May 14th, 2010 by Reed Allmand 
The Labor Department announced that initial unemployment insurance claims increased by 18,000 in the first week of April to a seasonally adjusted 460,000 unemployment insurance claims. That’s worse than analysts had hoped for, which was a drop in unemployment insurance claims to 435,000.
The figures underscore that the job market remains weak even as the economy recovers. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that high unemployment is one of the toughest challenges the economy faces.
While layoffs have slowed, hiring is “very weak,” he said. “We are far from being out of the woods. Many Americans are still grappling with unemployment or foreclosure or both.”
Bernanke’s assessment of the situation is an understatement. We have a dire situation on our hands with over 5 million Americans remaining unemployed and those are only the ones receiving unemployment benefits. What will happen if we are unable to rectify our long-term unemployment crisis? We will continue to experience a rise in foreclosures as people run out of income and savings and are unable to maintain their mortgage payments. But the foreclosure crisis won’t remain confined to homeowner; it will impact and has already impacted the rental markets where the price of rentals fallen. That may sound good for renters but it doesn’t bode well for rental property owners forced to drop rents to unsustainable levels and jeopardize their ability to pay their mortgage. This is currently happening in the residential and commercial rental markets where owners are forced to lower rents and eventually succumb to foreclosure.
About Reed Allmand
Allmand's vision is rooted in his own financially precarious childhood in Abilene "My father always had difficulty holding a job and supporting our family, so after my parents divorced when I was 12, my sister and I got jobs to help make ends meet," he recalls. "I remember what it felt like as a child to worry that our car would be repossessed or home foreclosed on."
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