Unemployment Insurance Update

In March, six months after the terrorist attacks, Congress passed an economic stimulus package that extended unemployment benefits up to an additional 13 weeks and provided new financial assistance to New York City. Some states have not been able to access the feature of the UI extension that provided for a second 13 week extension in high unemployment states due to the use of an "insured unemployment rate" trigger and many workers are facing the expiration of benefits while the economy has still not pulled out of recession.

Not waiting for Congress, several state governments, with support from state and local union organizations, began last fall working to improve benefits in their states. The District of Columbia, Virginia, Wisconsin and California were among the states that acted in the aftermath of September 11th to improve access to unemployment insurance and to improve benefit adequacy.

Since that time, a number of other states gave increased benefit levels, including Michigan, New Hampshire, Alabama, Georgia, Maryland and Oregon, with the state AFL-CIO and labor community playing key roles in coalitions to press for state legislation. Other states have enacted low-wage worker eligibility reforms, such as an alternative base period and others enacted state-funded extended benefit programs for the long-term unemployed.

The distribution to the states of $8 billion in new federal UI funds under the "Reed Act" this past March provides an opportunity for advocates to press for additional reforms in UI benefits, as additional funds are available in each state's UI trust fund. Throughout this legislative session, AFL-CIO State Federations are playing an active role, along with other worker advocacy groups, in campaigns to improve UI benefits.

For more information on Unemployment Insurance, including the effort to amend the recent extended benefit extension and 2002 state legislative highlights, you may want to visit the website of the National Employment Law Project (NELP) at www.nelp.org.

Three of every four Americans say it is “extremely important” for laid-off workers to receive career counseling.*

WAI is assisting unions in developing these services.

* Source: Poll released in October by Rutgers University’s John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development.