More than a million Americans who have been unemployed for six months or longer will be cut off from federal jobless benefits between Thanksgiving and Christmas if Congress fails to act to continue this essential program.
The last time the expanded federal program was extended, it was only after an infuriating two-month legislative fight, during which Congress allowed eligibility for the program to lapse for seven weeks leaving more than 2.5 million unemployed workers with no benefits.
When eligibility for the program was finally extended, it was only until November 30. And now that deadline is approaching — while Congress is not in session, and not scheduled to reconvene until after the election.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the September employment report is going to make the jobs market look like something between a stagnant pool and a dismal swamp. The ratio of unemployed job-seekers to available jobs is still 5-to-1. As Rebecca Dixon, a research and policy analyst with the National Employment Law Project, describes it:
“If I were able to wave a magic wand and fill every job opening with an unemployed worker, four out of five of them would still be out of work.”
More than 5 million jobless Americans currently receive federal emergency or extended benefits. They would all begin to be cut off from those benefits after November 30 unless the program eligibility is continued.
And they would be joined by most of the 2.5 million Americans who have have just become unemployed since June 1st and have only begun receiving state benefits. That’s because, unless eligibility is continued for the expanded federal benefits program beyond November 30, those newly laid off after June 1st in most states would have no further benefits beyond 26 weeks.
Recently we reported that 3.3 million Americans were kept from falling into desperate poverty by the existing state and federal unemployment insurance benefit programs in 2009 alone.
That these programs need to be continued well into 2011 is so obvious it defies description. Yet, we can expect as much if not more obstruction, delay and attempts to cut or eliminate the program altogether as we’ve seen previously.
And those who will oppose continuing to offer essential, if modest, assistance to the job-seeking victims of this wicked recession will — no doubt — be the same ones who will insist we extend tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent.
After the election, continuing the existing federal unemployment insurance benefits program must be the first and immediate Congressional priority. This should be quite a fight.
Tags: jobless benefit extension, Jobs, unemployment
First-time payments of unemployment insurance to those filing new initial state claims topped 1.7 million in the two month period of June and July, according to data made available by the Department of Labor.
That data showed approved first payments by states to newly jobless workers were 812,222 in June and 898,968 in July, the two most recent months for which statistics were available. The two-month total is 1,711,190 first-time payments to new unemployment claimants.
Because the most recent extension of federal emergency and extended benefits would only be available to those who exhaust their state-based benefits before November 30, most of those newly jobless after June 1 will only be eligible for 26 weeks of regular state benefits — unless an additional extension is enacted.
Under current law only 12 states, plus Puerto Rico, would continue to offer an additional 13 or 20 weeks of Extended Benefits to those who become unemployed after June 1, if their 3-month average unemployment rate is at least 6.5% or 8.0% respectively. Those states are Alaska, Connecticut, Kansas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington (New Hampshire and Vermont are currently below 6.5%).
The weekly reports of initial unemployment claims and related statistics available on the DOL website do not distinguish between actual new, first-time claims and those initial claims that are filed to renew benefits following the end of temporary jobs. But the states do provide DOL with monthly data of the new, first-time claims as well as the number of approved first-time unemployment benefit payments. And it’s that data that DOL provided, in response to a request.
The nearly 900,000 first-time payments in July were 20 percent more than those in December 2007, the official start of the Great Recession, and also more than the 837,000 in October 2009, when the overall unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent.
The chart above shows first payments for new state unemployment insurance claims, as reported monthly by the states to DOL. The data is not seasonally adjusted. I chose to start with June 2007 as it came one year after the initial collapse of the housing bubble and six months prior to the official start of the recession.
First payments on new state unemployment claims closely track the trends in overall initial claims. And they tend to follow seasonally-related patterns, even during recessions. The highest peaks tend to be in January, as retail and construction in particular reduce payrolls. The smaller, interim peaks tend to be in July. First time payments tend to decline again in August. But since overall initial claims have continued to rise during this August, the two-month rise in first payments in June and July may well continue. When August data becomes available, we’ll have an update.
The author is the winner of the 2010 CREDO Mobile/Netroots Nation award for Blog Activist of the Year.
Tags: jobless benefit extension, unemployment
Yesterday’s report of rising initial unemployment claims marked the fourth such increase in the last five weeks, and as Laura posted here, the 500,000 initial claims last week were the most since November 2009.
In the context of utterly stagnant private sector job growth, these reports scream for major stimulative action, including major new jobs programs from the administration and Congress as well as a massive Federal Reserve response to boost the economy.
What these reports also highlight is the need to strengthen the unemployment insurance programs already in place and extend them to the many newly unemployed workers, even as measures are pursued to address the crisis facing the already long-term unemployed.
The most recent extension of the federal unemployment benefit programs, which finally passed after a two-month battle to overcome Republican-led obstruction in the Senate, provides eligibility to those programs through the end of November for those who exhaust the 26-weeks of regular state benefits before that date.
In most cases this means that those workers who become unemployed after June 1, 2010 currently will not be eligible for the extended federal programs. That’s already a lot of newly unemployed workers. Since the first week of June, more than 4,600,000 initial claims have been reported.
Some of these recent initial claims are, no doubt, from unemployed workers who are filing anew following the end of temporary jobs, and are returning to the unemployment benefit systems in their states. It is not known what percentage of initial claims are re-entrants to the programs. But it is estimated that a much higher proportion are actually newly unemployed workers.
Congress will need to address extending long-term jobless benefits yet again when it returns from the August recess.
The author is the winner of the 2010 CREDO Mobile/Netroots Nation award for Blog Activist of the Year
Tags: jobless benefit extension, Jobs, unemployment
Congress passed and President Obama signed an emergency restoration of extended unemployment and COBRA subsidy programs late yesterday. The bill continues federal jobless benefits through the end of May and provides for payments retroactive to April 5. As a result, unemployment checks will continue to go out to those long-term unemployed who had exhausted their 26-week state benefits, and to those whose eligibility for the next level of extensions had ended in the last ten days.
The measure was needed to restore funding and access to the programs, which had expired when the Senate failed to overcome the Republican obstruction led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) prior to the Congressional recess, which began March 26.
It also gives House and Senate Democratic leaders time to reconcile the revenue sources needed to fund several budget-related components in the larger, full-year extension bills passed earlier.
The measure also restores federal flood insurance programs and back pay for federal transportation workers. It does not create additional unemployment extensions beyond EUC Tiers I through IV and the existing Extended Benefits programs.
Four weeks after first taking up the short-term emergency extension, the Senate late yesterday overcame another Republican filibuster and then voted to approve the bill by a vote of 58 to 39. Fifty-five Democrats voted in favor of the measure, and they were joined by three Republicans — Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine, and retiring Senator George Voinovich of Ohio. Three Democratic Senators, whose votes were not needed to reach the majority required, were reportedly engaged in committee discussions and did not vote.
When the Senate vote was recorded the bill was sent to the House, which immediately scheduled its vote. Two hours later the House approved the Senate bill by a vote of 289 to 112, with 49 Republicans joining 240 Democrats voting in favor of the measure. Thirty members, whose votes were not needed for a majority to be reached, were not present for the vote. All Democrats present voted for the bill with the single exception of Rep. Jim Cooper (TN-5).
The New York Times has a graphical breakdown of the House vote, as well as a very useful interactive map of the vote by Congressional district.
President Obama signed the short-term extension bill late last night, and the White House released this statement:
Statement by the President on Passage of Temporary Extension of Jobless Benefits
“In these tough economic times, it is more critical than ever to bring relief to Americans who are working every day to find a job, and families that are struggling to make ends meet. Millions of Americans who lost their jobs in this economic crisis depend on unemployment and health insurance benefits to get by as they look for work and get themselves back on their feet. I’m grateful that the House and Senate moved forward on this temporary extension today. But as I requested in my budget, I urge Congress to move quickly to extend these benefits through the end of this year. I also urge Congress to move forward on legislation to help small businesses grow and hire and other measures to increase the pace of job growth. This is my top priority, and I will fight day and night until every American who wants a good job has one.”
Tags: COBRA, jobless benefit extension, unemployment
The Senate yesterday approved a measure that includes a continuation of current unemployment benefit extensions and COBRA insurance subsidies through the end of the year. The bill, which also includes a six month extension of increased reimbursements to states for Medicaid and additional state fiscal relief, passed by a vote of 62 to 36. It now goes to the House, which may pass it as is or seek to work through any differences with the Senate version in a conference. Either way, action for final approval before it’s signed by President Obama needs to be swift, as these programs currently extend only through March 31.
When signed into law, the bill would ensure a continuation of all current extended unemployment compensation (EUC) and extended benefits (EB) programs, as well as the additional $25 per week unemployment insurance (UI) payment and the federal 65% subsidy to eligible COBRA beneficiaries.
Six Republicans joined 56 Democrats voting in favor of the bill. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska was the single “No” vote among Senate Democrats. The Republicans voting “Yes” were Senators Bond (MO), Collins (ME), Snowe (ME), Murkowski (AK), Vitter (LA) and Voinovich (OH).
The Senate has posted the results of the Roll Call Vote on the bill.
Action on the measure in the Senate came on the same day that the Department of Labor released the latest state-by-state unemployment figures.
Comparing the Roll Call Vote and the states’ unemployment report reveals that many Republican Senators from states with high, and in many cases double-digit unemployment rates opposed the jobless benefit extensions.
Some examples, with the unemployment rate for the state and Senators voting against the benefits extension:
Alabama 11.1%
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R)
Sen. Richard Shelby (R)
Arizona 9.2%
Sen. Jon Kyl (R)
Sen. John McCain (R)
Florida 11.9%
Sen. George LeMieux (R)
Georgia 10.4%
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R)
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R)
Kentucky 10.7%
Sen. Jim Bunning (R)
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R)
Mississippi 10.9%
Sen. Thad Cochran (R)
Sen. Roger Wicker (R)
North Carolina 11.1%
Sen. Richard Burr (R)
South Carolina 12.6%
Sen. Jim DeMint (R)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R)
Tennessee 10.7%
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R)
Sen. Bob Corker (R)
Tags: COBRA, jobless benefit extension, unemployment
Nearly 200 major national, state and local organizations representing tens of millions of Americans have signed on to a letter to Congress calling for an immediate full-year extension of the urgently needed jobless benefit programs initiated in last year’s Recovery Act, before they expire February 28th.
The full text of the letter, just released by the National Employment Law Project (NELP):
Dear Congressional Leaders:
We are writing to strongly urge the Senate and the House of Representatives to act immediately to continue the Recovery Act’s aid to the jobless as a stand‐alone measure through the end of 2010.
Congress and President Obama took bold action one year ago to enact major benefits for today’s jobless families, including the extension of jobless benefits and subsidized COBRA coverage. Subsequent expansions of the program, including the 14‐20 week expansion of Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC), have also gone a long way to respond to the severity of the crisis of long‐term unemployment that has now gripped the nation, with more than 40% of all unemployed workers still struggling to find work after six months and more than six unemployed workers looking for every available job.
While the jobless aid provided by the Recovery Act has been significant, the decision of Congress to adopt limited extensions of the program have caused severe hardship, both for unemployed workers and the state systems that are struggling with severely outdated equipment and insufficient staff and resources to process over 10 million unemployment checks each week. Indeed, as result of the limited two ‐month extension that expires February 28th starting in the week of February 15th, the states will be forced to spend time and resources they can ill‐ afford to waste notifying workers that the extended UI programs are shutting down. They will also need to start reprogramming their computers to implement the required shut‐down as of March 1st.
If Congress does not take final action by February 22nd, the states will no longer be in a position to reverse the process and there will be mass confusion among desperate workers whose only means to pay their groceries and housing is their limited unemployment benefits. Moreover, the delay will wreak havoc on the state agencies as a result of the extra work required to shut down the programs and the immediate need to respond to the flood of phone calls that will start coming in from panicked workers.
By every economic indicator, the extension of jobless aid provided by the Recovery Act should continue through the end of year. As recently documented by the Congressional Budget Office, the extension of jobless aid also provides the most significant boost to the economy and job growth of any policy option being debated by Congress. It provides $1.90 in stimulus for every dollar spent, and will be responsible for creating 800,000 jobs this year alone. In spite of the importance of this program, the House of Representatives passed a jobs bill in December that includes an extension of jobless aid only through June and the recent draft of the Senate jobs bill only continues the program through May.
Given the severity of the crisis and latest evidence of the problems associated with a short‐term continuation of the program, these limited extensions of jobless aid can no longer be sustained. These short‐term extensions simply do not measure up to the realities facing unemployed workers in today’s economy or to the serious challenges facing the state agencies that process the benefits.
Accordingly, we call on Congress to enact a stand‐alone continuation of the jobless aid provisions of the Recovery Act as its first measure of business when it returns from recess, and to continue the program through the end of the year.
Working America is one of the nearly 200 co-signing organizations.
When Congress returns from its Presidents’ Day recess on Monday, February 22nd, clearly the jobless benefit extensions must be the first order of business.
The growing coalition movement for jobs is planning a national call-in to Congress next week on this urgent issue. Stay tuned. And take action now to tell Congress: Don’t let the lifeline be cut off — extend jobless benefits and create jobs for Main Street.
Tags: jobless benefit extension, unemployment
