Unemployment trends

Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana Losing 430 Jobs Per Day

On Friday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) announced that he would reject nearly $100 million in unemployment insurance funding from the federal government. Jindal said the state would only be accepting money to increase the unemployment insurance payments for those who currently qualify for unemployment insurance and would not accept federal funds to expand unemployment benefits.

So how many people would Jindal’s grand-standing policies affect? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of unemployed people in Louisiana spiked from 109,000 in November to 122,000 in December, an increase of over 13,000 people without jobs or 430 additional out of work people every day.

The estimate itself is conservative, as it relies on December 2008 (the most recent Louisiana employment data available) data and does not consider January’s higher unemployment numbers.

While Louisiana’s Lt. Gov., Mitch Landrieu (D), has already criticized Jindal for acting like “the spokesman for the national Republican Party,” rather than representing the interests of Louisiana, the state’s growing unemployment rate only underscores the Governor’s recklessness.

Since other conservative governors (like South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, whose state is losing approximately 830 jobs a day) are jumping on the Jindal band wagon and rejecting much needed stimulus funding, the Wonk Room has compiled a chart of how many jobs are lost each day in December in all 50 states. ( below double-click on chart to enlarge statistics)