Nafzblog -> The Big W Recovery: The nature of unemployment has changed. The percentage of the unemployed who are considered by employers “permanently unemployed” is the highest in history. This combined with a lack of political will for a second stimulus package could be the second V in the “W recovery”. | More

Daily Kos -> Latest Jobless Figures Indicate No Bottom in 2009: You’d have to be a brave soul to bet your mortgage or rent payment on a firm prediction of which month we’ll see net growth in employment. While today’s Labor Department report on unemployment compensation claims shows a continuing downward trend that began last spring, it is increasingly likely the first month of job growth will not take place until 2010. | More

Seattle Times -> Washington in middle of the pack in state and local taxes: Washington ranks 26th highest nationally in state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income, and 32nd highest in property taxes, according to newly released federal data covering Fiscal Year 2007. | More

Tax Policy Center -> The Incredible Shrinking Estate Tax: The estate tax is only a faint shadow of its former self. In 2009, less than one-quarter of one percent of deaths—just 5,500 decedents—will leave taxable estates, the smallest percentage since at least the Great Depression. In part, that tiny fraction reflects the current recession’s devastation of assets—the Fed estimates that the total value of household and nonprofit assets fell by about one-sixth between 2007 and the first quarter of 2009. But changes in estate tax rules over the past decade have played a much larger role than economic swings. | More

MomsRising -> The New Normal: Die Childless At Thirty: A key message of the Shriver report, A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything, is that all parents are employed in two-thirds of American families with children under 18. Men have lost three-fourths of the jobs during the Great Recession, making women’s wage work more important than ever. Our public policy hasn’t caught up. As I have often noted, for women the easiest path to equality is to die childless at thirty. At thirty, women without children have wages nearly as high as men’s. What happens after that? Two different patterns emerge: the glass ceiling and the maternal wall. | More