The state Senate has approved a bill to refinance the Pennsylvania unemployment compensation fund's $3 billion debt to the federal government a move supporters say would save employers tens of millions of dollars over years.

Severance payments and benefits have been drawn down for at least 1,600 laid-off state government and education workers since July, North Carolina's state budget office said Wednesday. It again raises questions about the extent of layoffs caused by the Republican-penned budget.

The Republican caucuses of Alabama's House and Senate have endorsed a package of bills designed to lower the state's nearly 10 percent unemployment rate by addressing everything from tax incentives offered to new industries to the hiring veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Americans are more likely than ever to reach age 90.

Increasingly gripped by stalemate, Republicans and Democrats on a congressional deficit-reduction supercommittee now seem to be devoting more time to assigning blame than working through the sharp differences that divide them.

Ohio's largest state employee union reached a tentative deal with state officials on Wednesday to extend its current contract until 2015, the first bargaining agreement following the defeat of the state's contentious union law.

A fight over public pensions in Rhode Island is about to come to a head in the Legislature, with lawmakers scheduled to vote Thursday on a landmark overhaul that has angered public-sector workers in this tiny and economically troubled state.

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level since early April, a sign that layoffs are easing and hiring may pick up.