Property taxes and medical costs will always be ridiculously high, a family of 4 is lucky to find healthcare coverage for something under $1500 a month.
The unemployment RATE is from the houshold survey. The actual number of people receiving first time benefits is as reported by each state. If more people get discouraged and give up looking for a job, it reduces the RATE since they are non longer counted as being in the labor pool. The rate could go back up even in an improving econmy as some of those people start looking for work again. I've given up trying to judge whether the reports are "good" or "bad". I just go with the flow.
I used to think US can pull that off, they really can't, it's just too risky, because iranians are as crazy as americans, and are just as much likely to pull off some random ass shit as americans, also iran has gained much popularity in recent years, because many people around the world see iran as a brave country which has taught the people of the world to stand up for their rights against the bully america for example look at turkey, a supposed US ally and a strategic country in the region, one that connects europe to asia and borders iran, in the last few years the amount of hatred towards america has multiplied more than ten folds in that country, and after what happened just last week I am sure even those turks who didn't hate america now hate it, yet on the other hand they have built stronger ties with iran, what do you think the chances of them letting US use their military bases for attacking iran are? I'm surprised they didn't ask US to remove all their military bases from Turkey after what just happened recently america is losing on many fronts, and I'm not surprised, the level of stupidity in this country in just mind boggling, a multi trillion dollar war machine that performed so shitty in iraq, is just that, a shitty war machine also not to forget, iran is a proxy state, a weird one, a proxy state that has it's own proxy state, a proxy state that is self funded by it's own resources, how could you and why would you let some other country just come in and take such a perfect proxy state?! imagine, if you had 4 proxy states like iran you could take down any country just by exhausting it's time and resources on random ass shit
I think US should emulate FLEXICURITY model of Scandinavian Nations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity
Just from my own personal experience and observing thoe around me, the number appears to be closer to 50%. For example: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411562_salzman_Science.pdf Page 35. Only 33% of graduates from STEM programs actually work in STEM occupations, and of the working population 66% are working in STEM. Hence, unemployment = 50% for people in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Manufacturing. (which explains why engineering and IT jobs get hundreds of resumes for each opening, yet for some reason, our treasonous politicians continue to allow the importation of hundreds of thousands of foreign workers every year!) Folks, people who are trained in STEM are the proverbial 'cream of the crop' of the workforce. If they can't get jobs, then imagine how much worse it is for everyone else! It should be the goal of government to ensure that not a single person with good STEM skills goes unemployed, because these people literally, over the long run, make or break the lifestyle and standard of living of Americans.