be revised slightly when the actual data from those states is processed.
The number of people receiving unemployment benefits dropped by 1,000 to 3.7 million. But that doesn't include the millions of additional unemployed Americans receiving benefits under emergency benefit programs put in place during the recession.
All told, 7.5 million received benefits during the week ending June 4, that's up by 137,000 from the previous week.
More hiring is critical to boosting the economic growth. It leads to greater consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity. Consumer spending slowed to a 2.2 percent growth rate in the first three months of this year. The weakness reflected the rise in gas prices.
The Fed on Wednesday left a key interest rate unchanged at near zero percent and repeated a pledge to keep rates exceptionally low for "an extended period."
Fed officials said in a statement that they think the main causes of the economy's slowdown, such as high gas prices and supply disruptions from Japan's disasters, are temporary. Once those problems subside, Fed officials said the economy should rebound.
But at a news conference after the statement was released, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged that some of the problems slowing the economy could persist into next year. He cited continued weakness in the financial sector and persistent problems in the housing market.
WASHINGTON — The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week rose by the most in a month, signaling growing weakness in the job market.
Applications rose by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the second increase in three weeks and the 11th straight week that applications have been above 400,000.
The four-week average for unemployment benefit applications, a less volatile measure, was unchanged at 426,250 last week.
Applications dipped below 400,000 in February and stayed under that threshold for seven of the following nine weeks. Applications fell as low as 375,000, a level that signals sustainable job growth. But applications surged in April to an eight-month high of 478,000 and have shown only modest improvement since that time.
Stocks appeared to be headed for another losing day. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 175 points in early-morning trading.
Analysts said the June trend in unemployment applications was consistent with modest payroll growth of around 130,000 per month.
The economy needs to generate at least 125,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth. And at least twice that many jobs are needed to bring down the unemployment rate, which rose to 9.1 percent in May.
"We need initial claims to fall back below 400,000 to signal stronger economic growth than the area we seem to be mired in," said analysts John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros at RDQ.
Companies pulled back on hiring in the spring in the face of higher gas and food prices. That has cut into consumer spending on other discretionary items, such as furniture and appliances, which help boost economic growth.
Employers added only 54,000 net new jobs in May, much slower than the average gain of 220,000 per month in the previous three months.
The Federal Reserve acknowledged on Wednesday that the economy has slowed in recent months. Fed officials also said in a statement summing up their two-day meeting that "recent labor market indicators have been weaker than anticipated."
As a result, the Fed reduced its forecast for employment and growth this year. It projects that unemployment at the end of 2011 will be around 8.6 percent to 8.9 percent. That's more pessimistic than its forecast from two months ago, which had put the unemployment rate at 8.4 percent to 8.7 percent by year's end.
That pessimism is also seen in projections by private economists. According to an Associated Press Economy survey last week, the nation will add only about 1.9 million jobs this year and the unemployment rate will fall to only 8.7 percent at the end of the year.
The Labor Department reported that computer processing problems forced the agency to make estimates for five states and one territory last week. The states affected were Ohio, Mississippi, Oregon, New Hampshire, Washington state and the Virgin Islands. That means the national figure could be revised slightly when the actual data from those states is processed.
The number of people receiving unemployment benefits dropped by 1,000 to 3.7 million. But that doesn't include the millions of additional unemployed Americans receiving benefits under emergency benefit programs put in place during the recession.
All told, 7.5 million received benefits during the week ending June 4, that's up by 137,000 from the previous week.
More hiring is critical to boosting the economic growth. It leads to greater consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity. Consumer spending slowed to a 2.2 percent growth rate in the first three months of this year. The weakness reflected the rise in gas prices.
The Fed on Wednesday left a key interest rate unchanged at near zero percent and repeated a pledge to keep rates exceptionally low for "an extended period."
Fed officials said in a statement that they think the main causes of the economy's slowdown, such as high gas prices and supply disruptions from Japan's disasters, are temporary. Once those problems subside, Fed officials said the economy should rebound.
But at a news conference after the statement was released, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged that some of the problems slowing the economy could persist into next year. He cited continued weakness in the financial sector and persistent problems in the housing market.
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