Around 450,000 people who work for U.S. states, counties, cities, towns and villages could get pink slips in fiscal 2012, sharply up from the 300,000 positions shed this year, a report said on Monday. The number of job cuts will rise mainly because the federal stimulus program is ending while the cost of Medicaid is "spiraling," said the report by UBS Investment Research. States got billions of extra dollars primarily for education and Medicaid from the stimulus plan. Medicaid is the state-federal health plan for the poor and disabled. Maury Harris, a UBS economist, on a conference call said the deficits states and municipalities will have to close will climb to $155 billion in fiscal 2012 from about $108 billion in the current fiscal year. Most states and municipalities begin new fiscal years on July 1.
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