Extended Unemployment Insurance and COBRA Subsidies Will Lapse Again
by Emily J. Martin, Vice President,
National Women's Law Center
The Senate is now in recess until April 12, and word is that Senate leadership will not recall Senators back to pass extended unemployment insurance and COBRA subsidies before those benefits lapse on April 5. Last week, an attempt to extend these benefits was blocked by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. As a result, more than 200,000 unemployed workers will lose their unemployment benefits at the beginning of April.
The most frustrating part of this dynamic is that everyone expects Congress to ultimately approve these extensions. In fact, both the House and the Senate have already voted to extend unemployment benefits and COBRA subsidies (the House through June and the Senate through December), but because these two bills differ in their details, a final version must be worked out after recess.
Despite Congress’s votes to extend unemployment insurance and COBRA subsidies, because of Senator Coburn hundreds of thousands of workers will have to figure out how to make ends meet as they lose benefits next week. Moreover, state unemployment agencies will have to take up the burdensome and expensive task of closing thousands of cases and then reopening them a week or two later if Congress retroactively extends assistance.
Two months in a row of these unnecessary and painful disruptions are two too many. When Congress returns to D.C. in two weeks, it must quickly finalize the extension of unemployment insurance benefits and COBRA subsidies through the end of the year. But that is just the beginning of a meaningful jobs agenda. Last week, the House passed a job bill aimed at small businesses that included an extension of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) emergency fund through 2011.
The TANF emergency fund provides subsidized jobs and assistance for low-income parents—a group in particular need of targeted job creation. A minority of Senators blocked an extension of this fund last month; this time around, the Senate needs to give low-income parents the help they need. Congress should also pass legislation recently introduced by Representative George Miller, of California, which would create and save one million jobs in local governments and non-profits, employing teachers, police officers, librarians, and child care workers across the country. It’s past time to make a real commitment to job creation and support for the unemployed.
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Senator Coburn should try:
losing his job
making ends meet on unemployment
paying the full cost of COBRA
My husband, aged 63, lost his job recently after working since age 16 without interruption. We can't afford $1,200 per month for Cobra and will have to go without health insurance .
RE: "As a result, more than 200,000 unemployed workers will lose their unemployment benefits at the beginning of April."
As close as I can estimate it, something on the order of half a million people a week are running out of benefits .
In a normally healthy economy , unemployment is stable when new weekly claims run around 350,000 to 380,000. From about November 2008 through around May last year, new claims were averaging in the 600K to 700K range. Over 5 million workers are currently receiving extended benefits, which means they have already been unemployeed for a minimum of 6 months.
New claims have recently dropped into the mid 400K range, but that's still close to 100,000 more people laid off each week than there are jobs for them to go back to.
Incredibly, the government reports do not collect or release data on how many people exhaust their benefits each week, although that information should be readily available and hopelessly simple to compile. When times are bad, it lets the government engage in Enron style accounting. Those who lose their benefits are no longer counted as unemployed. They're off the balance sheet. Like Enron insiders selling stock to investors based on cooked books, the Fed sells bonds on cooked GDP and unemployment.
Go to the most recent report, which is actually one of the less grim lately, and go through the unadjusted data:
http://www.workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/press/2010/032510.asp
New claims were at 405K, which is historically a rate that would indicate somewhere between 25K-50K more workers were fired than found jobs. The total workers that went off the regular benefits roll dropped by 80K. That would suggest something on the order of 100K workers were shifted to the extended benefits programs. At the same time, those receiving extended benefits dropped by 330K.
Based on the above, it can be estimated that somewhere in the area of 430K workers ran out of benefits last week.
The last failure of a dilatory Congress caused a drop of considerably more than 200K in the following weekly reports. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but if memory serves me correctly, close to a million people were affected on the last round.
The author of the article grossly under estimates the impact of these kind of tactics, although does have the right of it that it is outrageous.
In the mean time, and the above aside, I have to question the gullibility of those willing to believe that "millions of jobs" will be created by the pork barrel packages passed off as jobs bills.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Has the author already forgotten we did that last year to the tune of nearly one trillion dollars? That scam was supposed to create some 4 million jobs. Do you know how much money is one trillion dollars? It's enough to pay 4 million people a lump sum of $250K EACH!!! It's enough to employ 20 million people for a year at a better than average living wage.
Only the most hopelessly naive could fail to recognize there's something seriously wrong with these kind of spending packages for porkers.
Lets stop legislating programs and starting sending out quarter million dollar checks to millons of people. They wont be able to buy much with it after a while, but at least all the trees everyone is worried about won't be a problem anymore?
Seriously, that is a very interesting point. But shouldn't the same point apply to our GDP in general? Where's that money ?
I deal with this kinda of math everyday; the government loves to contract out things we could accomplish in house (and I don't mean by getting free extra labor from current work force). We spent 3 million (allegedly) on a course material package I could have made myself at home.
I know one thing, Bunning and Coburn better hope Kentucky and Oklahoma come out of this rut by fall. Not talking about traditionally poor states here or nothing...
I think they must have just pulled short straws on this one. I wish my job was to go to work a few days a year and make sure nothing gets done...wait, no I don't - I would commit ritual suicide if that were my lot in life.
GDP is "gross domestic product", which has more to do with the economy than the Federal budget . That aside, those numbers are cooked six ways from Sunday because investors measure the risk of government bonds based on the health of the economy in relation to government spending . If the economy looks healthy, it theoretically should generate tax revenue, which would be used to pay off government debt. Cooking the books makes it possible to sell bonds with an AAA rating that are fundamentally the lowest grade of junk.
That aside, yeah, "Where's the money, indeed?". Bread cast upon the water never seems to trickle down to where it's supposed to go. It's outsourced at the top, never to be seen again.
The unemployed in our Country are middle-aged loyal employees; who, through no fault of their own, were laid off due to the economy . They are in a constant struggle to receive unemployment . Hundreds of thousands of unemployed throughout our country have exhausted Tier IV at the end of February. I have not had a check in ten weeks.
April 5th this number will reach new heights.
Washington choose to ignore this. They say they don't want our children /grandchildren to pay this deficit ; yet they do not worry about the families who will be facing the loss of their homes.
America's workers don't need anymore quick fixes! America's unemployed need policies that will support them throughout their climb toward re-employment, not political placeholders.
Please sign the petition requesting the creation of a Tier V. Individual emails go out to the Administration, and Congress etc. immediately when you sign.
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/the_99ers_need_a_tier_v_added_to_unemployment_benefits