With unemployment topping 10.2%, and 50,000 Americans exhausting their unemployment benefits each week, President Obama is expected to sign a bill today to temporarily extend unemployment insurance payments. However the amount which families will be able to put toward the rent or the grocery bill from their unemployment checks depends as much on decisions in the state house as the White House.
Under federal law, all states pay 26 weeks of unemployment benefits for eligible beneficiaries, but some states have adopted lengthier benefits at their own expense. Over the past year Congress has passed extensions that offer up to 33 additional weeks of benefits depending on a state's unemployment rate.
With the current extensions set to expire on December 31, Congress has once again sent legislation to the president to extend benefits for a further 14 weeks in all 50 states and 6 extra weeks in high unemployment states.
Although the Recovery Act added an additional $25 per week to all unemployment checks through June 30, 2010, the big decisions on how much unemployed Americans can expect to receive in benefits are made in state legislatures. Some states have chosen to keep benefits low in order to ease the burden that unemployment insurance taxes place on employers, while others have made steady increases in their benefit levels.
Even among neighboring states the differences can be striking. An unemployed worker in Beaumont, Texas collects an average weekly benefit of $321 dollars while just down the road in Lake Charles, Louisiana the average benefit is $220.
However, the economic crisis has sent state unemployment insurance trust funds into a tailspin. So far, 24 states have had to borrow money from the Federal Unemployment Account to maintain their commitments to existing beneficiaries. While the Recovery Act has given states more time to pay off their loans, beginning in 2011 borrowing states will be required to pay back the money at 5% interest. States are increasingly faced with two equally unpopular options: raise taxes on businesses who are struggling to survive or limit benefits when they are needed most.
Indiana and Maryland have passed laws to raise taxes on employers beginning in 2010, and Virginia is considering raising employer taxes and cutting benefits to those who also receive social security. With states facing collective budget shortfalls of $350 billion over the next two years, many more states will be forced to trim the benefits offered to their citizens over the coming year. Here is a chart of our complete rankings:
States can top off their increasingly depleted trust funds with stimulus money if they "modernize" their unemployment insurance systems. This provision was added to the Recovery Act in one of the last legislative triumphs of the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Kennedy's provision included sweeteners -- to the tune of $7 billion -- for states who make their unemployment programs more accessible to part time workers who lose their jobs or to citizens who have to quit work to take care of a sick family member or as the result of domestic violence.
However, the program comes with strings attached. To qualify for short-term funding states have to permanently expand their unemployment systems and absorb long-term costs. Most states have qualified for full or partial incentive payments with many rushing to enact reforms both to help extend benefits to citizens in need and to maximize their funding eligibility. However, 19 states have yet to tap into the program, including 15 who have borrowed from the federal government just to keep their programs afloat. Unemployment modernization will likely be the only major element of stimulus funding to be rejected by a significant number of states.
Despite encouraging signs of growth in the economy the unemployment crisis is going to be with us for a long time to come. It has left states caught in a vice between plummeting revenues and rising needs. While we will likely see some grim months ahead as states cut programs to respond to a sea of red ink, the ultimate solution for both struggling families and faltering state finances lies in focusing on the job creating strategies which can deliver the jobs of tomorrow.
States may be uniquely squeezed by the current economic crisis, but they are also uniquely able to innovate in the face of adversity. Over the past two decades we have seen many states implement tax and regulatory reforms to nurture business expansion while others have doubled down on investments in higher education and research to fuel entrepreneurship. The current challenge may seem stark, but with 50 laboratories of innovation in our federal system the talent pool is deep.
Unemployment Extension - Extended Unemployment Benefits
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Please help us all make noise and try and speed this up before we die. It's the only chance we have.
Sincerely,
Hungry and Hopeless
= *( I don't know what to do, please, anyone who reads this, apply pressure to our leaders and try and help your fellow Californians who are in this boat, or if it happens in your state. People are literally suffering each day that this precious lifeline is delayed. Yes, we make pennies on the dollar for what we used to working, but it is enough to at least eat and pay for a room for rent somewhere. Nothing at all will kill us, there aren't enough shelters to feed and house the already homeless, let alone all of us who are about to be.
The great state of CA... Will not send out checks until January now!! Despite that unemployment ran out for many starting in Sept.!! No Christmas, no Thanksgiving, no food, and soon no shelter!!!
In almost every other state they will get checks before Christmas. Checks go out to other states as early as next week, but oh no... Not in Cali baby!! The governator.... According to his reps I spoke to on the phone... Knows that thousands more will be homeless by the holidays thanks to the E.D.D.'s blundering, but apparently he could care less, while he rests comfortably with a full belly in his many mansions.
This is just beyond disgusting. What the Heck is wrong with our government, all these tax paying citizens, who worked their whole lives and now can't find work for the first time in their lives, are now forced into homelessness, and starvation due almost entirely to incompetence at every level of our system.
There will be no holidays for any of us, and in fact, no food, and like I said... Probably no shelter.
On top of that how can Congress pass a bill supposedly to help people and then we find out they put a time limit on it - and they were well aware of this - that in effect nulls and voids the extra six weeks about one month after they passed it? We waited six weeks for them to pass the dang thing.....
They don't even have EUC Tier III up and working yet never mind Tier IV!
I think Congress was just grandstanding and putting on a show.
High unemployment states ARE NOT getting the promised 20 weeks of extended unemployment benefits. California, New York, and many others will not get 20 weeks of benefits.
Why?
The law passed Friday breaks the 20 weeks of extensions into two parts. Part one is 14 weeks and part two is 6 weeks. Part one (14 weeks) must have been exhausted before the application for part two (6 weeks), and part two has to be applied for BEFORE 12/31/09. Now, there are only roughly 7 weeks left in 2009. That means it is impossible to apply for part two BEFORE 12/31/09... and that means no high unemployment state will see the promised 20 weeks of extended unemployment benefits.
Is this true?
Yes. The State of California Employment Development Department has already published the warning that only 14 weeks of benefits will be available, and I have read a few newspaper reports on the subject. Also, I contacted my State Senators (D. Feinstein and B. Boxer) and confirmed this through their offices. Still, I have yet to see word of this by any large media outlet.
We have been stiffed and most people don't even know it.