Unemployment Solution

1181 Words3 Pages

Unemployment Solution

In the state of California, the number of people who are receiving unemployment assistance has increased in the last few years. To help fund this increase, the budgets of many state programs have been reduced. One of the major reduction areas is in the area of state and local parks and public recreation areas. It would be a logical step to combine the people receiving unemployment with the need to maintain public areas, allowing the recipients to earn their assistance.

California currently has the fourth highest unemployment rate in the entire United States. With approximately 8.1% of the working population in the state receiving unemployment ("U.S. bureau of," 2014), this has created a significant impact on the state budget. To allow the state to be able to afford to pay for this substantial increase in unemployment, the budgets relating to the public areas have been reduced or removed. These cuts have caused seventy different state parks to be permanently closed as well as causing a significant reduction of hours and services at the recreation areas that still are open locations. Among the services that have been affected are trash collection in the parks being reduced, park service rangers staffing reduced and hours cut back, as well as park visitor centers open hours being reduced or closed. Major unemployment in neighborhoods reduce the availability of resources. When resources are reduced, some results can be a decrease in employment opportunities, making it more difficult for the individuals who are unemployed to go back to work.

In the case of the unemployed, the American Psychological Association (APA) has published multiple papers showing that the current economy is very stressful to Americans...

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... from http://www.apa.org/about/gr/issues/socioeconomic/

Goldsmith, A., & Diette, T. (2012, April). Exploring the link between unemployment and mental health outcomes. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/indicator/2012/04/

Unemployment Rates for States. (2014, March 17). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/

United States. Federal Works Agency, (1947). Final report on the wpa program, 1935- 43(630025967). Retrieved from U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947 website: http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/ref/collection/isl/id/

U.S. Congress, (1996). Summary of the final welfare agreement, h.r. 3734, the personal responsibility and work opportunity reconciliation act of 1996(H.R.3734). Retrieved from Library of Congress website: http://beta.congress.gov//bill/104th-congress/house- bill/3734/

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