After programming computers since 1964, Medford, N.Y.-based Don Daniels has been out of work since July 2002. Although staff at local job centers tell him there are hundreds of applicants for every available information technology job and he hasn’t had a single interview, he keeps looking for work.
“All I want is a job where I can make a contribution and solve problems,” he says.
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| With no work available and his unemployment insurance about to end, Don Daniels and his family fear for their future. | |
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While increasing numbers of workers lose jobs—357,000 jobs disappeared in February and another 108,000 in March, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, for a total of 2.6 million private-sector jobs lost since President Bush took office—2.6 million workers have exhausted their 13-week federal extensions. That’s more than twice the number than in the first year of a similar extension during the recession of the early 1990s, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). According to the Labor Department, there are more than three unemployed job seekers for every job opening.
The proportion of workers who exhausted their state UI benefits before finding a job—the “exhaustion rate,” which is an important indicator of just how bad the economy is for jobless workers, was 50 percent in February—the highest level for any February on record, according to the CBPP. Nearly one-third of a million workers (327,000) exhausted their state UI benefits in February and that number now has increased for 24 straight months when compared with the same months in the previous year, the center calculates.
While Daniels continues job hunting, his wife, Valerie, an intensive care nurse, has worked 13-hour shifts up to six days a week to pay for their children’s college educations and avoid spending their retirement savings. “She’s so worried about the future, she isn’t sleeping well, and stress like that, day after day, can have so many unexpected consequences,” says Daniels.
Last year, Daniels used 26 weeks of regular state-based unemployment insurance (UI). His 13 weeks of federal UI extended benefits—which Congress authorized in January at the same time it abandoned all unemployed workers who had exhausted their state and federal benefits without finding work—run out at the end of April. If Daniels isn’t working by then, he’ll become one of the 1 million-plus long-term unemployed workers who have fallen through state and federal safety nets.
Yet in the U.S. House of Representatives, an April 10 Human Resources subcommittee hearing on the “impacts of unemployment compensation on returns to work” suggested that the unemployed—rather than the nation’s recession and Bush administration policies—are to blame for their inability to find work.
Matt Weidinger, staff director for Republicans on the House Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee, on March 31 told a conference on unemployment issues that the current UI system “encourages dependence” and is due for an overhaul.
In fact, the unemployment system often unfairly denies workers benefits, even though most states have ample reserves, Maurice Emsellem, public policy director for the National Employment Law Project (NELP), said at the conference. Many states have cut benefits for part-time workers, temporary workers and those who quit work for family reasons. And about 38 percent of people collecting UI benefits receive fewer than 26 weeks of state benefits, said Emsellem.
Congress Needs to Act
While Congress contemplates tax cuts for millionaires, working families facing economic devastation need a safety net—the reauthorization of another UI extensions under a federal Temporary Emergency Unemployment Compensation (TEUC) program set to expire on May 28. Such extensions are not the exception but the rule during times of economic duress.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has authored The Economic Security Act of 2003, while Reps. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) have introduced the Unemployment Benefits Extension Act (H.R. 1625), both continuing the emergency program for six months. The bills would increase benefits to 26 weeks (with more time for workers in states with especially high unemployment), cover the million-plus workers who have exhausted extended benefits without being able to find work and expand UI coverage for low-wage and part-time workers.
Activists should urge their federal legislators to vote for these measures with e-mails, telephone calls and written letters. Senate and House contacts are available online.
Letters can be sent to legislators at the U.S. Senate or U.S. House of Representatives; Washington, D.C. 20510. The Capitol Switchboard phone number is 202-224–3121.
Both bills would allow workers like Daniels to collect another 13 weeks of UI benefits. They’re no guarantee he’ll find a new job, Daniels says, but they would be a welcome “stopgap” and give his wife “a break from the floodwaters that are coming in,” he adds.
Unemployment Aid Needed as Job Losses Grow
There’s no greater argument for these measures than the Department of Labor’s early April reports showing the serious plight of the long-term unemployed, like Daniels, is deteriorating—as the unemployment rate hovers near 6 percent, with tens of thousands of unemployed workers so discouraged they have stopped looking for new jobs.
Says Rep. Rangel: “In January, the Republicans finally passed an extension of benefits—after refusing to do it before Christmas—but they still left out more than 1 million displaced workers. Now, the Republicans are not sure they want to continue the extended unemployment benefits program even as they support large tax breaks for the wealthy because they say that people will somehow find jobs if their benefits run out.”
Says Rep. Cardin: “There is no excuse for the hesitation to help unemployed families as we have in every past recession, especially since we have $23 billion sitting in the Federal Unemployment Trust Funds just for the purpose of helping dislocated workers.”
UI benefits not only help stave off homelessness and bankruptcy, they keep money moving—unlike tax breaks for the rich, who are likely to simply save the money, according to many economists.
“By putting billions of dollars back into the economy and targeting that money to the people who need to spend it, UI provides extremely effective economic stimulus,” says Economic Policy Institute economist Jeffrey Wenger.
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