The recent payroll tax deal struck by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama will keep an average of $1,000 in the pockets of 160 million American families through 2012 in addition to enabling tens of millions of seniors to continue seeing the doctor of their choice under Medicare. It also provides unemployment benefits for millions of people who have been unable to find a job; however many Republicans continued to ignore the impact unemployment insurance has on poverty in America. They argue that jobless individuals would rather collect unemployment benefits than look for work. This argument is both insensitive and baseless.
Unemployment insurance is an individual worker's insurance program, not a handout. Just as with automobile or homeowners insurance, one must first have paid into the system to receive compensation. To do so he must have been employed full-time and have lost his job at no fault of his own by being laid off.
Under the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, Republicans have demanded unnecessary requirements that make it more difficult for unemployed Americans to collect their benefits. States can now require drug tests for certain beneficiaries. Republicans also have included burdensome provisions that will require recipients to undergo "reemployment assessments" and "national job search requirements."
Fortunately the enacted legislation excluded further damaging Republican measures such as raising Medicare costs for beneficiaries that would have caused 170,000 seniors to lose health coverage. Republicans also attempted to pass a provision that would have denied insurance benefits to any recipient who lacks a high school diploma or a GED (General Equivalency Diploma) certificate and is not currently enrolled in classes to obtain one. This would have impacted 47 percent of America's workers over 45 years old that have paid into the system during their working years, but are now jobless and in the process of securing their future.
Yet with 13 million Americans still unemployed, the deal only extends current levels and length of unemployment insurance through May of this year. Afterwards, maximum lengths of benefits decrease in steps depending on individual states' unemployment rate. For New Yorkers, it is projected that the new law will retain the current maximum level of 93 weeks through May, reduce the maximum to 73 weeks over the summer and to 63 weeks in September.
Today there are around 50 million Americans living in poverty. In New York City alone the poverty rate is 19.1 percent, higher than the national average of 15 percent. It is deplorable that we would put further constraints on one of the few programs that helps keep Americans out of poverty and provides assistance at a very difficult time for them. This is an insurance policy that workers pay for. Their federal government is simply providing extra assistance -- as it historically has done every time the national unemployment rate exceeds 7.5 percent -- because the current unemployment rate is currently so high.
The most recent Census proves that unemployment insurance lifted an estimated 3.2 million Americans out of poverty. Out of those numbers, 861,000 were children living with a family member who qualified for unemployment insurance.
Finding a job is already a daunting enough task while trying to make ends meet with unemployment benefits. The national average amount received is merely 36 percent of the recipient's previous weekly wage; in New York the average income is $32,000. Having that cut by 64 percent would leave a worker at risk of living in poverty and deprive him the security gained by full-time employment.
Since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the historic Social Security Act of 1935, unemployment insurance has kept American families from falling into poverty and provided some relief while they look for a new job. Seventy seven years later, this vital lifeline for unemployment insurance recipients continues to be weakened.
We are talking about people who have played by the rules yet still lost their hope for a better future. They are hard working Americans who have caught a tough break and must now worry about surviving one day at a time. Rather than enforcing stringent requirements to receive their entitled benefits, we should be providing them the assistance and confidence they need while trying to start a new career. Drug testing, reemployment assessments and additional cumbersome requirements are the last things they need right now.
Follow Rep. Charles Rangel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cbrangel
Barbara Ehrenreich: Rediscovering Poverty
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Congress Approves Extension Of Payroll Tax Cut, Jobless Benefits ...
I'm all for unemployment benefits. But I think it's an error to paint a one-sided picture. There is fraud. There is abuse. To refuse to acknowledge that is a fallacy. Granted, I think it's equally fair to say that it's as much of a fallacy to say that everyone who's collecting unemployment is putting forth 100% effort to find a job from the get go.
Of course, with one side being extreme, how can the other side help but counter with an equally extreme measures?
I guess I just think that if things were kept in the middle, fear and hate wouldn't play a part. But fear and hate motivates.
These recent unemployment application reports only suggest less people are losing their jobs.
The US needs more new jobs than unemployment applications, and that is frankly not the case at this point.
3.4 million yearly college graduates
200k new jobs added monthly
There are more college graduates alone than available jobs. Moreover, there are 23million total unemployed.
Furthermore,
The US economy hasn't recovered one job from the 9 million lost during '08-'09 recession.
This is an employment crisis.
There is a solution to the jobs problem and it could quickly put hundreds of thousands of people back to work. It is not pro left or right. It is not from any corporatioÂn, it's outside the government control, it's totally voluntary, works in about one week, and helps all with little sacrifice from anyone.
National Hiring Day - This is a day that corporatioÂns are encouraged to hire new employees. CorporatioÂns are called on to put patriotism first and help their country in
hard times. Those corporatioÂns that cannot hire, are asked to stop firing for that month.
http://wp.Âme/p5S9X-nÂv
Republicans should love this because it's outside the government and voluntary. Democrats should love this because it helps those needing jobs. Independents should love it because it helps all with little sacrifice from any one corporation, group, or person. Corporations should love this because with just a hire or two they become part of a collective country wide jump start of the economy.
Let's say you run a business. Many others hire one or more. Then because you hired one or more, thousands have gotten jobs, lost insecurity and worry, and are ready to buy from you and others. AND they have a good reason to support your company. You help a little and get good will from thousands that find jobs.
In all, this Country can not sustain an unlimited fund for any of those programs. They are paid for by the Working Class. That Class has dwendled as the non working has risen. You can't keep taking money out of your Bank if your tapped out can you? Neither can this Government, but the Jarheads in Washington know they will never have to answer for what they are doing to our economy. So We trudge on and keep electing the Idiots and paying the money machine!
The state issues your check from its account. So in that sense it appears that the state pays you the benefit check. But then they bill the employer for the amount of those disbursements. So in actuality, the employer is still paying it.
The employer pays into a state fund (SUI) and a federal fund (FUTA). This how it works in Arizona and it generally works the same way in other states.
It's roots trace back to the New Deal and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930's. It was in response to the Great Depression as a SHORT TERM fix to help those who became destitute during the Great Depression get back on their feet.
I have had to use unemployment once in my 49 years. It was not food stamps or paid by the Government. I was offered Twelve weeks and every two weeks had to show up and wait in line to be reassessed. Between the to weeks, I was given papers to be filed out by employers showing I was at their location looking for work. This was in the 80's, so I don't think that process has changed in Texas, but it sure is a far cry from Welfare which has virtually no requirements on given and no limitations of pay. So I don't think they are the same thing( My two cents)!
isn't it called insanity when we repeat the same things over and over and expect different results?
There's always a group of people in this country that are suffering more than others...the system fosters it.