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Almost 411,000 Californians face loss of unemployment benefits

November 15, 2010

Approximately 410,695 Californians are facing the potential cutoff of unemployment benefits if Congress fails to act before the end of November. [Orange County Register]

In July Congress approved a bill that allowed unemployed workers to collect up to 99 weeks of jobless benefits through the end of this month.

However, the balance of power in the House shifts to Republicans in January and Congress remains deeply divided over another possible extension of benefits. Analysts wonder whether supporters, including Cong. Lois Capps,  can muster the votes for a new bill.

Officials at the National Employment Law Project, an advocate for workers, estimate that without further Congressional action more than 2 million jobless workers nationwide could be dropped from the unemployment rolls by the end of the year.

A spokesperson for California Employment Development said that a letter will be sent to all current unemployment recipients, explaining how they may be affected if Congress doesn’t act.


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If:

Unemployment Insurance and Workman’s Compensation

were an optional burden of the employee and not a requirement of the employer,

would that help hiring? (It simply lets the employee decide on the coverage they want)


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Six months after Jerry Brown is seated in office, the right will blame him for this unemployment dilemma. They will say it’s his fault that he didn’t fix it fast enough.


I was under the belief that the employers pay for unemployment insurance, I know that I do. I don’t really understand how this works. Is the govt. paying for it or are we? If we are paying for it then did our rates go up?


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California only charges UI premiums on the first $7,000 of an employee’s wages. That was enough to pay up to 26 weeks of UI when the economy was good. The state’s UI fund is now tapped out. The Feds pays anything over 26 weeks anyway.


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If you are in any way connected to the building industry, and if that is your only skill set, you could be out of work for over two years since things have been bad in that industry for that long or longer. I got laid off in April 2009, was on unemployment for over a year until I could cobble together enough part-time jobs to make an income, since those were the only jobs I could get. Now I’ve started my own business. Some months are good, some are pretty spare, but at least I’ve got some money saved and am off the dole. But it took a good long time to get back on my feet, for the first time in 30 years of working.


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OMG!! I remember when it use to be 26 weeks then it was extend up to 40 (if memory serves) and then once more. I NEVER realized it has grown to 99 weeks!! Just short of two years. I think that is plenty. I heard awhile back something I hadn’t thought about. The way we keep extending unemployment, we are just turning it into another socialized program. And for those that will argue about paying into it, please I doubt alot of people have paid two years worth into it.


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I agree with your observations, BTDT. But what else do we do?


Telling people to pull themselves up by there bootstraps doesn’t help if they’ve got no boots.


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Not an easy answer I agree. Some may need to relocate to where jobs are. The state of Ca. is not one of them. I agree with the what else do we do but a flip of that is how long do we extend this for? Two years? Three? Four? Five? You get my point. How long do you pay someone unemployment in an industry that might not come back? At what point do we move forward and instead start retraining some of these people to other jobs. Yes I know that there are not alot of jobs but if we look at emerging industries (like the green Obama keeps stating) we can start there.


It worries me that the more money we keep handing out, the more stimulous we keep providing in this economy, we are only kicking the can down the road to catch up to it another day and it being a bigger problem. We have done that for years in this country of kicking the can down the road and the problem never gets better, only bigger. When do we start dealing with all these problems? How many do we figure our kids can figure out? I for one say the time is now.


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One last I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Maybe time to consider a program like the WPA programs of the thirities?


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“is it time to look beyond capitalism …” David Harvey asks,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0&feature=channel


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Agreed

WPA should have been a standard policy at least 50 years ago.


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California borrows $42 million a day from the feds to pay unemployment–

http://tinyurl.com/243zeft THIS IS A TIME BOMB WAITING TO GO OFF.


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