States Hope Stimulus Will Boost Sagging Local Economies

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• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  That stimulus bill is being studied intently by state officials who hope the economic jump-start will bring relief. For a read on what different states expect, we asked four journalists who follow the economy to join us again.

  Kathy Kristof is a syndicated personal business columnist in Los Angeles. The latest figures show California has a 9.3 percent unemployment rate. Last year at this time, it was 5.9 percent.

  Keith Reed is the editor of Catalyst Ohio magazine and writes on financial issues. Statewide, Ohio is at 7.8 percent unemployment, near the national average. That's a jump from 5.8 percent the previous December.

  Shirley Leung is a business editor at the Boston Globe. Massachusetts has a 6.9 percent unemployment rate, up from 4.3 percent a year ago.

  And Doug Smith writes on the economy for the Charlotte Observer. Statewide, unemployment in North Carolina is 8.7 percent. That's up 4 percentage points from the same time last year.

  Thank you, all four of you, for joining us.

  And, Kathy Kristof, let's start in the west with you. Your situation in California is among the most difficult, high home foreclosure rates, high unemployment, a budget crisis. What is California looking for — first of all, what does California need? And what is it going to get from this stimulus bill?

  KATHY KRISTOF, Personal Finance columnist: Well, California is looking for a miracle. We're probably not going to get that, but we're going to get some aid.

  We're going to get a high-speed rail project, which will be important. We get some help in education, in health care, in clean energy. All of these are very important to our state.

  And also, extremely importantly, we're extending unemployment benefits, which for a state with a 9.3 percent unemployment rate is huge, and providing some subsidies for COBRA insurance, which, again, is huge. And Medicaid. So all of these are very big-ticket items to the state.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  COBRA insurance, of course, a reference to medical costs.

  Keith Reed, let's move east to Ohio, unemployment there 7.8 percent. Take us inside your situation. What are the needs and what are you in Ohio looking for from the stimulus bill?

• KEITH REED, Catalyst Ohio:

  Well, just like in California, we have many, many needs here in Ohio. You said that we've got a relatively high unemployment rate. Many parts of the state are suffering because of job losses. DHL laid off almost an entire town in the southern part of Ohio just about a month-and-a-half ago.

  We need help with unemployment. We need some help with health insurance. We need help, particularly in the northern part of the state, with foreclosures here in the Cleveland area, where I am right now. We've got a strong number, many foreclosures. The housing market has completely, entirely tanked.

  If you talk to some real estate agents around here, they will tell you that on Sundays, when they have open houses, very few people are coming through. There are many houses that are underwater people — for people who are living in them and still making their payments on time, they're paying for houses that haven't for quite some time been worth what they're actually paying or worth the value of the loan that they still owe.

  So Ohio has a great many needs. There are also infrastructure needs here in Ohio. Just to the south, again, outside Cincinnati, there was a bridge on Interstate 275 that needed major repair at the end of last year. There's a bridge here that leads into the Cleveland area that needs — leads into downtown Cleveland, in fact, that needs repair.

  These things have been happening as the state can afford to fix them, but not really a massive, comprehensive overhaul of the state's transportation and infrastructure network. All of these things are needs. And, of course, they all come at the same time that the state has a massive budget shortfall.

  So you've got unemployment. You've got infrastructure. You've got housing. You've got all these things happening at the same time, many needs that the state has right here in Ohio right now.