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As for those other weak sectors of the economy, ABC's Betsy Stark took on the labor market, as more than half a million workers filed for jobless benefits in a single week. CBS' Anthony Mason surveyed the real estate market in the Hitting Home series. Renegotiating mortgages to prevent home foreclosures is not working, Mason warned. Even after cutting interest rates and converting to fixed 30-year loans, "after six months more than half the borrowers were behind in their payments once more." Mason publicized the efforts of housing activists at the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America to pressure lenders to forgive principal debt.
ABC's Stark told us that jobless claims in New Jersey are increasing so rapidly that the state government has had to reassign 150 workers from other departments to process them. What are hundreds of thousands getting for a present this Christmas? "What they most dread--a pink slip." The pace of layoffs appears to be accelerating, Stark stated starkly: "We are not at the bottom of this abyss just yet."
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