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Unemployment teeters on the double digits, and long–term joblessness is at an all time high. When will relief come to those who need a paycheck? On this edition of our series, How We Survive, we look at how the unemployed are getting creative about making ends meet, from starting their own businesses to work-sharing.
Featuring:
Dontaye Ball, micro-entrepreneur and owner of Good Foods Catering; Robyn Fountain, program coordinator, Renaissance Entrepreneur Center; Tamika Edwards, small business owner in San Francisco; Eric Weaver, CEO of Opportunity Fund; Dan Ringrose, worker at Lincoln Door; Neil Rohon, shared-work program coordinator at the Connecticut Department of Labor; Pat Stachen, Human Resources Administrator, Lincoln Door and Hartford Technologies; Kevin Newcomb, worker at Hartford Technologies and union representative for United Auto Workers Local 367; Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut Congresswoman; Dean Baker, Co-Founder, Center for Economic and Policy Research.
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Non-Profits Help Create Jobs by Supporting Micro-Enterprise
Despite Obama’s words of support of small business, experts say some aren’t relying on government, but more and more on community groups and micro-lenders. That’s what Making Contact correspondent Li Miao Lovett found, talking to micro-entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Companies Choose Shared-Work Over Layoffs
When there aren’t enough hours of work to go around, why not share them? That’s the premise of ‘shared-work’ programs in seventeen states around the country. Instead of laying a few people off during a downturn in business, companies can choose to decrease the hours of all of their employees, and government provided, partial unemployment benefits can help make up for the rest. In Connecticut, more than 500 companies have gone the work-share route. Correspondent Melinda Tuhus has more.
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Expert Calls Work-Sharing the Answer to Unemployment Woes
Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic Policy Research and author of ‘False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy’ and has written extensively about Shared-Work programs. Making Contact Producer Andrew Stelzer got him on the phone.
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For more information:
Canal Alliance
San Francisco, CA
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Washington D.C.
Good Foods Catering
San Francisco, CA
Kiva
San Francisco, CA
Lincoln Door
Rocky Hill, CT
Opportunity Fund
San Jose, CA
Renaisssance Entrepreneurship Center
San Rafael, CA
Videos, Blogs, Articles, Links:
If Germany Is a Winner, It Is Partly Because It Has Work Sharing
By Dean Baker