Volunteering More Thoughts on Volunteering

A couple weeks ago I shared my ambivalence toward the fact that the “unemployed [are] busying themselves with voluntarism.” For expressing cynicism toward those giving their hearts and times to good causes, I recently received my just desserts.
At a recent Red Cross training I met a young woman who, like me, volunteers for what we [...]

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Unemployed Busying Themselves with Volunteerism

I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this article in the New York Times. Apparently newly unemployed white collar workers are beating down the doors of NYC-area nonprofits in search of volunteer opportunities. A volunteer matching website called volunteernyc.org has seen its searches increase by 30 percent over the prior year. Many of these [...]

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Numbers We Need

Oklahoma Policy Institute puts out a monthly publication called Numbers You Need, capturing key economic and budget trends in Oklahoma. It’s a good quick way to keep track of conditions in our state.
Their February report (PDF) indicates that the state is faring better than the rest of the nation, with key indicators moving more mildly [...]

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Friday Jobs Blogging

A couple workforce-related items to bring our week to a close:

Workforce Oklahoma saw twice as many job-seekers in December as they did in the prior month.  They saw 3,000 in December. (Not sure if that’s statewide or just in Tulsa.) The unemployment rate has climbed from one percentage point since September, from a low of [...]

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More Work Part-time Unwillingly

The Economic Policy Institute reports on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that the number of “involuntary part-time workers” has nearly doubled over the last 12 months:
An “involuntary part time” worker is someone who wants a full-time job but is forced to take a part-time position, either because their hours were reduced below 35 [...]

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Insurance Out of Reach for Newly Unemployed

Families USA has a report (PDF) out detailing the inadequacy of COBRA. As you may know, COBRA allows displaced workers who lose their health insurance to purchase their previous employers’  policy for a certain period of time. In Oklahoma, the average worker who loses her job will pay 31.1% of her unemployment insurance on COBRA [...]

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