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Despite predictions the Great Recession is running out of steam, the U.S. House is taking up emergency legislation this week to help the millions of Americans who see no immediate end to their economic miseries.
Though Utah might not immediately benefit, if at all, a bill offered by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and expected to pass easily would provide 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits. They would go to more than 300,000 jobless people who live in states with unemployment rates of at least 8.5 percent and who are scheduled to run out of benefits by the end of September.
The 13-week extension would supplement the 26 weeks of benefits most states offer and the federally funded extensions of up to 53 weeks that Congress approved in legislation last year and in the stimulus bill enacted in February.
The 82,500 Utahns estimated in August to be out of work would not be covered because the state's unemployment rate is at 6 percent.
That exclusion seems unfair to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy group, which noted that even states with lower unemployment rates have lost many jobs during the recession.
"When recessions hit, it is critical to recognize the added economic hardship each state experiences, not just the total or absolute levels of distress relative to other states," NELP chairwoman Beth Shulman told the Senate Finance Committee last week.
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In pushing for the extension, McDermott said people from North Carolina to California "have been calling my office to tell me they still cannot find work a year or more after becoming unemployed, and they need some additional help to keep their heads above water."
Critics of unemployment insurance argue that it can be a disincentive to looking for work, and that extending benefits at a time the economy is showing signs of recovery could be counterproductive. But this recession has been particularly pernicious to the job market, others say. More than 5 million people, about one-third of those on the unemployment list, have been without a job for six months or more, a record since data started being recorded in 1948, according to NELP.
"It smashes any other figure we have ever seen. It is an unthinkable number," said Andrew Stettner, NELP's deputy director. He said there are about six jobless people for every job opening, so it's unlikely people are purposefully living off unemployment insurance while waiting for something better to come along.
The average state unemployment check is about $300 a week, supplemented by $25 included in the stimulus act. That doesn't go very far when a loaf of bread can cost $2.79 and a gallon of milk is $2.72, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said at last week's hearing.
The U.S. jobless rate stands at 9.7 percent and probably will hover above 10 percent for much of 2010. Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said at the Finance Committee hearing that, according to Labor Department figures, 51 percent of unemployment insurance claimants exhausted their regular benefits in July, the highest rate ever.
McDermott said his bill would not add to the deficit because it would extend for a year a federal unemployment tax of $14 per employee per year that employers have been paying for more than 30 years.
Three-fourths of the 400,000 workers projected to exhaust their benefits this month live in high- unemployment states or other regions that would qualify for the additional 13 weeks of benefits under his bill. They are Alabama, Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
