House Republicans must think the job market is improving rapidly and that the Congressional Budget Office is way off base in projecting that the unemployment rate will average 8.7 percent in 2011 and 2012. How else can one explain their proposal to slash federal emergency unemployment insurance (UI) benefits?
The House Republican proposal -- part of their larger proposal to extend the payroll tax cut and UI benefits -- would slash, by 40, the number of weeks potentially available to unemployed workers who are struggling to find a job in some states that were hit the hardest by the jobs slump (see map). That greatly raises the risk that unemployed workers will run out of UI benefits before they find another job, imposing even greater hardship on them and their families. It also reduces the amount of support that UI -- one of our highest-bang-for-the-buck stimulus programs -- can provide for the struggling recovery. And, to add insult to injury, the Republican proposal contains onerous requirements on qualified UI applicants, such as drug tests and requirements to hold or be working toward a GED, that would make it harder for them to receive benefits at all.
Current policy provides an unprecedented amount of federal emergency UI because this is an unprecedented economic slump. Two-fifths of the unemployed have been looking for work for more than 26 weeks, which is the maximum number of weeks of regular UI available in most states. At no time in the last 60 years (before the current downturn) has the share of the unemployed who have been out of work this long been this high. Pew Economic Policy Group research indicates that more than half of the long-term unemployed have been searching for work for more than a year.
Under the Republican proposal, workers who exhaust their 26 weeks of regular UI early next year would be eligible for up to 20 additional weeks of federal emergency UI in all states. In states with an unemployment rate of 6 percent or higher, there would be up to another 13 weeks available, but in most of them that would be it. Many unemployed workers now receiving emergency federal benefits would experience a premature cutoff next year compared with current policy. The biggest cuts would come in states with the highest unemployment rates.
Continuing current federal UI policy into 2012 would provide $45 billion of support for a recovery that's still struggling to gain traction. The Republican UI proposal would provide over $10 billion less support for the recovery and impose needless hardship on the long-term unemployed who are struggling to find a job in an economy in which there are still four times as many people looking for work as there are job openings.
We can only wish we had a job market that was improving so fast that the Republican policy made sense.
Here's more information about that proposal for our wonkier readers:
The Republican proposal maintains the 20-week first tier of Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) available in all states, replaces the 14-week second tier available in all states with a 13-week second tier available only in states with an unemployment rate above 6 percent, and eliminates the third and fourth tiers of 13 weeks in states with an unemployment rate of 6 percent or higher and 6 weeks in states with an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent or higher, respectively. It continues the policy of allowing states to adopt a three-year "lookback" for the Extended Benefits (EB) program. However, a four-year lookback is necessary to prevent EB from triggering off in most states over the course of 2012, causing states to lose either 13 or 20 weeks of EB depending on their particular circumstances.
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This post originally appeared on the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' blog, www.OfftheChartsBlog.org.
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I have family members who firmly believe the unemployed have no jobs because they're some combination of : lazy, unskilled, drug users, hooked on free government handouts. They believe there is no economic crisis and that there are plenty of jobs; the jobless either don't want them or can't do them.
I really think it's gotten to a point that unless you're out there IN it, you just--willfully or not--don't get it.
Benefits for the poorest is the BEST stimulus to the economy. The poor spend the little money they're receiving, stimulating the economy. Tax cuts for the wealthiest and corporations in time of low demand results in no hiring since companies are not going to produce if there's no consumers buying.
Republicans know this. We have not improved economically in these three Obama years purposefully. Obama's presidency along with the world economy have been filibustered into oblivion quite purposefully.
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"He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker."
-- Proverbs, Chapter 14, Verse 31
NOT ONE PENNY FOR THE POOR, UNINSURED AND UNEMPLOYED, MILLIONS FOR THE 1%.
The above statement is in now way a factual statement.
The real statement will be amended and published at a later time to reflect reality.
Thank you for your support.
Why do you suppose that is?
This administration will have many of those kind of "notables" before it's done.
Why? Leadership thinking like this:
Nancy Pelosi said, “Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk, but not job loss because of a child with asthma or someone in the family is bipolar-you name it, any condition-is job locking.”
http://yesbuthowever.com/nancy-pelosi-artists-8136679/
When people are slaves to their current job because they can't do without health insurance we Americans loose out on the innovation and job growth that could occur if these people were free from the fear of bankruptcy through illness or accident and could go out and start their own businesses.
People must look to themselves to create a means of earning a living.......tonight I read an interesting article in the NY Times about people banding together to build owner/operator business......this will be our future, the jobs we lost are not coming back and we need to rethink our opportunities.
Americans need to remember there is power in numbers............
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/opinion/worker-owners-of-america-unite.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=globaleua212