By Nailah Ellis Timberlake

When Corinne Rivers graduated from college and got a full scholarship to law school, she thought she had it made. "I graduated debt free," she said. "Who could ask for anything else?"

Little did Corinne know that she she'd eventually have to ask for help finding a job.

In 2008, Corinne graduated from Rutgers School of Law, passed the Bar Exam and was sworn in as an attorney in both New Jersey and New York. Corinne immediately began looking for jobs in litigation, but came up empty. "Being unemployed has affected my ego a bit," she said. "No one expects someone with two degrees not to find employment."

Especially someone like Corinne. In law school, she was the was associate editor and research editor for the Rutgers Race Law Review. After graduation, she served for a year as a judicial law clerk for the now retired New Jersey Superior Court Judge Frances L. Antonin. "Career services at the law school referred me to their online site for job listings. They never prepared me to deal with a job search in a tough economic environment," she said.

She's not the only lawyer looking for a job and many experts believe this is as bad as it's ever been for attorneys looking for work. According to the National Law Journal's annual survey of the nation's 250 largest law firms, the number of attorneys in the private sector dropped 4% in 2009 – only the third time the lawyer count has dropped since 1978. "It shows the impact of the recession and how business is down for law firms," says the Journal's associate editor, Leigh Jones.

FULL POST

By Christine Romans

The president today will sign an extension in unemployment benefits. Nationwide, it will be 14 more weeks for the jobless.

If you recently ran out of benefits, you can reapply for the extension. If you live in a high-unemployment state, with a jobless rate above 8.5%, you are eligible for 20 more weeks of jobless checks.

Many of you have asked if your state qualifies for 14 or 20 more weeks. Here are those high-unemployment states:

AL, AZ, CA, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KY, ME, MA, MI, MO, MS, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, WA, WV. Also, Washington, D.C.

Excerpted from It’s Your Time: Activate Your Faith, Achieve Your Dreams, and Increase in God’s Favor by Joel Osteen. Copyright © 2009 by Joel Osteen. Excerpted with permission by Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

From It's Your Time
By Joel Osteen

Chapter 1

You’re Closer Than You Think!

While on vacation in Colorado, I woke up early for a hike. The three-mile trail ran to the peak of Beaver Creek Mountain. At the
base a sign said it should take about three hours to reach the top.

Looking up to my destination, I was intimidated. The trail was extremely steep. The altitude at the base was 8,000 feet above sea level. The peak stood at more than 11,000 feet.

Just walking up the first set of stairs, I began breathing heavier than normal. I had to remind myself to take it easy. At home in Houston,
I run several miles a few times a week and play a lot of basketball. But the elevation there is only fifty feet above sea level. The thinner
air in the Colorado mountains had me doubting whether I could make it to the top.

I started out with just my cell phone and a bottle of water. Determined, I set a pretty good pace. The first fifteen minutes seemed fairly easy. The next fifteen minutes were increasingly difficult. I felt as though I were carrying an extra load. I had to stop every so often to catch my breath.

About forty-five minutes into my hike, the trail got extremely steep—almost like I was climbing straight up. My pathway snaked skyward through thick stands of aspen and ponderosa pine. The view was both beautiful and daunting. Despite the fact I am in shape from running and playing basketball, my legs were burning
and my chest was pounding.

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By Christine Romans

There is nothing more political, and fuzzy, than the math surrounding the massive $787 billion stimulus package. The administration says 640,000 jobs have been saved or created by the stimulus. That's based on $159 billion in contracts to states for roadwork, bridges, and to keep teachers in the classroom.

Using very simple math, that means taxpayers have spent about $248 thousand per job the White House says were saved or created.

$159,000,000,000 spending ÷ 640,329 jobs saved/created = $248,309 per job

Critics of the stimulus will say it shows taxpayers are getting a raw deal.

But like everything surrounding this stimulus, it is not as simple as that. And a White House economist told ABC such math is quote "calculator abuse."

Why? These are just jobs created to date. These projects will keep creating more jobs, so this cost per job number will only go down over time. The money obviously is not simply down the drain – it's creating economic activity and reflects wages, but also, supplies that are ordered, and materials manufactured, equipment rental, etc.

Still, there is an obsession with quantifying the cost to taxpayers of these jobs.

The White House has its own formula for that.

Government spending $92,136 per job-year
Tax cuts $145,351 per job-year
State fiscal relief $116,603 per job-year
Source: White House

Once the stimulus is fully deployed and working, taxpayers will have spent $92,000 per job.

You can read more of the White House Council of Economic Advisers’ math here.

All the subsequent job and cost counting is as much politics as mathematics. Supporters of the stimulus want to highlight new and saved jobs. They will say the economy is now growing again because of the stimulus spending. Opponents will say it costs too much, there is too much waste, and our grandchildren will pay for it later.

We may never know exactly how many jobs have been created or how long they will last. We will never have a list of three to four million American names who have benefited from the stimulus. But what is certain? I can tell you that $787 billion will be spent over the next two years, and political bickering over its effectiveness has just begun.