theodp writes: Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson had an odd way of showing his appreciation for the unemployed computer programmer who pointed out a vulnerability in Arkansas’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance website, framing the programmer’s actions as illegal. The Arkansas Times’ Lindsey Millar explains: “Beginning on Saturday at a news conference and continuing Monday, Hutchinson has framed the applicant who sounded the alarm…
Tag: Unemployment
Is Support Now Growing for a Universal Basic Income?
Economist Tyler Cowen and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov (now the chairman of the nonprofit Renew Democracy Initiative) co-authored an opinion piece this week in Bloomberg arguing that “a pandemic is providing a tragic preview of some of the conditions UBI was conceived to address.” Though they worry about the cost of such a program, “And, though there are some…
Andrew Yang’s Nonprofit Helps Fund Five-Year, $500-a-Month Basic Income Experiment
Working with the city of Hudson, New York and a local career center, Andrew Yang’s nonprofit, Humanity Forward will be giving 20 people a basic income of $500 a month for five years, in a collaboration called HudsonUP. Business Insider reports:
A spokesperson for HudsonUP said the 20 residents will be selected later in 2020, likely in the fall, and will begin…
Programmer Discovers Unprotected Access to State’s Jobless Claims Portal’s Admin Mode
Long-time Slashdot reader bbsguru shares a story from the alternative newsweekly the Arkansas Times. “A computer programmer applying for unemployment on Arkansas’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program discovered a vulnerability in the system that exposed the Social Security numbers, bank account and routing numbers and other sensitive information of some 30,000 applicants. “Anyone with basic computer knowledge could have accessed personal information…
Covid-19 news: 36 million US citizens have filed for unemployment
The latest coronavirus news updated every day including coronavirus cases, the latest news, features and interviews from New Scientist and essential information about the covid-19 pandemic Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237475-covid-19-news-36-million-us-citizens-have-filed-for-unemployment/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Ohio Stops Kicking Workers Off Unemployment After Hacker Targets Its Website
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The state of Ohio won’t deny unemployment benefits to people who refuse to work during the COVID-19 pandemic after people targeted the website it was using to track these workers, according to officials at the state’s Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS). The state previously set up a “fraud” website encouraging employers…
2020 Coursera Virtual Conference: Reflections and Resources
By the Coursera Conference Team The Coursera Conference is an opportunity for our global community to engage around innovative teaching and learning experiences. This year, after careful consideration for the growing concerns surrounding the spread of COVID-19, the Coursera Conference transitioned from a two day, in-person event to a free, fully virtual experience focused on […]
The post 2020 Coursera Virtual Conference:…
Will the Pandemic Finally Kill Cable TV?
In just the first three months of 2020, cable broadcasting’s so-called “Pay TV” services have already lost 1.7 million paying subscribers, reports Variety:
Comparing the losses against Q1 2019 paints a grim picture for most providers, but especially for AT&T, who lost a massive 3.6 million video customers in a year. Comcast has the second highest losses, down by 900k, with Dish…
US Unemployment Rate Soars To 14.7%, the Worst Since the Depression Era
The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 14.7 percent in April, the highest level since the Great Depression, as many businesses shut down or severely curtailed operations to try and limit the spread of the deadly coronavirus. From a report: The Labor Department said 20.5 million people abruptly lost their jobs, wiping out a decade of employment gains in a single month….
Finland’s 2-Year Test of Universal Basic Income Concludes that it Doesn’t Seem To Disincentivise Working and Benefits Recipients’ Mental and Financial Wellbeing
The world’s most robust study of universal basic income has concluded that it boosts recipients’ mental and financial well-being, as well as modestly improving employment. From a report: Finland ran a two-year universal basic income study in 2017 and 2018, during which the government gave 2000 unemployed people aged between 25 and 58 monthly payments with no strings attached. The payments…