San José, CA - In the first five months of this year, more than 400,000 jobless workers have been cut from collecting unemployment insurance benefits under the Federal Extended Benefits (EB) program. Another 100,000 will also lose their benefits when the EB program ends at the end of May, bringing the total to more than a half million unemployed who will be losing their benefits.
These workers have been unemployed for more than 79 weeks (about a year and a half). They have run through both the regular state unemployment insurance benefits, which last for six months, and the Federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program, which extends benefits for another year. The federal EB program adds an additional 13 to 20 weeks of unemployment insurance for jobless workers in states with high unemployment.
Back in February, Republicans in Congress forced the end of the federal EB program in exchange for voting for an extension of the EUC and also the payroll tax cut. But the entire federal EUC program is scheduled to end Dec. 31. This has the potential to cut off more than 2.5 million more unemployed from their benefits. With more than 12 million people officially out of work, and more than 7 million more working part time because they can’t find a full-time job, this is a terrible time to be cutting unemployment insurance. The average length of unemployment is still hovering around 40 weeks (almost ten months); jobless workers need the federal programs.
Because of these cuts, a smaller and smaller percent of jobless workers are collecting unemployment insurance benefits. From 2010 to 2011, the fraction of unemployed who were collecting benefits fell from 67% to 54% and by the end of this year less than half will qualify. If the EUC is not renewed by Dec. 31, then only about a quarter of the jobless will be able to collect benefits in 2013.
While federal unemployment insurance benefits need to be renewed and even extended, what is really needed is a federal jobs program. There are still more than three jobless workers for each job opening, and the economy still has 5 million fewer jobs than when recession began in December 2007. At the current rate of job creation, it will take about four years for the economy to gain back just the jobs that it lost, not to mention the millions of new jobs needed for young people coming into the labor force. Only a massive federal jobs program, like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression of the 1930s, can bring millions of people back to work.
Email this Article
Responding to Shirl
Shirl,
I appreciate your emotional and highly biased response. However, lets think rationally for one moment. With close to three million former middle class workers set to lose unemployment benefits in December of 2012, what are the economic consequences?
1. Significant impact on the housing market as millions will be unable to pay housing expenses. This has potentially broad implications for the future of a housing market that is just beginning to stabilize. The market will, once more de-stabilize and already lower prices will drop, putting more homeowners underwater. It will put landlords in precarious positions as tenants are unable to pay rent, potentially causing problems with paying the banks on their mortgages.
2. Consumer spending will fall. This has negative effects on the stock market. Kiss your 401K goodbye.
3. The ranks of unemployed will move onto other forms of public assistance. welfare, food stamps, energy assistance, rental assistance and FREE CELL PHONES, free lunch at schools, At the end of the day, it's costing the same amount, but will make it more difficult for people to move back into the middle class.
4. With unemployed workers unable to afford Cobra or health insurance premiums, they will then be eligible to join the ranks collecting Medicaid. This will increase YOUR premium and co-payments for medical insurance as well as your state taxes.
I have worked for 30 years and have paid into this insurance. I have 26 weeks to secure employment I will do what ever I can. There will always be slackers who will take. Many more people just want to work and take care of their families. Until there are as many jobs as there are workers, we have to protect the middle class. We are what makes this country great. I appreciate your egocentric view, but find it highly immature, not well thought out and a bit emotional. Good luck to you. I hope that life puts you in a position where you can gain some wisdom.
For those of you who think
For those of you who think that those that are unemployed and exhaust benefits are contributing to the economic crisis of this country. First and foremost, I AM NOT a liberal. However, for people that are not in the situation to suggest for people that were making a decent wage and living within their means to take a job at Burger King or McDonalds is absolutely ridiculous. Furthermore, those of us looking for work cannot find jobs in Burger King and McDonalds because of all the illegals and foreigners that have those jobs. Would YOU work for minimum wage if your forte is management for Fortune 500 Companies? Sure you would. Another thing, Unemployment is INSURANCE, not an entitlement or a handout as is WELFARE. Not for anything, but I've paid taxes all of my life, and my employer paid for unemployment insurance. However, we have a huge issue with foreigners collecting WELFARE which I have also paid into, and these folks that have made Welfare a lifetime goal have not! Perhaps you should shut your mouths until you know what you are talking about. We need to cut all of these "entitlement" programs for those who have never and will never pay a dime into them, so those of us that have busted our asses and who have the misfortune of losing a job through absolutely no fault of our own receive our "entitlements" (as you so put it.) Most of the folks that have been laid off are older, worked their way up the corporate ladder, and didn't get a degree, as we were the ones doing the job (properly, if I may add) while all of these kids and others who feel they are "entitled" to a good job were in school learning from a book. You know, the same folks that walk out of school with their little degree and who know absolutely nothing about the job they are about to take in management which includes supervising those that have been doing the job for years and who know how to actually perform the job. Nowadays they want some young kid right out of school in order to "mold" him into their idea of the "corporate image". They lead them by the nose, and these idiots are clueless as to what they are doing and have to be educated about their jobs by those that are either doing the jobs and/or who have climbed the ladder within the company by doing a good job and who don't have a degree in a field that is completely unrelated to the task at hand. You folks sound like complete idiots, and as long as people walk around thinking they know anything without having had been in the situation, we will continue to foster this ignorant attitude that is becoming more prevalent in society. Just wait until it is YOU. When the shoe is on the other foot, things change really quickly.
Bravo! Larry, good for you
Bravo! Larry, good for you and your gumption! but your story is just too familiar. that is our story, both my husband and i, and almost to the letter. we worked hard and worked our way up. after a layoff i retired early, he worked on for 26 yrs at a natl communications company. as a Dist. Mgr. with no degree, he was virtually unemployable, not to mention he didn't speak spanish. he did everything from chopping wood to selling burgers to help us make ends meet. i am not working, remember, and after all this time and of ill health i also am unemployable, and at our ages. we worked with our creditors who were patient and appreciative that we paid what we could, even though it wasn't full payments. yes, we got behind. when my husband found someone that would hesitantly hire him it was a job of half the wages and no degree required. but he is so very happy where he is now. no pressures as before. no overtime required....they're afraid he will burn out and leave....they treat him well because he so good at what he does. i have a husband at home on time every night and i love it. we certainly have had to rebudget, we spend less, and have more fun with less. no, i have absolutely no lack of understanding of your plight. this is not directed toward you, but my point is, if Americans are willing to live on less, change their lifestyle, often drastically as in our case, perhaps you will find a way that has something besides money making you happy, and you definitely can get by.
power, not complacency
Shirl, what you're asking for these workers to be is complacent with their class status, with their social role in a capitalist society, and to work around it, in the search of some other happiness, instead of power in which they deserve. Workers deserve a govt. - a state - in which acts under the interests of the working class, not the interests of private corporations, which is certainly what both parties act upon.
Originally you were happy over the fact that hundreds of thousands of workers are being ripped from their unemployment insurance benefits, condemning them of being lazy, of not actually searching for work. Anti-worker assumptions such as that is not only dangerous for working people in the U.S., but is also beneficial to the corporations who are stealing these very jobs out from under the working class and poor.
Re: Shirl's Comments
I agree that there indeed are those people that look for any way of milking the system. I am not one of them. During my entire career extending beyond 35 years I have been out of work, a total of less than 10 months....at least that's the way it was up until May of 2010 when I lost my job. Throughout my career I have held managerial positions, all of which normally require a degree, but I was able to obtain by working myself up a ladder, demonstrating leadership skills and a strong work ethic working ungodly hours in the process of doing so. I've tried to find a comparable position but employers won't look at me without the degree in this market. I've applied for many, many lesser positions but those employers won't look at me either because their concern is with my title history that as soon as I find something better. I will leave. Thus, I am between the proverbial rock and a hard place. I'm not just sitting on my butt, crying about my situation and doing nothing about it, and in fact am in the process of obtaining my degree by attending classes on weekends and evenings. We have exhausted our savings, are already two house payments behind and we are frantically trying to find something I can do to bring in some money. Painting all unemployed people with the same broad brush just shows a lack of understanding of the predicament that I and many people just like me are in. We have worked hard all our lives, did the right thing, engaged in an exhaustive job search averaging at least one application per day (you do the math) for the last two years and was only able to obtain two interviews!!! I'm not lazy. I am not stupid ( I currently maintain a 4.0 GPA) and I want to work!!!
Unemployment insurance..
unemployment receivers receive just what they have paid in over the years during their employment. my husband and i both have had the misfortune to have to collect it. still, we did so briefly because we were diligent in finding something to work at, even if it was not in our line of work, and we had to use it to tide us over until we found something better. there is work out there if you want it bad enough.
i'm not sympathetic to unemployment collectors if they have exhaused their insurance and still are not working. McDonalds and Burger King are hiring most of the time. so are many more other places. i don't expect my tax dollars to support unemployed as their's is simply not to be paid by me, only by themselves.
i am in full support of my tax dollars spent to strengthen our troops, whether here or fighting elsewhere when they are called upon. i would rather they not be in the middle east; it is up to them to fight their battles, but i support the decision whether i like it or not. it's called Freedom for someone. we die for freedom, and we should be more than willing to do it.
i do not support any program that this president has initiated, helped to pass, pushed through, you name it. i am not his supporter. i have seen only overspending in the most disgraceful manner for so many things that are not only unimportant but immoral (Planned Parenthood). he has made a strong country weak, a laughingstock. he is an embarrassment. he is bankrupting us, and this is his work, not the previous administration. his Works Progress Administration is a total failure, and he promotes his ineptness with deceptions and lies to you, his supporters, who only hear, and want to hear, what a liberal biased press tells you.
Unemployment Insurance Benefits cut off...
Good! maybe now they'll try to find some kind of work instead of relying on my tax dollars. if they've exhausted their share then it's time to move on. Go Republicans! Go Romney!
tax dollars for work, not war!
Shirl, how is cutting thousands of workers from unemployment insurance benefits a relief from your tax money? And how is supporting pro-war politicians like Romney and the GOP going to be beneficial to you as a tax payer? Fact of the matter is that the likes of Romney and the GOP will continue, and probably increase, the attack on workers and use the tax payers' money to help fund war, instead of work.
Are you opposed to a Works Progress Administration that helped bring millions of people back to work during the Great Depression? Given the historical success behind such a program, how can anyone seriously not support it?
Add your comment