Jobs-Creation Bill Talks "Poultry" More Than "Unemployment"

Often you can gain a sense of what's important in a document by looking at the frequency of the words used. This is the foundation of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how search engines, like Google, determine what a document is really about. The Senate is wrangling over yet another bill often called The Jobs Creation Bill. The actual short title of the bill is "Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act." The currently posted Senate Finance Committee version can be found here: http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202010/021010%20HIREACT%20draft.pdf

The bill contains the word 'jobs' once, 'unemployed' seven times, the 'unemployment insurance' six times and 'unemployment compensation' once and 'poultry' fifteen times. You read that correctly, fifteen times.

The bill provides $75 million for banks who have lost money financing factory farm poultry producers. Since handing money directly to banks isn't popular right now, the money will be distributed as interest free loans to the poultry producers who owe money as a result of "a poultry integrator that filed proceedings under chapter 11 of title 11, United States Code, in United States Bankruptcy Court during the 30-day period beginning on December 1, 2008." To qualify for the interest free loan, the poultry producers must to show that the contract of the poultry producer was not continued; and no similar contract has been awarded subsequently. In other words, they have to prove that they don't have any work in order to qualify for the loan. But that's okay, since the loans can only be used to pay off debts.

In case your wondering why December 2008 was such a significant month for poultry slaughter houses, Pilgrim's Pride, the largest poultry processor in the US just happened to have filed for Chapter 11 that month.

"Pilgrim's, which produces 25% of U.S. broilers, suffered a triple whammy of large debt, high feed prices and lower prices for chicken amid weakening demand in the U.S. and abroad.

"Pilgrim's Pride stretched and got caught," says Len Steiner, owner of meat and food consulting firm Steiner Consulting.com.

While other producers are in stronger financial shape, the hangover from high feed costs and weak demand is affecting all producers, he says."

Texas based Pilgrim's Pride may sound familiar to some, in April 2008 "Federal authorities carried out [raids] arresting hundreds of workers at Pilgrim's Pride chicken plants on charges of identity theft, document fraud and immigration violations." In Jan of this year, they agreed to pay $4.5 million to have the investigation dropped without civil or criminal charges. In Jan of this year, Pilgrim's Pride also agreed to pay back wages of "approximately $1 million to the Department of Labor; the federal government will distribute those funds as overtime compensation to approximately 800 current and former employees of the company's Dallas facility.".