A Call for Congress to Act on Jobless Benefits
Last week we reported on the crisis facing state and federal jobless aid and unemployed health insurance benefits.
On Monday, according to The New York Times, a group of state labor officials were joined by labor, civil rights and unemployed advocacy groups in A Plea to Congress on Jobless Benefits.
State labor officials and worker advocates on Monday appealed for quick Congressional action to extend emergency unemployment benefits and to renew health insurance subsidies for the long-term jobless.
Prolonged unemployment insurance, passed this year in the stimulus act, expires this month, and officials estimate that more than one million workers will see benefits end in January if Congress does not act.
The health subsidies, under which the federal government pays 65 percent of insurance costs under Cobra for up to nine months, have already expired and are not available to the newly unemployed, who will have to pay family premiums averaging $1,100 if they want to keep their existing health plans.
Renewal this month of both forms of aid is “a moral imperative,” Sandi Vito, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, said at a news conference here on Monday. Ms. Vito, who was joined by senior labor officials from seven other states, said the extensions were needed “through at least the end of 2010 as a bridge for people.”
The National Employment Law Project, or NELP
estimates that in January alone over 1million workers will lose access to federal jobless benefits.
This number includes nearly 466,000 workers who were laid off in July 2009 and will exhaust their 26 weeks of state benefits without qualifying for any additional federal assistance. Because the ARRA expires, they will not be able to access the next stages of unemployment assistance—the temporary EUC extension program or the permanent program of Extended Benefits.
In addition nearly 570,000 workers who have already moved from state to federal benefits will not be eligible to continue receiving EUC past their current “tier” of benefits. EUC has four tiers of benefits but workers will not be able to progress to the next tier once their current one runs out in January.
Among the organizations joining the call for Congressional action today were the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the AFL-CIO, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and the National Women’s Law Center.
NELP has on online call to action you can sign urging Congress to reauthorize the jobless aid provision extensions.
Tags: COBRA, jobless aid, unemployment, unemployment extension
The solution to getting unemployed Americans back to work is this:
Pass a federal Unemployment Extension (Tier 5) that essentially transfers payment of UI benefits to private employers.
In short, the federal government would pay Tier 5 UI benefits to the EMPLOYERS of unemployed workers. These benefits would then be used by the employer to pay or supplement the wages of each unemployed worker for up three months. At the end of three months, the employer would decide whether to keep their new employee. Many would not, but a good number of workers would stay employed afterwards.
At the very least, it would get unemployed workers off the couch and waking up early and getting into the mindset needed to work. Employers would benefit as well, with up to three months free work and afterwards a “test drive it before you buy it” hiring decision.
Whatever we do, we need a change. The current incentive structure behind the UI program is counter-productive to getting people back to work. It’s essentially this: “As long as you remain unemployed, we’ll keep giving you money for up to two years. After that we’ll enroll you in Welfare.”
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