Unemployment insurance programs are under attack

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/Channels/Story.aspx?ID=1473612

Unemployment insurance programs are under attack. So far in the first half of 2011 10 states have placed new restrictions or deep cuts on how unemployment is collected. The National Employment Law Project released a study this week finding six states had slashed the maximum number of weeks unemployment insurance can be claimed to less than 26 weeks. That number of weeks has been the standard In every state of the union for more than 50 years. Michigan, one of the states hardest hit by the employment crisis cut the available weeks to 20. Missouri and South Carolina did the same. Florida has placed their unemployment benefits on a sliding scale. The higher the unemployment rate in the state, the more weeks available.

If the unemployment rate in Florida slips down to 5 percent only 12 weeks of unemployment can be claimed. Indiana has changed the way it calculates benefits. The average unemployment benefits will drop by $63 starting in July of 2012. Only two states, Colorado and Rhode Island, have addressed unemployment insurance solvency issue by raising and indexing the taxable wage base. Many states instead chose to offer tax breaks to employers. The Project is calling on the federal government to intervene. In their study they propose three possible relief solutions. One of the solutions is a proposal by Sen. Dick Durbin and offers to waive federal interest payment son trust fund borrowing for two years, delay federal unemployment tax increases, and forgives up to 60 percent of state loans if states agree not to cut programs.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. The GOPers won't be satisfied

until there are starving beggars in the streets.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

2. I don't know if even that would be able to placate them.

They would want something to be done to the beggars so that they didn't have to see them.

This country really has lost its' moral compass. It's sickening to hear people say that UCI is "welfare" or that it only leads to lazy people on the public dole who don't want to work. Amazing how fast they change their tune when they lose their job.