The country's unemployment level continues to hover around 9.5 percent, while the level in Pennsylvania is a similar 9.3 percent. In our region the rate languishes around 10 percent. Last month, the economy shed 131,000 jobs in a country where 14.6 million people are already looking for work. Factoring in those who have settled for part-time work or who simply have given up, the number of unemployed or underemployed Americans tops 25 million.

Compounding this is a frightening problem looming on the horizon; in the next few months thousands of long-term unemployed citizens will exhaust all of their unemployment benefits.

By the end of the year, nearly 160,000 Pennsylvanians will be ineligible for further help through unemployment benefits. Often referred to as "99ers," these individuals and families have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits totaling up to 99 weeks.

Various analyses of the data indicate that 99ers are often older workers who were members of the middle class.

And the numbers keep growing week by week in our region. From Jan. 1 through July 17, 821 confirmed individuals in Lackawanna County exhausted their unemployment compensation benefits. By the week ending July 24, another 25 residents were added to this list, and by year's end the projected total for our community will be somewhere around 3,013 individuals - over 3,000 of our neighbors who will no longer have an income or receive benefits.

After two years or more without jobs, many of our friends and neighbors are losing a critical safety net at a time when finding work is still incredibly difficult.

Earlier this month, the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits hit the half million mark. This increase in applications for benefits marks the third straight week that the number has risen. In a healthy economy, the number usually drops below 400,000. Right now, they've risen to 500,000.

While our friends and neighbors fear how they will survive without an income, community service agencies are fearing how they'll be able to keep up with the historic upswing in cries for help from the rising numbers of those in dire financial need.

The United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties is currently conducting its annual fundraising campaign amidst these sobering statistics. Individuals who, for many years, reached out to help their neighbors in need through individual or employee payroll contributions are now faced with seeking help of their own. United Way and our partners in the region and across Pennsylvania are mobilizing to assist long-term unemployed Pennsylvanians and explore additional possible solutions and responses, but we need your help in order to move forward in helping those most in need. We are asking those who are in a position to help to support this effort by making a contribution to the United Way.

In the meantime, unemployed Pennsylvanians can visit their local Pennsylvania Careerlink and www.compass.state.pa.us, where they can fill out an application and see immediately what assistance they may be eligible for, such as cash assistance and food stamps through the Department of Public Welfare, reduced and free breakfast and school lunch programs for children through the departments of agriculture and education, and available insurance for low-income families.

It is safe to say that we all know of someone or some family who is struggling with unemployment. This crisis is real and affects all Pennsylvanians. We encourage everyone to celebrate this Labor Day weekend by helping your neighbors who have fallen on hard times and make a donation to the United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties, local emergency clothing and food banks and other organizations that are working for long-term solutions to the needs in their communities. Together we can all make an impact on the lives of our neighbors who are most in need.

An Aug. 4 Times-Tribune editorial suggested that, for the program to be effective, training should be provided to all Scranton officers on a mandatory basis. Neither the philosophy behind CIT, as it has been implemented across the country, nor the evidence of the program's effectiveness supports this assertion.

CIT is a program in which police officers are selected from a pool of volunteers to undergo a rigorous 40-hour course of training, during which they receive detailed information about mental illness, learn advanced de-escalation techniques, and begin to establish relationships with mental health treatment providers, consumers of mental health services and their family members.

CIT officers commit to spending a great deal of time interacting with these segments of the community and participating in educational programs. Data from police departments across the country shows it is highly effective in reducing arrests, increasing referrals for treatment, and, most importantly, decreasing injuries to both consumers and police officers.

The goal of the program is to train enough officers to provide sufficient coverage on each shift, so that when a mental health crisis call is received, a CIT officer can be dispatched to the scene. The ideal number of officers trained in CIT on a police force the size of Scranton's is 25-30 percent. The skills these officers receive during their intensive training are honed each time they respond to a call, and it is through experience that they become experts.

Just as not all police officers are suited to be members of the SWAT team or the canine unit, only those officers who are interested, willing, and meet the selection criteria are appropriate for the crisis intervention team. They are the officers who will be most invested in the program and most effective in establishing the necessary relationships and handling mental health crisis situations.

The CIT model was chosen because, as designed, it is not only highly effective but also cost-efficient. The cost to run the 40-hour training course is approximately $400 per officer, but through extensive fundraising and grant-seeking, Scranton Area CIT is able to offer free training to a select group of officers. If all officers were required to attend, not only would the program's effectiveness be diminished, but the costs of training would have to be assumed by the police department and passed on to the taxpayers.

Certainly, all police officers will come in contact with people with mental illnesses during their careers. All officers should, and do, receive state-mandated training to help them handle these encounters.

Scranton Area CIT looks forward to offering additional mental health-related workshops to all officers to enhance their training. But the intensive training and commitment required of a volunteer CIT officer is a key element to the success of the program. Selectivity is a hallmark of CIT, and the program is so effective precisely because it is voluntary.

On Aug. 14, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. With one pen stroke he laid the foundation of modern American social policy. Today, millions of retirees live in dignity thanks to their monthly Social Security benefit payment. Over the decades, Social Security expanded to not only protect against the risk of poverty in old age, but also the economic risk of career-ending disability and the premature death of a worker.

In his statement at the signing of the Social Security Act, President Roosevelt said, "If the Senate and the House of Representatives in this long and arduous session had done nothing more than pass this Bill, the session would be regarded as historic for all time." I could not agree more.

A little over a quarter century ago, I came to Washington to work on Social Security. Just a few months later, I got a very important lesson on how important Social Security is to families. My own father, who was almost the same age I am today, suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage. He started to recover, and then we got the bad news that he had a fatal form of brain cancer, so we began the process to apply for Social Security disability benefits. That was a very anxious time for my family, and particularly for my mother. We were all very concerned that the health care costs for my father would bankrupt her; it was a great relief when the decision came. That's a lesson that has always stuck with me and why I push very hard as commissioner to try to make sure that we get benefit decisions to claimants as quickly as possible. As we celebrate 75 years, I reflect on how Social Security was there for my family, how proud I am to work for this remarkable program, and how lucky I am to lead such a talented and compassionate work force.

I have two wonderful children who entered the work force in the past year. One is being called up for active military duty in October and the other will teach inner-city children. It is imperative that they and millions of other young Americans have confidence that we will continue to honor the great intergenerational contract that is Social Security. It is in this spirit that President Obama established the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that in December will make recommendations regarding the future of Social Security.

With the 75th anniversary of the Social Security Act upon us, the agency has been revitalized despite the huge workloads caused by higher unemployment. Compared to four years ago, productivity is up, backlogs are down, and an aging IT infrastructure is being replaced with state-of-the-art systems and the best electronic services in the federal government.

I am excited about the next 75 years of Social Security, and you should be too.

Tomorrow, however, that might not be the case. And the sad thing is, many Pennsylvanians aren't aware that something they value, and possibly take for granted, could be snatched away.

And that's their right to be heard, loud and clear, by their local elected leaders.

State lawmakers are preparing to hold hearings on two serious threats to our democratic way of life, House Bill 2431 and Senate Bill 1357, which would radically reshape our commonwealth by snuffing out townships and boroughs.

The most onerous measure, House Bill 2431, is nothing short of a slap in the face to our founding fathers. Proposed by Rep. Thomas Caltagirone of Berks County, the bill would make Pennsylvania's community-based system of governing unconstitutional - unconstitutional! - and replace it with something he says is better: an out-of-sight mega-bureaucracy overseen by the county.

In protest, supervisors in hundreds of townships have rallied and passed resolutions that oppose the bills.

Despite this grass-roots uprising - isn't that what America is all about? - Mr. Caltagirone and his fellow "do-gooders" continue to stand firm on their bigger-is-better platform, a house of cards built on whimsy, not fact, and claim they know what is best for Pennsylvania.

Their argument hinges on the debatable premise that the commonwealth should follow the lead of a handful of other states, bulldoze its patchwork of "inefficient" and "redundant" municipalities, and create a landscape of bigger, supposedly more efficient governments.

But we don't have to look beyond our borders for examples of the bigger-government model.

We've got them right here in Pennsylvania. Look at places like Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Reading and Allentown. They're larger, for sure, but are they more efficient? More responsive? More affordable?

Not by a long shot.

But if you're searching for an example of a better-government model, look no farther than the nearest township. There, you'll find hardworking, fiscally responsible men and women who work together, do more with less, and are frugal with tax dollars. They're also deeply committed to preserving Pennsylvania's long-standing tradition of government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" in an age where big boxes (think Home Depot) rule.

But are big boxes the solution? Maybe for grocery stores and discount retailers, but not for government, where hands-on, within-reach leadership - the vision of William Penn and our nation's founding fathers - still makes as much sense today as it did hundreds of years ago.

Of course, critics will say that township supervisors are protesting the likes of House Bill 2431 because they want to preserve their jobs and power. But self-preservation is not their motivation.

Townships, instead, are determined to protect something they know their residents hold sacred, and that's their fundamental right to govern themselves locally.

Why, I ask, would anyone want it any other way?

His study divided 128 high-risk 3- and 4-year-olds into two groups. One group received a high-quality preschool experience and the other didn't attend preschool. Weikart tracked both groups through age 40, and the results surprised even the researchers.

Sixty-five percent of the group who attended preschool graduated from high school compared with 45 percent of those who didn't receive an early childhood education. By age 40, 76 percent of the preschool graduates were employed compared with 62 percent of the other group, and those with an early childhood education had higher incomes and fewer arrests.

David Weikart didn't set out to challenge common notions about the origins of success in academics and life. But nearly 50 years later, his landmark experiment to determine the value of high-quality preschool programs still resonates.

Over the years, several studies echoed Weikart's results, but in today's state budget climate funding remains vulnerable for early childhood education programs such as Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental. Pennsylvania, however, needs to invest in these programs because they're vital to the future success of our children.

In the last school year, fewer than one in five children who entered Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental had age-appropriate language and literacy skills. After a year, roughly seven in 10 children were at the right levels. When our children meet their potential we all benefit, but when they don't we share the costs.

Each dollar invested in early childhood education generates a return of between $1.80 and $17.07, according to a 2005 analysis by the Rand Corp. Such returns come in the form of less spending on remedial education, lower crime rates and in the development of healthy, productive, taxpaying adults.

And with so many citizens set to retire in our region, we need a new generation of productive citizens and an educational system that attracts families to our area to support long-term growth. Across our 13 counties in northeast and north-central Pennsylvania, nearly one in four residents is age 60 or older, and in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro area alone almost half of all residents are 45 or older.

At the same time, thousands of local children depend on Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental. During the 2009-10 school year, 2,215 children used the programs in Northeast Pennsylvania's 13 counties, according to state data. Nearly 900 came from Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.

Given the needs of our region's children, the Blue Ribbon Foundation of Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania is investing in a healthy future for young children by funding programs providing developmental screenings, medical tests, nutritional support and fitness and safety initiatives.

But helping these children reach their full potential will require broad support for early childhood health and education programs, especially when the need is so great locally. More than four in 10 children younger than age 5 live beneath the poverty line in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties. And studies have shown the children at greatest risk of falling behind and never catching up are those facing socio-economic challenges.

When David Weikart began his research in the early 1960s, preschool was a radical concept. Children were thought to be born with a fixed intellectual potential and an inability to learn so young. Today we know that, as one American Public Media report regarding Weikart's research put it, "People are born ready to learn, but what they learn depends a lot on the opportunities they have to learn it."

Carbondale, like so many places, celebrated. I went with my father, the late John Linnen, to a party at the Albert H. Crane American Legion Post. It was the eve of my 13th birthday. Peace meant my brother, Tom, would return from military service. For service men and women who would never return, and their families, we paused and prayed that night.

The war years involved sacrifices and shared experiences. Nobody who didn't live then can fully appreciate it. There was palpable patriotism and a can-do spirit. People took tin cans and old newspapers to collection points for recycling in the war effort. Folks gave up daily conveniences under strict rationing. They bought war savings bonds in campaigns trumpeted by movie stars.

Another vivid memory was hearing wailing sirens and seeing drawn black window shades in mock air raids. A sense that "it can't happen here" mixed with fears it might.

In 2001, it happened here: in Pennsylvania, New York City and Virginia when 9-11 terrorists struck. The country is in wars winding down in Iraq and ramping up in Afghanistan. There is nothing like the urgency and unity in World War II. Now war is fought and sacrifices made by the regular military and volunteers and their families. Some people ask "why and for what?" Others pay no attention.

President Kennedy, who saw World War II combat, cited the "clear and present danger" of Communism's threat to freedom in the 1960s:

"We are opposed around the world by a monolithic conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means . . . on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerillas by night instead of armies by day."

Al-Qaida's "guerillas" are today's enemies at the gate. To ignore it is to forget 9/11 and more than 3,000 dead on U. S. soil. Like Hitler's fanatics in the 1940s, al-Qaida seeks nuclear weapons to reap more havoc and restrict freedom. It should cause us to pay more attention on this 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.

What's so important about hope? Just about everything. Post-colonial nations are all-too-often left with an insidious legacy of autocratic rule and indigenous leaders generally take up the governance style of their colonial predecessors: disregarding the rule of law and term limits if they exist, rigging elections and discouraging civic participation by inciting ethnic divisiveness and imposing a culture of almost impenetrable corruption to discourage citizenship by keeping individuals "in their place" as helpless subjects, without rights and responsibilities - and without hope.

The people in Rwanda and Kenya have spoken in overwhelming numbers to move on from that legacy and create a new era of progressive, prosperous, participatory governance. They could not have done it without a new wave of hope - seeing a window of opportunity in the referendum on a new constitution in Kenya and in reelecting Paul Kagame to the presidency in Rwanda. People in both countries have gained courage and resolve through the years, and are developing the increasingly strong civic culture that is the best and arguably the only effective weapon against tyranny. They are, in short, saying "Yes We Can!"

I had the privilege of witnessing these events firsthand and "inhaling" the spirit of hope - a hope that breeds a sense of power that defies the colonial legacy and the post-colonial generation of leadership that bought into it. They have gotten on that road to democracy - a road that definitely goes somewhere but never gets there - because democracy is always a work in progress. The belief that it has a final destination is the kind of wrong-minded idealism that breeds paralysis - the perfectionism that discourages civic progressive action.

Negative views at home and abroad might have stood in the way of the Kagame re-election in Rwanda. But Rwandans have found in him a leader who has actively encouraged them to choose their future, both economically and politically, providing training in entrepreneurship and civic initiatives, who has more women than men in his parliament and who has been intolerant of corruption, ethnic divisiveness and environmental abuse. In Kenya, too, there is ample reason for skepticism, notwithstanding the resounding support for the new constitution, as there is a level of corruption there, in both the public and private sectors that creates an enormous obstacle to progress.

When we Americans look with admiration at our own remarkably forward-thinking founders, we recall that several of them were slave owners. Of course that was wrong - and they knew it was wrong; but they also realized that they would not get the support necessary to launch a nation committed to liberty and justice for all if they included the slavery issue in the Constitution. And so they designed a system that would, albeit belatedly, abolish slavery and provide rights to many of those who were not included in the original definition of "We the People." They did not, in the words of Voltaire, let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Steps forward in any nation are not panaceas. There are none. But, they are necessary. Without hope, without belief in themselves, without trust in their capacity to shape their future, Rwandans and Kenyans would not have taken these important steps forward last week. I applaud them.

The stadium authority owns a professional baseball franchise. An owner has six rights:

- Baseball Game Right - to put players on the field to play other teams in the Triple-A calibre International League.

- Player Acquisition Right - to sign a contract with a major league club to use players to play other IL teams.

- Business Rights - to sell tickets, advertising, the stadium name, concessions and the right to keep profits each year.

The above rights are collectively called the management rights.

-  Disposal Rights - to sell the franchise.

- Appreciation Rights - to retain the proceeds of the sale of the franchise.

- Relocation Rights - to relocate the franchise to another community, which by definition, leaves the community with an empty stadium.

These rights are set forth in the collective bargaining agreement (Professional Baseball Agreement) and apply to all owners of major league clubs and all owners of minor league franchises.

The commissioners want the stadium authority to sell all these rights - including the relocation rights - to the New York Yankees in order to provide funds to renovate the stadium. They say the Yankees will sign a 20-to-30-year contract to keep the franchise here. Even if true, the Yankees are contractually bound by the Professional Baseball Agreement, which prohibits the Yankees from promising to provide players to the minor league franchise beyond 2014 - even if the Yankees own the franchise.

After that date, the Yankees could sell their share of the franchise to its business partner Mandalay, and the Yankees could provide players to a franchise owner in a different city. At the end of the lease term (or earlier if the stadium authority breaches the lease) Mandalay could relocate the franchise to another community - leaving an empty stadium.

How can the community protect itself? Sell only the management rights for the long term to the Yankees, or some other private-sector business owners, for a lump-sum, up-front fee. Take that fee and use it for stadium improvements or as the local match for the proposed state grant.

But first, the stadium authority must file a federal lawsuit to invalidate the agreement that gives SWB Yankees LLC (owned by the New York Yankees and Mandalay) the right to buy the franchise rights.

The agreement can be voided because the Yankees in 2006 insisted that the stadium authority hire the Yankees' management company as a condition of providing players to the franchise. That agreement, which included the option to buy the franchise, is an apparent violation of the Professional Baseball Agreement and federal antitrust laws, which both prohibit a tying arrangement - conditioning the purchase of one product/service upon the purchase of another.

Attorney Eric Cramer of Philadelphia is an antitrust litigation attorney. His firm has offered to file a lawsuit on behalf of the stadium authority against SWB Yankees LLC, at no cost to the authority. He has provided a research memorandum outlining the case to the authority. He has stated that his firm is "optimistic for our chances of success."

He and I see the wrong that has been perpetrated on this community and, just as you, he wants to be a part of righting that wrong. I have committed to chair a fundraising campaign to pay the legal fees and costs. Sufficient funds have been raised to commence the action.

Because contract and antitrust claims must be filed within four years of the wrong, he must file the claims by mid-September.

This legal action will not prevent the commissioners from seeking the proposed state grant because the Department of Community and Economic Development has indicated that the county has the legal capacity to initiate a short-term borrowing, which could be immediately repaid from the proceeds of the sale of managing rights.

Once the lawsuit is filed, the commissioners of Lackawanna and Luzerne counties and the authority should use an open forum to develop a plan to protect the interests of the taxpayers of both counties - and the community - from this occurring again.

I urge the authority to hire Mr. Cramer and I urge the community, including the commissioners of both counties, to be supportive of the authority's efforts.

For folks in Northeast Pennsylvania, that honor went to the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, which originally connected Scranton to points north and east, and was known as "the most developed railroad in America." Today, that rail yard is the site of Steamtown National Historic Site, and home to one of the best railroad museums in the world.

Though it may have a first-rate museum to chronicle its extraordinary past, it's the future of Pennsylvania's railroads that has folks across the region excited today - using words like "rebirth" and "renaissance" to describe the return of one of the great American industries of the last century. To what do we owe the emergence of this new vocabulary? It's called the Marcellus Shale - and done right, it could be one of the greatest economic opportunities this area has ever seen.

Thanks to the safe and steady development of natural gas from Pennsylvania's portion of the Marcellus, the rail industry is experiencing growth in the area for the first time in decades. Did you see the news last month about the $500,000 upgrade to the rail yard in Carbondale? It's a site that had previously laid dormant for 25 years. How about the announcement of four new 3,000-horsepower locomotives added to the tracks in Williamsport? It's all related to natural gas.

And if the geologists are right, we may be sitting atop one of the largest natural gas fields anywhere - holding as much as 516 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. If accurate, that would make the Marcellus the second-largest natural gas field in the entire world behind one in Iran.

But here's the best thing about natural gas: The more of it you have, the more affordable it becomes. In May, UGI Penn Natural Gas told its customers to expect a double-digit decrease in natural gas rates this fall, with a spokesman attributing the price reduction in part to new natural gas supplies from the Marcellus Shale. "Shale gas will fundamentally change the market," the spokesman said. "Some say we are entering an era of price stability."

Of course, all of this means more and better jobs for a state that can certainly use an economic boost. According to a report from Penn State, the responsible development of the Marcellus Shale could yield more than 211,000 new jobs by 2020 - jobs that will be filled not only by those who drill the wells, but by those who drive the trucks and manufacture the pipe, and also by accountants, scientists, chefs and engineers. It's part of phenomenon that folks have started to call the "Marcellus Multiplier" - for every $1 that Marcellus producers spend in the state, $1.90 of total economic output is generated. With nearly 600,000 Pennsylvanians currently out of work, has there ever been a time when this investment was needed more?

Ultimately, the extent to which these opportunities will be realized will depend on whether we can put in place a tax, legislative and regulatory framework that keeps Pennsylvania ahead of the curve in attracting the investment needed to economically develop the Marcellus. It will also require a renewed effort by industry to do a better job of communicating the tremendous benefits of this work - while responding in an honest and straightforward way to any concerns folks may have on the continued protection of their air, water and surrounding environment.

It's a conversation I'm really looking forward to being part of - as a lifelong Pennsylvanian and as a mother of two children whom I hope will have the same opportunity as I did to find a job, raise a family and be part of a great community without having to leave the commonwealth to do it. For that to happen, we'll need an economy that's strong and getting stronger. With the help of the Marcellus Shale, we're back "on track" to get there.