As holiday spending gears up, people on unemployment face big cut
It’s ironic: Even as the conspicuous consumption season revs up to a screaming pitch over the next few weeks, in the same period millions of Americans are at risk of losing the ability to buy so much as a gum ball.
Photos by Flickr users Sen. Mark Warner, khteWisconsin, wjarrettc
To extend or not extend unemployment benefits past Nov. 30 – that is the question facing Congress and the results are anything but certain, given a certain amount of benefits-fatigue that already existed and the fight over extending Bush tax cuts thrown into the mix.
Here’s a good explainer from Blog-O-Nomics writer Jim Stratton of the Orlando Sentinel and here’s a good template for a localized story from SeattlePi.com. Note that any decision to cut off the federal emergency benefits extension will limit the benefits for new claimants, not just those who are currently receiving benefits. You can contact your state workforce commission or unemployment agency for stats on the number of people at jeopardy in the coming weeks or months; the U.S. Department of Labor and congressional committees are also helpful. See my previous blog post, Unemployment extension ends in 8 weeks. Are you ready?, for other tips on story angles and finding the human interest in the jobless pay story.
BUSINESS TAXES
Another angle worth pursuing is the health of your state’s benefits pool and what the implications are for business taxes. As this article from MontgomeryNews.com points out, Pennsylvania’s pool is exhausted and the state is going into debt to the federal government to pay benefits. Get to know the situation in your state and the people responsible for fixing it; they’ll be valuable sources as the jobless story wears on. Talk to businesses and corporate accountants about the implications of higher premiums. And talk to workers about the possibility that fixes may come with more stringent requirements about job searching. With no end in sight to our near double-digit unemployment rolls, this is a big-money story that will affect major employers’ — and consumers’ — bottom lines.
BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY
Along those same lines, don’t forget that there are valid contrarian stories out there. Critics say that benefits encourage workers to hold out too long in their job search, that two years of benefits are plenty, that households with multiple wage earners don’t need the full benefit and so on. Certainly there is waste, fraud and misuse in any financial system. It’s a particularly emotional and volatile angle due to the stigmas and fears associated with joblessness but as you strive for balance be sure to get all points of view.
99-ERS ARGUMENT
One faction that definitely thinks two years is not enough is the 99-ers – those who have hit or soon will hit the absolute maximum of 99 weeks of benefits. An extension by Congress won’t help these folks; only a change in the law to add a fifth tier of benefits that jobless can tap when they’ve reached their limit in existing programs. As the jobs market continues to stagnate, the ranks of the 99ers will grow. Here’s a recent 60 Minutes piece on the issue; you might try your hand at a multimedia illustration with interviews and clips of some 99-ers in your region. Searching Twitter and Facebooks using search terms like Tier IV, Tier 5 and 99ers also yields results. Labor unions and advocates can also point you to those nearing their benefit max.
NEWLY UNEMPLOYED
Other huge story between now and the end of the year: Who’s about to join the ranks of the jobless? It’s a cruel twist of the season of giving that corporate pink slips often are handed out. By law, companies planning large layoffs must file paperwork with the state workforce commission. Here’s the U.S. Department of Labor’s page for the WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) – state guidelines may apply too. With generally 60 days notice required, year-end and January layoffs should be coming apparent shortly.
If you can make arrangements with workers who have been advised of coming layoffs, you can follow them from pink slip onward – chronicling their job search, retraining, career change, financial circumstances and other aspects of unemployment from Day One. It’s a compelling story and also lends itself well to a blog, video diary and other multimedia approach.
Failure to extend unemployment benefits to those who have yet to recieve 99 weeks will lead to another Great Depression.
I fully expect Republicans to block an extention. They will be commiting political suicide if they pass tax cuts for the rich but block unemployment.
Never before in history have benefits been cut off when the unemployment rate is so high.
Call your Senator and demand that Unemployment Benefits be Extended!
Lets not have another Great Depression!
http://www.nelp.org/page/m/6cf70e2/7159bccd/33c7f834/6f6c99c1/862455341/VEsH/
1. The rebs have chanted : Are you listening to American people ?
The majority of Americans support the idea of extending unemployment benefits to the jobless, according to a poll out from Hart Research Associates.
Nearly three-quarters of the 802 registered voters surveyed agreed that it was “too early to start cutting back benefits for workers who lost their jobs.”
2. Are the reps listening to America people ?
According to CNN polling, voters said that unemployment is roughly twice as important as all other top issues combined.
Despite the fact that unemployment remains above nine percent, the incoming House majority has made it clear that jobs and unemployment are not at the top of their to-do list.
3. Are the reps listening to the outcry from their conscience ?
(a). The reps shipped decent-paying manufacturing jobs overseas to lower production costs and eliminated the need to comply with those pesky environmental laws.
(b). The recession caused by the reps wiped out as many as 8.2 million jobs, but they don’t care !
(c). Throwing people out into the streets in the cold this holiday season, the heartless, cold-blooded death panels are having a good night’s sleep.
(d). Never before has Congress decided to cut-off extended unemployment benefits when the jobless rate was so high. And not since the 1930s have so many unemployed job-seekers been out-of-work for so long.
(e). The 154 members who voted against the extension may find their principles are very costly indeed—far more than the $12.5 billion their yea votes would have cost.
4. Are the reps listening to the various reports ?
(a). Ending federal extensions would drain the economy of $80 billion of purchasing power, according to a report by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee. Every dollar spent on benefits increases the gross domestic product by $1.60, the report said.
“Workers receiving unemployment insurance payments are typically cash-strapped and will spend their benefits quickly,” the report said. They spend about $6.5 billion a month on the local economy to buy essentials such as food, clothing and utilities.
“A failure to extend the unemployment insurance program could hamper the fragile recovery,” the report said. It predicts that consumer spending will fall by $50 billion over the next year if benefits are not extended, and that economic growth will be reduced by 0.4 percentage points by February 2011.
(b). Bloomberg News reported that some economists estimate not passing an extension might result in the economy growing 0.4 percent less between December and February, a significant bite when GDP growth has been hovering in the anemic 2 percent rage
(c). The CBO reports that the BEST WAY to spur growth is to increase aid to the unemployed. Other efficient ways to grow the economy is by investing in infrastructure and providing more aid to the states.
The CBO also says that without extensions in 2009, the poverty rate might be 15.4 percent, more than a full point higher than it is.
(d). A similar report from the California Budget Project said that unemployment benefits put $225 million into the nation’s economy every day in 2010.
Some economists worry that if jobless workers keep receiving extensions, they will stop looking for work. But the dearth of jobs in the labor market makes that point moot, the California Budget Project said.
“Cutting off federally supported unemployment insurance benefits would make unemployed workers more desperate to find work, but it would not make them more likely to find work, because jobs are scarce,” the report said.
At a time when there are five unemployed workers for every available job, it seems inconceivable that these unemployment benefits would be allowed to expire.
5. Are the reps listening to the denouncement over their duplicity, two standards ?
(a). The Bush tax cut for the greedy without providing a way to pay for its costs will add an additional $700 billion to the deficit over a decade,
(b). Republicans have trumpeted the need to extend huge tax breaks to the wealthy and to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Both actions would significantly increase our nation’s debt and lead us down the road to bankruptcy, another major concern for voters.
(c). On the one hand they want to provide $700 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest, but not pay for them. On the other hand they demand that unemployment benefits for the middle class be paid for. It’s kind of like someone on a diet ordering a Diet Coke and a Big Mac simultaneously.
(d). Back when Bush was pushing his tax cut packages through Congress in 2001 and 2003, supporters said the cuts (which weren’t balanced with spending reductions) would initiate an era in which the American economy would grow so robustly the nation would be running a surplus of more than $5 trillion at the scheduled expiration date. U.S. now runs a deficit of about $1.3 trillion
In sharp contrast, Former President Bill Clinton left a record surplus, despite the warning of potential economic disaster over tax increase for the wealthiest.
(e). Since the you-fix-the-deficit puzzle went online, there have been more than one million page views, and more than 11,000 posted Twitter messages about the puzzle, most including their own solution.
The most popular option among all respondents? Reducing the military to less than its size before the Iraq war — included in about 80 percent of the solutions posted to Twitter.
Dear Jesse,
This is a blog that you will want to see. “FEMA Camps for the Homeless.”
http://fema-for-homeless.blogspot.com/