Unemployment insurance is crucial to helping families get by while people look for new jobs, but today only 35 % of unemployed workers get benefits, and low wage workers are the least likely to be covered. Federal and State law changes are needed to modify unemployment insurance rules that limit the eligibility of part-time workers, make it harder to low wage workers to get benefits, and deny benefits to workers who lose jobs due to compelling family circumstances and discount recent wages. We must also promote job training and education for unemployed workers.
February 2, 2009—
If you don’t act now, the Obama economic recovery plan, which creates and saves millions of jobs, protects people from hardship, and invests in shared prosperity, could be derailed.
Please join a national call today, Feb. 2 at 4pm eastern time (3pm central, 2pm mountain, 1pm pacific).
Harry J. Holzer
The Urban Institute
As the nation’s labor market slides into a deeper recession, what kinds of employment and training provisions should be included for our least-educated and most-disadvantaged workers? Read more »
The US economy lost 533,000 jobs in November alone, bringing the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, and the underemployment rate, which takes into account discoursed workers who have stopped looking for work, and those who are working part time because they cannot get full time hours, to 12.5 percent.
Widespread Support Exists for Modernizing and Expanding Access to Unemployment Insurance to Stabilize the Economy
prepared by the staff of the House Committee on Ways and Means
A diverse set of individuals and organizations have declared their support for increasing access to unemployment benefits, including through passage of the Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act (H.R. 2233/S. 1871).
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Robert Greenstein, founder and executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, spoke at the Center for American Progress on Friday, December 5 about CAP’s proposed economic recovery package. Referring to the current recession as probably the longest and deepest since World War II, Greenstein highlighted the severe unemployment crisis and its relationship to poverty. CBPP recently released a report predicting the number of people in poverty will rise by between 7.5 million and 10.3 million.
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By Louis Uchitelle
The New York Times
With the economy deteriorating rapidly, the nation’s employers shed 533,000 jobs in November, the 11th consecutive monthly decline, the government reported Friday morning, and the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent.
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Enact Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act
An editorial from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune
The recent release of state and U.S. unemployment rates is just the latest indication that the global economic crisis is quickly becoming an employment crisis as well.
Nationally, new claims for unemployment benefits last week spiked to a 16-year high of 542,000, which brings the four-week average to 506,500. Those are the worst numbers in 25 years, and it’s likely November’s unemployment rate will go even higher than October’s 6.5 percent.
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Before Congress closed what may be the first of two lame duck sessions before the end of the year, they passed, and President Bush signed, an important and much needed extension of unemployment insurance benefits. But they did not take other urgently needed action to help hard pressed families make ends meet, or get the economy back on track.
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An editorial from the St. Petersburg Times
With so much attention being paid to whether American automakers should get a bailout, Congress should not lose sight of essential legislation to extend unemployment benefits. Senate leaders have bundled together an auto industry rescue with the extension of unemployment benefits. But if it turns out that Democrats can’t muster the votes needed for passage of a combined measure, the jobless benefits should be approved separately.
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By Steven Greenhouse
The New York Times
Economists rarely agree on anything, but a great many do agree on one unfortunate matter these days: the current economic downturn is likely to develop into the worst recession since the downturn of 1981-82.
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