This January, Half in Ten joined with the National Employment Law Project, NELP, to urge Congress to include urgent reforms to the Unemployment Insurance system in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA. The antiquated unemployment insurance system had failed to ensure equal benefits for low-wage workers, part-time workers, workers who left work due to “compelling family reasons,” and long-term unemployed individuals. Low-wage workers are only one-third as likely to collect unemployment benefits, even though they have double the chances of being unemployed. For this reason, UI reform was one of the 12 steps that the Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty identified to cut poverty in half in ten years.
Congress listened to advocates, and included unemployment reform in ARRA, allocating $7 billion for the project. And these reforms have begun to reach unemployed workers across the country. Earlier this week, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released a report (PDF) detailing the “unprecedented wave” of unemployment insurance reforms that has swept across the country since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) became law on February 17th, 2009. Read more »
Tags: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Federal, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin | Posted in Decent Work, Economic Security
An editorial from the Bangor Daily News
Now that they’ve passed a massive bailout plan for the financial sector, lawmakers are again turning their attention to average Americans and talking about a second stimulus package. Such a package should only be considered, with Congress returning to Washington for a lame duck session to work on it, if lawmakers can stick to stimulus that works.
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Tags: Federal, Maine | Posted in Press Room
The economy has taken a serious turn for the worse for workers and their families. There has been a significant surge in unemployment, and Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, and Ohio are some of many states that have been hit particularly hard.
The nation’s unemployment rate reached a five-year high of 6.1 percent in September. Nearly 10 million Americans were officially unemployed last month and still actively looking for work. Unemployment claims are now at a seven-year high, with nearly 500,000 workers applying for benefits every week.
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Tags: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio | Posted in Decent Work, Economic Security
