By Kim McMurray — Pennsylvania
This week, a new report by the Rockefeller Foundation showed that Americans are more economically insecure now than in the past three decades. The report measured the percentage of people who saw a household income decrease of 25% or more in the past year. More Americans are facing complete economic devastation. They are out of savings. They need to choose between a mortgage payment and food. They don’t know where to turn.
This isn’t breaking news for the Working America community. Every night, we go out and talk to people who are experiencing financial hardships because of the economic downturn. It seems like everyone has a story about unemployment. It could be her son who graduated college two years ago but is still living at home. His sister-in-law who prays he won’t get sick. Or her husband who spends his days on their couch battling depression.
Things started to look up. Congress passed an unemployment benefit extension and for the first time in eight years, the Pennsylvania Senate passed a budget on time. You would think that there would be a collective sigh of relief in the Commonwealth that finally, finally, something passed on time, but the new budget cut essential services that working families depend on, especially in this time of economic need.
Our member’s stories are not unique. Rather, they are far, far too common. Howard was laid off two years ago and he has been unable to find work since. He sends out applications each week and is currently working to complete his GED at a job training program near Allentown. His family is now facing foreclosure. This is the time when the Hillers need state services the most, but housing and legal assistance have both seen drastic cuts and are stretched thin.
Lorraine runs a day care business in Philadelphia. She has been working in the industry for over ten years. She built her business with the help of the Keystone Stars program which provides resources so that childcare providers can enhance early education programs. The children in her care benefitted directly from these resources and Lorraine was able to build her business, though she still has further to go. However, this program as well as other early education programs were severely cut this year and will be forced to shorten their reach.
The solutions are simple. Instead of cutting essential services that families rely on, our elected officials need to close the corporate tax loopholes that allow big businesses to get away with not paying their fair share. There are four main ways they can do this.
The first is to close the loophole which allows 70% of businesses in Pennsylvania to avoid paying income taxes. Multistate companies like WalMart avoid paying income taxes in Pennsylvania by setting up subsidiaries in tax-haven states like Delaware. These subsidiaries can be nothing more than a post office box. One address in Delaware is home to over 14,000 of these subsidiaries. Closing this loophole would bring over $616 million to the state annually which could go towards funding public schools, libraries, homeless shelters and mental health clinics, all of which experienced significant budget cuts this year.
Second, we have to close the tax breaks big corporations receive for collecting state sales tax. This outdated system allows corporations to keep 1% of the 6% sales tax for filing on time. The tax break dates back to shopkeepers manually calculating and collecting the tax. However, it is now collected by computer. It is a tax break which could bring in $74 million a year. The Scranton School for the Deaf, which lost 100% of its funding this year? $5.4 million.
Third, we need to impose a tax on smokeless tobacco products. Pennsylvania is one of two states that doesn’t do this. If Virginia and North Carolina can benefit from taxing tobacco products, so can Pennsylvania.
Last, we need to pass a strong natural gas severance tax. Pennsylvania has an abundance of natural gas and our citizens should benefit from its extraction. Instead they are left with poisoned drinking water and unsafe drilling methods as funding for safety inspections saw significant cuts.
With the unemployment level still hovering over 9%, our Pennsylvania Senators had a chance to show that they care about working families and their struggles by funding the programs that they depend on, but they chose to lend their support to corporations who refuse to pay their fair share. The fight is just beginning for next year.
The federal government, though it plays a huge role, is not the only body responsible for pulling our country out of this recession. The state governments need to play their part as well.
Tags: public services, state budgets, sustainable governance
By Eric Cromer — Working America Member, Ohio
The new global economy has become a “race to the bottom” to see which nation is capable of producing the greatest quantity of products with the lowest paid workers. As manufactures save dollars with a non-domestic workforce, the American consumer has seen a steady rise in basic costs for housing, education and health care. American employers and corporations are finally paying the price for their poor decisions, with the highest recorded level of workers who are dissatisfied with their jobs. I have to admit, I’m hardly surprised.
Our great nation transformed from a nation of farmers, frontiersmen, trail blazers, and risk takers into the most envied industrial superpower of the globe after World War II. Our soldiers came home from the war to easily find stable work that would last them a lifetime, with unions setting standards in pay, benefits and safety; this security fueled a housing and baby boom. Today many of our soldiers come home to find a foreclosure note on their door and an anemic job market. Should it be of any surprise that a meager 45% of Americans are happy with their current jobs?
While we are all neighbors on a global scale, should our goal as world inhabitants be to see which countries’ workers can be ripped off the worst? Should we sacrifice all the hard earned lessons of social justice of the past so we can buy that item at Wal-Mart so inexpensively? What would be the result if the pictures of the factory workers from whatever nation that made that inexpensive item you where about purchase where put on the box for you to see the conditions they worked in? Would you still buy if you saw a child working not older than your elementary school student with tired eyes and ragged clothes? What would this child say if asked if she was satisfied with her own job?
It is not beyond the ability of American pride and ingenuity to reinvent ourselves again and become the envy of the world once more. For this to happen again, many things need to change. These changes need to run from top to bottom, including changing the idea of what it means to have a successful business model. Corporations need to be held accountable to workers and our communities again.
As I’ve seen in my own life, working people bear the costs of bad management, while the super-rich walk away with all of the wealth we create. I spent 15 loyal years working for General Motors to start on an assembly line, and finished my career being the last group of elected Union Leaders. We had the very sad duty of helping carve out a closing agreement for a plant that had been around since the 1920′s and helped to sustain a vibrant and middle class community for nearly 90 years. Unhappy employees were not to blame for the lack of product planning and development that brought the demise of a once great American icon. But we sure as heck got blamed for it.
I began a new path in my life and recently completed nursing school because the opportunity to work in a factory like the one that closed its doors seemed like an unattainable fantasy. I took pride in manufacturing a product and building something that people could find a use for, but my pride and that of the other workers did not keep the plant open or prevent housing foreclosures.
We cannot continue to let communities of working families die in America. We cannot sit idly by as board members and CEOs decide that the best thing for our country is to fire all of the American workers as they ship our jobs overseas. When employment security returns, and employers are able to show their employees some loyalty again we will start to see a happier workforce. Then there will be people to buy American-made products again.
By Ashley Keith — Ohio
Walter from Cincinnati once owned a small IT business and used his computer expertise to help people solve their technological problems. He is engaging, intelligent, and understands how to navigate the temperamental waters of computers in an age of constant updates, upgrades, and innovation. Unfortunately, he had to close his business in 2001 because he was unable to compete with larger companies. Since the closing of his business, Walter has had a difficult time maintaining steady employment. He has primarily worked restaurant jobs for the last nine years. For the last two and a half weeks he has worked in the maintenance department for a national retail chain after four weeks of being unemployed. There are so many people in this economy who are working in fields and positions that don’t let them fully use their potential, but Walter faces an additional challenge: he was convicted of a felony 20 years ago.
In a time when foreclosures are making headlines across the country and adult children have to move back in with parents after college graduation, everyone knows the job market is oversaturated. The nation’s best talent is ripe for the picking. Many people will have little sympathy for someone in Walter’s position. Some will say that Walter made his bed, and now he has to sleep in it. But what good does it do any of us to waste the potential of people who have already repaid their debt to society? Working people come in all forms, shapes, sizes, and from various backgrounds.
When we as working families were stronger and better organized, the American Dream was a reality for a lot of us. It actually seemed like anyone could work hard to accomplish their goals, and we were a nation that gave people enormous opportunities to succeed. But today we are living in the Right Wing Dream, created by decades of policies that weakened unions, encouraged outsourcing, and gave Wall Street free reign to cause a re-run of the Great Depression. Now it seems that the American Dream is only available if you have five years of specialized experience, an advanced degree, a spotless past, three recommendations, and a relationship with someone who can open doors for you…and that’s just to get your resume on the top of the stack.
When workers are faced with desperate choices and employers have only one position for every five unemployed workers, people in Walter’s position are some of the first left out in the cold. I often hear people say things like “pay your debt to society” or “serve the time you deserve” when people pick up the controversial topic of our penal system, but when that time is over and that debt is paid what happens next? The issue of job creation is really about what kind of country we want to be. Do we want to be a creative, productive country where we strive to give everyone an opportunity to use their talents, skills and abilities, or do we want to create an underclass of workers who are kept on the margins, just scraping by?
By a TSA Officer and Member of Working America
I came from a strong working class family. I joined a company that was family owned and treated its employees better than anyone else in town. So, you can imagine my surprise when, years later, I became a Transportation Security Administration Officer…an airport screener to the lay person. If private concerns treated their people well, imagine how much better the Federal Government would be.
I was wrong. The Federal Government is little more than a really, really big corporation that doesn’t want to go under, and crunches numbers instead of listening to people. In its vast size, TSA is top heavy without realizing that the left hand doesn’t know what the rights hand is doing. It’s simply too big to be efficient.
So there are flaws, the biggest one being the lack of collective bargaining rights. Oh sure, we have a Union, but no contract. The official statement of the Government, I was told at orientation, is “we don’t acknowledge a union.” Now that the Union has helped Congress created bill H.R. 1881 demanding collective bargaining rights, everything has been stonewalled. Appointments, committees, votes…all on hold for now. And screeners are hanging in the lurch.
We accrue sick leave but are reprimanded when we use it. We are told we must follow Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), but because they are considered “security sensitive information”, there is no printed copy available for us to read. Instead, we’re allowed one hour a week to log onto government computers and request a disc to look at. When we violate the SOP we again are reprimanded. The SOP is so convoluted even our Supervisors are unclear about it.
Despite a sanctioned Safety Committee, we are the walking wounded. We get hurt lugging oversized baggage, we get bumped and trampled in a crowded airport checkpoint, and get worn down from having to follow protocol of carrying everything to an inspection table 30 feet away, searching the bag then rerunning it through the x-ray. Once, twice maybe. But dozens upon dozens of times a day and the body starts to rebel. Those injured are put on workers compensation and are placed in useless, humiliating places around the airport. Rather than rethink how the checkpoint is laid out, management tries to find newer ways to expedite the passenger lines.
My point is, there’s more to a good job than a good wage and good benefits. Employees must be treated with respect and listened to. When you feel that you’re a very small cog in a very big wheel, you lose your incentive to be your best. If employers don’t value their personnel, they’re missing out on a valuable asset that could so easily be realized.
Tags: occupational safety and health, unions
By Lynda Hiller — Working America member, Pennsylvania
My name is Lynda Hiller and I joined Working America when an organizer came to my home in Coplay, Pennsylvania. My family has been struggling because of the economy for two years now and when the canvasser came to my door, I felt like someone finally cared. I wanted to share my story.
Only a couple months ago, I started to think that things were changing in America. We have a president who cares about the little people, about the working class. We finally passed healthcare reform, and we were getting close to holding Wall St. accountable for gambling with our economy.
But then, for the second time this year, the Senate went on vacation without voting to extend unemployment benefits. The economy has not improved, and they left those struggling with unemployment with nowhere to turn. That same week, we got a letter from the bank that our house was being foreclosed on.
We originally took a mortgage out with one bank, but at some point, it was sold to a third party. A few years later, we took out a small second mortgage which was then sold in pieces to another financial institution. So now we are dealing with multiple banks as we struggle to keep our house.
We are not frivolous people. We made payments on time as best as we could until I was diagnosed with cancer and started undergoing chemotherapy treatments. During this time, it took all my strength just to survive. I couldn’t write a check, I couldn’t remember the payment schedule. All I could concentrate on was beating the cancer. While I was undergoing treatments, my husband lost his job. Our bills kept piling up, and soon they became unmanageable.
My husband has been actively looking for work for two years now. He has applied to everything he can find, at some places multiple times, but nothing has turned up. We have been surviving on the unemployment benefits.
We have tried to follow the rules and we have taken every step that you can take. We applied for a Home Affordable Modification Program but were told that we didn’t meet the criteria. What are the criteria? It’s still a big secret. We have written letters of hardship. We have talked to every person imaginable at the banks or local programs, but have not seen any action. I have given up my pride and have begged every organization in our time in need. We want to be able to pay. We want to work something out with the bank, but have only found dead ends.
In this terrible economy, it all comes back to Wall Street hurting Main Street. This family needs a miracle. They have hurt us in every aspect.
We have been in this house for five years, if we lose it I don’t know where we will turn. We have had to start over before, and I know that we can again. But no one should have to do that. We are a working class family. We don’t go on vacations, we try not to spend a lot on groceries, but without our house, we won’t have anything. Our elected officials need to start looking out for Main St. and extend unemployment benefits until our economy truly begins to recover.
Tags: mortgage crisis, unemployment
By Ashley Keith – Ohio
Bambi is funny, energetic, hard working … and has been unemployed for three years. Last week, I had the pleasure of talking to her at her home in Canton, OH. We sat on her back porch over-looking her garden of budding tomato plants, peppers and beans, as she explained that she can’t afford these items in the grocery store. So she grows them herself.
Bambi has lived her life doing everything she thought she was supposed to do as a working class mother. She started working as a tow truck driver at the age of 18. She stuck with it for 10 years in spite of the challenges, including dealing with a gun being pulled on her, until one day she was crushed between two cars while working. She suffered severe damage to her right leg, an injury that still limits her mobility and ability to stand for long periods of time. Even with this injury Bambi continued to hold various positions throughout her adult life to support herself and her daughter. She was eventually able to send her daughter to college to become a school teacher.
In spite of applying for countless jobs in the last three years, Bambi hasn’t been able to find work. “I think I’m a few years too young to retire, but a few years too old for most employers to hire me,” she explains. Although Bambi has paid off the mortgage for her home, she still struggles to pay her property taxes because she can’t find work. Bambi’s daughter and son-in-law, both of whom are public school teachers in Virginia, have paid her property taxes for the last few years so that she could stay in her home. As they send these funds to sustain their mother, they worry that their school district will face the same massive lay-offs or cut backs that other school teachers are facing.
Bambi’s experience shows the absurdity of the “conventional wisdom” in so much of Washington.
We are told that people who can’t find work are lazy, but with 6 people applying for every job opening, some of the people who need the jobs the most are bound to slip through the crack. We are told that teachers should be laid off, and we should sell out our kids’ education because we are in a recession. But those jobs are sustaining families and communities and businesses around the country, and what sense does it make to sell out our kids’ education to pay for Wall Street’s crimes?
We hear plenty of stories of bad mortgage deals, and we are often confronted with the argument that we as a society had to learn “lessons” about personal responsibility and living within our means. What about people like Bambi who are responsible, who have lived within their means…unfortunately, even those of us who own our homes can barely hold onto them when work disappears.
Bambi’s life also shows how we are connected. When we can’t find work, we can’t pay our property taxes, and when we can’t pay our taxes schools lose revenue. Cutting education will only make it harder to compete for jobs in the future. It is a vicious cycle, and Wall Street’s recklessness is the root of the problem. Bambi also shows us the solution: we need to have the courage to speak out about what is happening with us, stand together, and hold the people who caused the crisis responsible for what they have done. Otherwise, working families will continue to struggle to make it, fighting over the scraps they have left us.
Tags: unemployment
By Lynne Bolton — Minnesota
Solidarity. In the labor movement, we use that word a lot. In my job, I use it every day. It has become as much a part of my daily language as “hello” or “thank you”.
On Thursday, June 10, 2010, in the Twin Cities Metro area that word becomes more than just a concept. It takes physical shape as 12,000 nurses from the Minnesota Nurses Association begin a 24 hour strike to make sure that hospital CEO’s put patients before profits, and provide the nursing staff needed for safe quality care.
In early May the Working America Twin Cities office joined over 300 Minnesota Nurses at a picket line in Coon Rapids – to show solidarity.
We joined them again a week later in St. Paul.
Shortly afterwards, we went to downtown Minneapolis, and this time not only Working America staff joined in, but so did passers-by.
Solidarity.
At the same time, Working America began collecting petition signatures in support of Minnesota Nurses as they bargained. As hospital CEO’s get richer, nurses were asked to work less hours, receive fewer benefits, and most frightening of all, have their patient load increased, potentially endangering patients. In the 4 weeks that we asked for petitions, over 3,000 Working America members – folks who don’t have the benefit of a union in their workplace, folks who know what it means to work hard to take care of their families – have said “I support Minnesota Nurses”.
And they tell stories. A member in Blaine told us that he had some medical problems. He said “The doctors healed me, but the nurses saved my life”. A woman spoke of her husband who had surgery for cancer spoke about the lack of available nurses for her husband who needed one-on-one care – because they were understaffed. And then there was the woman who was in the hospital for 4 months. Nurses worked overtime to be with her, so she didn’t have to go to assisted living. These members have seen nurses care for them, so they care for nurses.
Then there’s the member in Minneapolis. A young woman who works as a contract nurse and told her agency that no matter how much money they offer her, she won’t work on Thursday.
Tonight I attended a vigil at a church in St. Paul in honor of those nurses. There were many speakers, who were passionate and well spoken in the defense of Minnesota Nurses. They spoke about how these nurses were taking a risk for all of us by speaking out for patients. They spoke of their own personal stories on how nurses have affected their lives. They spoke of the need for the most vulnerable of our population – those that are sick – to keep their dignity as they get well. Most importantly, they spoke of the need for all of us to stand shoulder to shoulder with those nurses tomorrow as they walk that picket line.
Solidarity in the struggle.
(If you live in the Twin Cities Metro Area and would like to join the Minnesota Nurses as they picket, please visit the website for locations. If you cannot join the strike, but want to support MN Nurses, please call a hospital CEO.)
By Kim McMurray – Philadelphia
I come from a working class family. I hail from coal miners in central Pennsylvania. My uncles are carpenters. My aunts are nurses. I grew up with a single mother who ran a daycare business out of our home. From a young age, I watched her struggle to make ends meet. We ate pasta four times a week. I knew not to ask to go to sleep-away camp.
I started working for Working America because I thought I understood what it was like to worry about money, to be directly affected by corporate and government officials whose decisions have a profound impact on my life. But in many ways, my family was infinitely lucky. My mom had a job. She worked insanely hard, but because she was able to work from home, she was there for me and my brother day in and day out. In this current unemployment crisis, people are lucky to have any job at all, let alone one that lets them make their family a priority.
Last week, the Philadelphia chapter of Working America held an Unemployment Table Talk where members got together to have an informal discussion about how the unemployment crisis has affected them. The economic meltdown hasn’t left anyone unscarred and everyone there had a powerful story. They lived without healthcare. They worried about making mortgage payments.
But one woman stood out to me–maybe because her blond hair reminded me of my mom’s, or because I could see the tough decisions in her eyes. Cheryl was laid off five months ago from her job at a local factory. In an attempt to cut costs, the factory changed its hours to 6:30-6:30 four days a week. While Fridays off might seem like a dream come true to some, 12 hour shifts don’t work when you are simultaneously raising a four year old and a ten year old by yourself. Who is going to get them off to school? Who is going to make sure they do their homework? When Cheryl couldn’t make the new hours work, she was the first one let go.
Cheryl said that her kids come first. She talked about searching for health insurance for them, while she goes without. Of food stamps and welfare. She talked about her choices, or a lack thereof. Cheryl’s older son needs help with math. He is in public school and as the year draws to an end, his teacher recommended that Cheryl enroll him in a special math tutorial. The problem? The program costs $160 and Cheryl is unsure where her next mortgage payment is going to come from.
I want to help him, she said. School should come first, but he is not going to be able to learn math without a roof over his head. So for now, that money will have to go to the bank. Tough decisions. And where will the mortgage payments even come from when her unemployment runs out?
I can see her constant worry, her struggle, and I am instantly transported to 1995 watching my mom balance her checkbook at our kitchen table. Maybe I was just too young to see her tough decisions.
Tags: unemployment
‘“Work-ing Am-er-i-ca, we are all he-roes,” Willie Holmes, Arkansas Director of Working America chants. “Gonna bring Blanche Lincoln down to ze-ro.”’ So reports a recent Nation story on what Working America is doing in Arkansas.
Over a year ago, Working America community organizers in Arkansas kicked off a major effort to organize working people around core economic issues and let Arkansas leaders like Sen. Blanche Lincoln know that Arkansans were looking for representatives who would fight for working class issues, not corporate interests.
Working America called for good jobs in the form of passing the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that will help people form unions and get better-paying jobs, and for true health care reform, which became law with little support from Sen. Lincoln.
Sherrie from Little Rock wrote a letter to Sen. Lincoln saying: “I have a lung disease and need to be under a doctor’s care, but can’t afford insurance. When I get sick, I have to go to the ER which I really can’t afford. It’s difficult to work and make a living when you can’t seek medical help, and many people live this way. I hope we have true reform for health care.” She went on to ask Sen. Lincoln to support reform that would help people like her.
But Sen. Lincoln didn’t listen. So Working America decided to go back to the thousands of people who wrote letters to Sen. Lincoln and their friends and neighbors to let them know that despite working people’s best efforts, she didn’t deliver.
For two months, we’ve been talking to folks across Arkansas about Sen. Lincoln’s record and why Bill Halter will be a better Senator for Arkansans. And people are telling us that they want a leader like Bill Halter who will listen to them and fight for kitchen table issues.
In total, Working America spoke to 90,000 people, knocked on 82,000 doors, and made 200,000 calls. Working America organizers canvassed 27 towns across Arkansas, hitting working class voters’ doors everywhere. Working America also sent 1.75 million pieces of mail to Arkansans letting them know about the records of Blanche Lincoln and Bill Halter.
And how are the Working America members in Arkansas feeling as the final hours tick away till election night?
Holmes says: “We were in Arkansas a year ago to ask politicians like Sen. Lincoln to help create jobs and support health care reform… now after all that work, it feels like Christmas morning. We expected Sen. Lincoln to listen, but instead, we’re electing someone who will. So today we get to give a gift… positive change for all of us here in Arkansas.
“I’m ready to go ahead and win and create the shot heard round the country today,” he concludes.
Update: Wow, huge night for working people in Arkansas! Working America already has our eyes towards the run-off and here’s a statement from Karen Nussbaum, Working America Executive Director:
“After a year of Sen. Lincoln ignoring the voices of the thousands of Working America members who wrote and called her to ask for her support, she certainly couldn’t ignore their voices today. This election is about one thing: electing a leader who will stand with working families. For too long, Arkansans watched as Sen. Lincoln said one thing to working people and then voted with the big bankers.”
Willie Holmes, Arkansas Working America Director continues:
“As families across Arkansas struggle to make ends meet, we’re looking to people like Bill Halter who will stand with working people and fight to create an economy that works for everyone. For the last year in Arkansas, working people asked politicians like Sen. Lincoln to help create jobs and support health care reform and she never listened. Today, we’re on the path to electing someone who will.
Thanks to George Wentworth of the National Employment Law Project for answering reader questions about unemployment insurance.
(1) Question from Main Street blogger Mitchell Hirsch:
Thank you so much for taking time to answer reader questions and providing such clarity to what can be a confusing mass of information on unemployment insurance.
It has been reported that the Senate may take up a bill including a likely 3-month UI/COBRA extension late this week or next. If they do, and it passes, the House would still need to act on it or go to a conference with the Senate on the two bills – a time-consuming process with time running out.
Wouldn’t the House need to act to pass an extension again, then, by Feb 19 – and wouldn’t that require them to stay in session for at least part of next week despite the Presidents Day Recess? With millions of
unemployed workers and their families facing the end of their benefits, shouldn’t Congress stay in session until they get a UI/COBRA extension done?
Thanks for taking the time, and for your expertise as well.
Answer: Thank you for your question which brings us up to date on events of the last 24 hours. It is our understanding that the new Senate jobs bill will include provisions reauthorizing the EUC program, federal funding of EB, the $25 supplement (FAC) and the 65% COBRA subsidy through May 31, 2010. This is one month less than the House jobs bill which extended these same provisions through June 30, 2010.
You are correct that these provisions will have to be reconciled but it is still too early to tell exactly how this will play out procedurally. (It is possible that the Senate could pass a stand-alone extension sooner than the entire jobs bill.) However, on your larger point, I absolutely agree that it is imperative that Congress act to reauthorize these unemployment insurance (UI) extensions and COBRA subsidies before leaving town. As NELP and state UI program administrators have been saying for weeks, if reauthorization is not passed by February 19th, states are legally bound to start phasing out the existing programs. This will create unnecessary hardship and confusion for unemployed workers and their families. This is why unemployed workers should immediately let their elected representatives know that it is critical to enact the unemployment insurance and COBRA provisions of the jobs bill before the February recess.
(2) Question from Working America regional director Dan Heck.
We often hear from members who are unemployed, but even the members who still have jobs are afraid of losing them. What effect, if any, does extending unemployment benefits have on members who still have jobs, and the economy overall?
Answer: We all know that an important goal of unemployment insurance (UI) programs is to partially replace the pre-layoff wages of unemployed workers. While a good program aims to replace about 50% of wages, the reality is that – on average – UI benefits only replace about 36% of workers’ prior wages.
What is less widely known, however, is the impact of UI on local economies. Unemployment insurance has been called the most direct economic stimulus that government can provide. UI benefits help unemployed workers pay for essentials like mortgages, rent, food, childrens’ clothes, etc. Leading economists have concluded that every dollar in UI benefits produces $1.63 in local economic activity. . When a community has a major plant closing or layoff, UI benefits help middle class workers with limited savings from losing their homes and falling into poverty.
For a worker who is still employed, the value of a strong UI safety net may not be readily apparent until the worker – or someone the worker knows – is actually unemployed. But UI is critical to keeping communities economically strong during periods of rising unemployment, which helps local businesses and the people that they employ.. For employers, the fact that a worker receives UI benefits during a temporary downturn provides some assurance that the worker will be available for recall when things pick up again. For the worker who is still employed and worried that her boss may think she is expendable, UI provides a protection in the form of insurance – an employer knows that a decision to lay off a worker means bearing the cost of that decision in higher UI tax costs.
Unemployment Insurance – part of the Social Security Act of 1935 – represents a fundamental compact for every American worker and employer. Workers who have provided their labor for an employer over time will be insured by that employer against the consequences of involuntary unemployment. And that is good for all of us.
(3) Question from Jane0218:
Is there the possibility of Congress adding more weeks to the existing EUC program tiers, instead of adding a Tier V?
There are so many people who have nothing coming in, especially older individuals who find themselves not as marketable as younger individuals. They are suffering the most, IMHO.
Answer: Sorry, at this point, there does not appear to be any discussion of Congress reconfiguring the 4 existing tiers of EUC, which are as follows:
Tier I- 20 weeks
Tier II – 14 weeks
Tier III – 13 weeks
Tier IV – 6 weeks.
No legal advice is being given and no attorney-client relationship is created by the use of this information. An attorney should be consulted for more detailed information in individual cases. The National Employment Law Project (NELP) and Working America (WA) shall not be liable for the information provided herein, or for the results obtained from the use of such information.
Tags: unemployment
