Editor’s Note: Nearly 600,000 Americans lost their jobs last month, driving unemployment to 7.6%. That’s its highest level since 1992. Overall, some 3.6 million jobs have disappeared since 2008. While a lot of companies are issuing pink-slips, a few are hiring. Here’s one place that’s looking for a lot of workers, but act quickly.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/02/06/art.job.line.fair.jpg caption="Job seekers stand in line at a job fair in Virginia."]
Dave Schechter
CNN Senior National Editor
Think of this as an enormous help-wanted ad as the U.S. economy flushes thousands of jobs daily.
Or think of this as a stimulus program, of a sort.
Wanted:
In the past, the agency has relied on college students, retirees and stay-at-home moms to fill its ranks, but in the current environment a different mix is possible.
Thousands more people than needed have applied for the 3,000 jobs in Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia; states that have suffered a decline in traditional manufacturing jobs.
While in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the local office manager said, “At $10 an hour, I'm getting a lot of college graduates and [those with] masters degrees.”
The U.S. Constitution mandates a count be made of the nation’s population every decade and it takes a lot of people to count a lot more people.
When the first Census was conducted on August 2, 1790, the population was more than 3.9 million people, including more than 697,000 slaves.
The 2000 Census counted more than 281 million Americans. At this writing the U.S. population is ticking toward 306 million.
This spring Census workers will verify addresses based on the 2000 Census, removing those out of date and adding new ones.
Next year, Census questionnaires will be mailed to those verified addresses.
Census workers will knock on the doors of residences that don’t mail back the questionnaire.
Why is this important?
Start with the $300 billion from taxpayers that is allocated to the states by formulas pegged to Census results.
Then consider that the Census also determines which states will gain or lose seats in Congress (translation: power and influence).
Census Bureau spokeswoman Shelly Lowe says that three-quarters of the agency’s 12 regions are on target to receive the number of applications they need before hiring.
The current economy has expanded the pool of potential applicants.
"The economy is a bad thing, there's no question about that," Census office manager George Gutierrez told the Colorado Springs Independent. "But for us, it's a blessing, kind of," a hesitant sentiment echoed from Census offices around the country.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/01/02/liveblogfinal.copy.jpg]
Want to share your thoughts on the stories we're covering tonight? You're in the right location. Just scroll down and post your comments. This is where you can "chat" with Anderson and Erica during the program.
Want to know what we're covering tonight? Read EVENING BUZZ
Keep in mind, you have a better chance of having your comment get past our moderators if you follow our rules.
Here are some of them:
1) Keep it short (we don't have time to read a "book")
2) Don't write in ALL CAPS (there's no need to yell)
3) Use your real name (first name only is fine)
4) No links
5) Watch your language (keep it G-rated; PG at worst - and that includes $#&*)
We're so tech savvy here at AC360°. At least, we like to think we are these days. So, we've got more goodies for you.
It's floor crew Friday. It's when we let them take over during the commericals. Don't miss them on the webcast. Watch our WEBCAST
And take a look at our live web camera from the 360° studio. Watch the WEBCAM
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/POLITICS/02/06/stimulus/art.collins.interview.cnn.jpg caption="Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, right, is one of the senators responsible for Friday's compromise plan."]
Maureen Miller
AC360° Writer
After a long day of negotiations behind closed doors and intense public debate, the Senate has revamped the stimulus plan and could put it to a vote sometime this weekend. We'll have all the late breaking details from Capitol Hill.
The price tag has dropped to $780 billion, down from $900 billion. We'll break down the changes for you tonight.
The big question: Do the Dems have at least two Republicans on board to get this bill passed? The Democrats now hold 58 seats in the Senate and need 60 votes to win passage.
Senator Ed Kennedy has been absent from Capitol Hill due to his health problems. There's talk of him coming back just to vote on the stimulus bill.
What do you think of that maneuver?
We also have new details on the mother of the octuplets. We learned today that the California Medical Board is investigating her fertility doctor. Were medical standards violated?
Join us for these stories and more starting at 10pm ET.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/US/02/06/octuplets.mom/art.mother.today.jpg]
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The Hutchinson Political Report
In her NBC interview Octuplet mom Nadya Suleman was irked at getting pounded for being a single mother with fourteen kids. Or in her words, "it's not as controversial because they're couples so its more acceptable." She had good reason to be irked, but she should be irked at herself too for doing much to reinforce that stigma. For the past half century single mothers have been ritually dumped on by everyone from liberal sociologists to Christian fundamentalists and even self-promoting gabber Ann Coulter. They are the fall women for every real and perceived malady in society; poverty, crime, drug use, personal profligacy, welfare dependency, bad acting, and even worse performing students, and of course, family breakdown.
As for Coulter, she got hammered for beating up on single mothers in her new book while letting the guys who shove the women into single motherhood skip away scot free. This was more a hit against Coulter than a real defense of single mothers. The perception is just too deeply ingrained that single mothers create babies and problems for a momentary attack on Coulter to change that perception.
Suleman is naive, in denial, or blind to the power of the negative single mom image to think that her pleading for the bashers to knock it off will fall on anything but the tinnest of tin ears. If anything, having eight babies, on top of six, and then hinting that her over....
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/US/01/29/porch.cave/art.nj.cave.cnn.jpg caption="The deepening recession has led to an increase in homelessness across the country. Here, in New Jersey, some people find shelter under the porch of a house."]
Dave Schechter
CNN Senior National Editor
Rev. Andy Bales sees an iceberg ahead and fears how much more lies unseen below the surface.
"I think it's going to get a lot worse."
That iceberg is the surge of homeless people – especially families - seeking shelter nationally and at the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles where Bales is CEO.
"We have to be creative," he says. That means converting one floor of the Mission for use only by families and buying specially-made tents that give mothers, fathers and children some privacy.