Unemployment Showdowns In Arizona And Pennsylvania [UPDATE]

Unemployed people in Arizona and Pennsylvania are watching helplessly as lawmakers in each state fight over measures to restore extended unemployment insurance for tens of thousands of people whose checks stopped this week.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) called a special session of the state legislature on Friday, but lawmakers argued without actually voting on Brewer's bill to save the benefits. They'll take the debate up again on Monday afternoon.

[UPDATE 6:45 PM: Lawmakers closed the special session without reinstating the benefits. "Everyone wanted to make this fix -- the governor wanted this, Democrats wanted this and Arizonans wanted it to help the unemployed during this worldwide recession, not hold them hostage to partisan politics," said Assistant House Minority Leader Steve Farley (D) in a statement. "Everyone but Republicans, who made a conscious decision to cut off $3.5 million per week coming into our state’s economy. It is absolutely outrageous and it’s time to hold Republicans accountable."]

"Republicans failed to act," said Sarah Muench, spokeswoman for Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives.

Some Republicans in Arizona have said they don't want to coddle the unemployed with federal deficit spending even if it doesn't affect the state's budget. Brewer said Republicans should not put the federal budget deficit ahead of their jobless constituents.

"I understand that some legislators have concerns about the extension of unemployment aid," she said. "They worry about the federal deficit. So do I. But you don't balance the federal budget by turning your back on Arizonans in their time of need. That's not principled fiscal conservatism. It's just cruel. And we are better than this."

Paul Boyer, spokesman for House Republicans, told HuffPost the House didn't vote on the bill Friday because it wouldn't have passed, thanks partly to missing lawmakers.

"The votes just weren't there," Boyer said. "Part of the problem is there are a lot of members that aren't here."

Brewer said in a statement that a minor change in state law will preserve benefits for 45,000 through the rest of the year, adding $3.5 million per week to the local economy. Arizona and Pennsylvania became ineligible for the federal Extended Benefits program because it requires a state's unemployment rate to be 110 percent of what it was in either of the two previous years. Since rates have fallen slightly, Congress said states could change their laws to look back an additional year to remain eligible for the program. So far nearly 30 states have done so.

In Pennsylvania, lawmakers are also debating a bill this week that would preserve Extended Benefits. The program provides the final 20 weeks of checks for jobseekers who exhaust 26 weeks of initial state benefits and up to 53 weeks of federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation. More than 100,000 Pennsylvanians could miss out on benefits by the end of the year.

HuffPost readers: Worried about losing out on Extended Benefits in Arizona or Pennsylvania? Tell us about it -- email [e-mail]. Please include your phone number if you're willing to do an interview.

Both the Pennsylvania and Arizona bills would restore EB while at the same time tightening work-search requirements for people who receive the aid. Several states, including Missouri, Michigan, and Florida, have passed laws to preserve Extended Benefits while simultaneously permanently slashing state benefits. The federal programs will expire at the end of the year unless Congress reauthorizes them again, so workers in those states could be left with only reduced state benefits starting in January.

Gail Turley of Mesa, Ariz. said that when she checked her bank account on Monday, she didn't find the $157 weekly payment she'd been receiving most weeks since losing her job doing customer service for a bank in 2009. She said she's worked a few temp jobs since then, but the job search has been dismal.

"Being able to do it online allows you to apply for a lot more jobs rather than going to them one at a time but it's so impersonal, it's hard to even get in contact with anybody," Turley, 49, told HuffPost. She's been following the debate in the legislature closely and blogging about it for the Examiner.

Turley said she'd have 11 or 12 weeks of Extended Benefits left if the program hadn't lapsed.

"It is very frustrating," she said.

UPDATE 6/16/11: Turley said she received the money on Wednesday after all, and that it had been delayed by a computer glitch, not the legislature. After this week there will be no more deposits.

Comments

[Joseph LeCompte]

05:05 PM on 06/20/2011

IN America if you lose your job you go bankrupt, when you lose your job you come very close to losing a lifetime of savings and assets. You also lose 1-2 years of on the job training and have subsistence level aid. When an American loses their job. the bank holding the mortgage or landlord gets harmed. The local businesses lose a customer and the Govt loses a source of revenue. Also there is little job retraining and School is impossible to pay for without a job so alot of formally productive workers turn to unproductive skill deficient people in less than 12 months. . When the crisis hit globally the German govt had a different unemployment system. If there was no work at your company the Govt paid your wages to keep you at work and productive. Keeping the workers skills currant and allowing the business to hold on to good workers that they might have lost permanently. An unemployment check in the USA will not keep up with any bills. That causes a tremendous downward/negative affect on the economy and country. If half the attention and legislation that went into the Business side of the economic equation was spent on everyday workers the country would be alot better off. One sided legislation and tax policy have severely crippled this country. Would you rather have lower taxes on a weak economy or higher taxes on a booming economy?

[fortressfountain]

10:17 AM on 06/15/2011

What happens to the unemployable? Record numbers are retiring at 62 and going on disability.
One way or another the gov. will have to pick up the tab.
So how is that free market working out for you, tea party?

[Frenbar]

07:44 PM on 06/14/2011

To focus on either the deficit or the jobless is completely ignorant. The problem is the fundamental breakdown of our system of crony capitalism. The wealthy, who own everything, have become to greedy. They accumulated all the countries wealth years ago, but that wasn't enough, so they encouraged people to go into debt so they could accumulate even more. Now every individual and every country is up to their eyeballs and debt and there is simply no more to extract. The pyramid cannot be built any higher when there are no more bricks. Indeed, the FED and the ECB are doing all they can to patch together the pyramid and keep it from collapsing.

As long as the nation's (and the world's) wealth continues to be vacuumed up by the ultra wealthy, there is simply none left for the other 99.99% of the people. All the "stimulus spending" and attempts to increase credit lines (and debt) do nothing to address this. It simply means more wealth accumulated by those who collect the fruits of all the productivity. The system of Crony Capitalism that has been adopted by this country over the last half century needs to be dismantled before any progress is made towards improving the "economy".

[TheyDidntListentoNoah]

05:58 PM on 06/14/2011

The GOP has become so out of touch and brazen that their own people are calling them out (I'm thinking of Gingrich's comment on Ryancare and the recent vote on ethanol subsidies)...The Ayn Randian ideologues are going to be left standing in the cold as centrist Republicans realize they can't afford to alienate middle class voters reeling from the financial crisis.

[landskroon]

05:36 PM on 06/14/2011

The GOP will do whatever it can to keep pressure on the debt item. They will prevent the increasing of employment, just to blame Mr Obama for that. In the mean time they blow up all the social structures in the USA

[citizen of the universe]

05:32 PM on 06/14/2011

"I understand that some legislators have concerns about the extension of unemployment aid," she said. "They worry about the federal deficit. So do I. But you don't balance the federal budget by turning your back on Arizonans in their time of need. That's not principled fiscal conservatism. It's just cruel. And we are better than this."

Really? Can't tell by me!

[Bloodhound41]

04:39 PM on 06/14/2011

I've thought for a long time that many of our legislators were stupid jerks. Now I find out from another story here that AZ is amongst the five states with the least educated legislators. That certainly explains some of it.

[Bill Sr]

04:32 PM on 06/14/2011

she must have been something before they invented electricity

[Kiffanik]

04:29 PM on 06/14/2011

Still no one wants to talk about what to do for the unemployable. Those people who got jobs in housing or one of its off-shoots when all you needed was a pulse and you could make a pretty decent living, but who now aren't qualified for the jobs our economy typically produces. That economy was a bubble, it wasn't real, it was based on falsehoods and speculation. The truth is a part of our workforce just isn't employable.

[JamesAndre]

03:37 PM on 06/14/2011

Seems like Brewer is finally growing a conscience. Too bad it was after she climbed on the back of the tiger of ignorance that is the GOP.

[Whinger]

03:14 PM on 06/14/2011

Yeah, I'm sure your heart is just bleeding with compassion and concern...

[Leigh49]

02:56 PM on 06/14/2011

Those who aren't rich yet vote republican do so because they hate gays, minorities, women's rights or the poor. Or all of the above.

[citizen of the universe]

05:32 PM on 06/14/2011

It's all of the above with delusions of grandeur!

[GARYDAVID]

06:04 PM on 06/14/2011

That is so funny!! The problem is those with a lower IQ acually think that is the case. I could say those who vote Democratic want the government to give the whole country a free ride for everything. Niether that nor your ignorant statement is true. Only a moron would try to make that case.

GaryDavid

[taxi648]

09:24 AM on 06/15/2011

Garydavid, Richard Nixon reportedly had an IQ of 143 and look where that got him. He resigned in disgrace. Jimmy Carter was another president that graduated in the top 10% of his class at the US Naval Academy and Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar, both had their own problems. No score was reported for George W., but he certainly had difficulty with extemporaneous speaking.

Perception is everything, and right now the republicans look like they are against women, gays, minorities and the poor. Doesn't matter about voters IQ, what matters is the their perception that the republicans seem to lack vision, wisdom, discretion, and compassion.

[Slowfuriousand10hrs]

02:58 AM on 06/19/2011

Since when does ones intellectual capacity have anything to do with ones moral/ethical character?

[anikhanj]

02:33 PM on 06/14/2011

The GOP doesn't know when to stop shooting their own foot, do they? Even if it's already obliterated, they still continue to pull the trigger.

Good, I say. 2012 will be a referendum on anti-middle class, anti-education, anti-healthcare, and anti-"giving a crap about people" legislation.

[StopMakingSense2]

01:58 PM on 06/14/2011

Cruel to be kind in the right measure! What do republicans measure with anyway?

[Leigh49]

02:57 PM on 06/14/2011

Not the bible.

[Robert Turner]

01:36 PM on 06/14/2011

The Republican't Plan: Grow the economy by waiting for the private sector to do it. (see also: Nothing)

[bannorhill]

09:01 PM on 06/14/2011

Compared to the Democrat plan... Push through a health care bill that is not supported by a majority of Americans and hope nobody notices there are over 6 million less Americans working now than when they took over the Senate.