Jobless Aid in Crisis « Main Street

Jobless Aid in Crisis

Yesterday, millions of unemployed Americans lost their federal health insurance subsidies. Next month, a million or more could lose their unemployment insurance benefits.

At a time when long-term joblessness is at record levels, and with more than 15 million Americans unemployed, the safety net of benefits that helps sustain those out of work is fraying and disintegrating.

In a piece tucked away in the health care column of today’s New York Times Katherine Seelye reports Millions of Jobless Lose Insurance Aid:

The changes that the health care bills in Congress envision are years away — not soon enough to help the millions of unemployed people who, on Monday, lost their temporary federal subsidies for health insurance.

The subsidies, which Congress approved earlier this year under the economic stimulus package, expired Monday for the first wave of recipients. The package provided $25 billion in temporary financial help for unemployed people who were still on their employers’ insurance plans under the decades-old Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, popularly known as Cobra.
The subsidies were intended to allow an estimated seven million people who lost their jobs from September 2008 to December 2009 to help keep that insurance for up to nine months starting in March; normally they would have to pay the full premiums, but the subsidies covered 65 percent of that cost.

Some Democrats have introduced legislation outside of the health care bills to extend the Cobra subsidies a few months and even increase them. The subject may come up as part of a new jobs bill in the near future, but nothing has been approved so far.

Even with a Congressional renewal of the program, millions would still face losing both the subsidies and their COBRA eligibility entirely. As currently constructed COBRA eligibility itself runs out after 18 months. Clearly, the epidemic of long-term unemployment is exacerbating the health care crisis, swelling the ranks of the uninsured.

Now, without further Congressional action, unemployment insurance benefits will also run out in January for another 1 million jobless workers. According to a report by the National Employment Law Project:

one million workers will become ineligible for unemployment benefits in January 2010 unless Congress reauthorizes the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s unemployment insurance programs by the end of December. The critical benefits provided to jobless workers by the ARRA are set to expire at the end of the year, which means that even with the latest 14 to 20 week extension enacted in November, 30,000 workers a day will be left without any jobless benefits in January. By March, the number without federal jobless benefits will swell to nearly three million workers.

Weren’t unemployment benefits just recently extended? Well, yes; and no. As The New York Times reported:

The record extension of emergency benefits that was signed into law on Nov. 6 was widely praised as a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of Americans who had spent a year or more in fruitless searches for jobs.

But many legislators, state aid officials and struggling workers apparently failed to read the fine print. The added federal benefits were built on a series of previous extensions that are slated to end on Dec. 31, unless Congress renews these programs. People who lost their jobs after July 1 of this year, for example, would receive no federal extensions once their customary six months of state aid ran out.

While discussions have started, Congress is not yet considering a specific proposal. And unless it acts before the Christmas break, officials warn, the extensions will end.

An earlier ‘Main Street’ post today by Laura Clawson includes an urgent Congressional call to action.

Swift and decisive action is needed from the Administration and the Congress to address the urgent jobless aid crisis.