Unemployment in CT continues to climb

Wethersfield (WTNH) - Unemployment continues to climb in Connecticut despite news that the recession is coming to an end.

The unemployment rate jumped from 8.1 percent to 8.4 percent, but in many Connecticut cities, that rate is nearly double.

Read the Department of Labor jobs report.

Many Connecticut residents, like 55 year old Charles McGee of Waterbury, have been out of work so long that they're running out of unemployment benefits.

"There doesn't seem to be any work, any place, you know, union or non-union, it's really, really, really bad," McGee said.

Fifty-seven year old Dave Phillips of Torrington is in the same boat. Like Charles, his unemployment checks will stop soon.

"There's nothing out there for me. Seems like everybody (says) I make too much money or I have made too much money in the past and they don't want to hire me. There just ain't enough work out there for all the construction workers," Phillips said.

Connecticut is one of 22 states that don't qualify for extended unemployment benefits because our official state unemployment rate is not 8.5 percent or higher. Senator Chris Dodd, who recently toured one of the state's two jobs centers, helped to negotiate a bill to extend benefits to people in states like Connecticut. But like so many other issues, it is now bogged down in political bickering between the two parties in Washington.