The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO partnered with the United Way of Erie County last week to host an unemployment resources fair for jobless workers as part of Project Back on Track, a new program intended to help the unemployed. Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Richard Bloomingdale says several more resource fairs are planned around the state.

Older workers who lose their jobs have the highest rate of long-term unemployment compared to any other age group. In 2011, more than half of jobless workers, ages 50 years and older, were out of work for more than six months. The trend continues this year. Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), told the Senate Special Committee on Aging this afternoon:

The prospects are dim for older workers who lose their jobs.

It’s not technically hard to put millions of unemployed workers back on the job—the real challenge is political, says Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. Even returning the public-sector jobs that have been slashed at the state and local levels could lower the unemployment rate to nearly 7 percent or under, he said.

Krugman spoke this week at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and on a variety of media outlets around the nation to promote his new book, End This Depression Now! In short, says Krugman:

Job growth in April rose by 115,000, above the 100,000 needed to keep up with new job entrants. The unemployment rate improved a tad, from 8.2 percent in March to 8.1 percent in April, as did the number of jobless, which declined from 12.7 million in March to 12.5 million in April, according to U.S. Department of Labor data released this morning. Some 14.5 million workers remain unemployed, underemployed or have given up looking for work.

In yet another move to put power in the hands of the 1 percent, House Republicans have introduced legislation to hand over the nation’s publicly administered job training and workforce development system to the corporate sector.

Is there anyone, besides the Goldwater Institute and ALEC, who supports the extreme political agenda of some Arizona lawmakers? If this story from The Huffington Post is any indication, the answer is no. Businesses and business groups, including the state Chamber of Commerce, have been vocal about their opposition to a bill that would require unemployed workers to submit to drug tests.

Latina workers face marked disadvantages in the workplace and the job market, according to a report released yesterday during the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) Trabajadoras Awards Luncheon honoring Latina leaders who have paved the way for working women to have a better quality of life. The report, “Trabajadoras: Challenges and Conditions of Latina Workers in the United States,” examines economic and social issues affecting Latina workers, conditions of Latina immigrants, the role unions play in providing economic security and issues facing Latino children and youths.

The nation’s economy added 227,000 jobs in February, but the unemployment rate remained steady at 8.3 percent, according to the latest figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The jobless rate has dropped by 0.8 percentage points since August and remains at its lowest point since February 2009

More confirmation that the extremely rich are getting richer and those without jobs are suffering even more. In 2009 and 2010, the first year of the current “recovery,” the 1 percent captured 93 percent of U.S. income growth. Repeat: 93 percent of income growth went to the 1 percent.

This is a cross-post by Chase Brandau from Working America’s Main Street blog.

In late 2008, 28-year-old Rochester, Minn., native Tim Wynn injured his hand on the job while working as a machinist and was eventually unfairly fired due to the injury. “It was at that time I had to file for unemployment insurance,” Wynn recalls. “Which was only a little over $400 a month, but we were able to make it work with one of us still working.”