Unemployment Benefits Plan In Senate Slammed By Advocates: 'A Disaster For Everybody'

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/22/unemployment-benefits-pla_n_471843.html

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"It's a good first step," Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said. "There's no doubt we need to do more."

Republicans and some Democrats were unhappy that Reid abruptly dumped about $70 billion worth of tax breaks for businesses and individuals, help for the unemployed and additional Medicare payments to doctors from a compromise measure unveiled earlier this month by Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman and ranking Republican on the Finance Committee.

[Unemployed In Orlando]

From CNN at 7:21pm

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/22/news/economy/jobs_bill_senate/index.htm

However, the bill does not extend the deadline to apply for unemployment benefits and the COBRA health insurance subsidy. Some 1.2 million people will run out of benefits after Feb. 28 if the deadline is not extended. Lawmakers are looking to pass a separate, 15-day extension to give them time to enact a longer fix.

ughh..why couldnt they have added this in and then we would be good by next week. I still have 2 weeks left to claim on 3/8 so my situation is a little different, but if there are others out there that arent exhausting this week I would like to hear you speak up

[Jeff]

From CNN at 7:21pm

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/22/news/economy/jobs_bill_senate/index.htm

However, the bill does not extend the deadline to apply for unemployment benefits and the COBRA health insurance subsidy. Some 1.2 million people will run out of benefits after Feb. 28 if the deadline is not extended. Lawmakers are looking to pass a separate, 15-day extension to give them time to enact a longer fix.

ughh..why couldnt they have added this in and then we would be good by next week. I still have 2 weeks left to claim on 3/8 so my situation is a little different, but if there are others out there that arent exhausting this week I would like to hear you speak up

Yup, I'm gonna miss the deadline again...by one week 3/23 which will be for $50.00. They just don't want me to get that Tier4, even though my county is officially at 13% unemployment and probably closer to 20% in reality. My job field (residential construction) is around 85% unemployed I'm guessing.

[Sheila]

I hear ya Jeff. Marion County- (Ocala) is at 14% and we all know it is closer to 20 or 25% unemployment. We simply have no jobs, and CLM workforce provides us with NOTHING. There is NO job training and they will not fund you for school . I try to stay positive, but our town is really hopeless, foreclosure city and businesses shutting down on a daily basis. What does the government think we are going to do without extending unemployment??? I've only got 2 and a half weeks of unemployment left on tier 4. (They TOOK 2 weeks from me)....

[Jeff]

I hear ya Jeff. Marion County- (Ocala) is at 14% and we all know it is closer to 20 or 25% unemployment. We simply have no jobs, and CLM workforce provides us with NOTHING. There is NO job training and they will not fund you for school . I try to stay positive, but our town is really hopeless, foreclosure city and businesses shutting down on a daily basis. What does the government think we are going to do without extending unemployment??? I've only got 2 and a half weeks of unemployment left on tier 4. (They TOOK 2 weeks from me)....

And I thought I had it bad. Ocala's looking pretty awful. If Reid is gonna put together something better than a two week extension during the first two weeks of March, might that include another Tier? Can we hope?

[daytonaman]

I have just sent my letters out to the President, Reps and Senators. I will also be calling them, & I'm not sure if it's the best idea, but WE NEED TO GET THE WORD OUT, I'm writing to the mayor, governor and the media. Upwards of 100,000 Floridians and 1.1 million others will have no money to pay for their homes, Mortgage or Rent, food, ect... Is our local & fedral government ready for a million more homeless?

[daytonaman]

The Senate is STILL working on this jobs bill for FINAL vote to all amendments by tomorrow, or Thursday. It was just announced to C-SPAN 2 US SENATE, they will take up the Legislation on extending benefits after the Jobs bill is finalized.

[daytonaman]

I just searched unemployment on the Orlando Sentinel, I found this article that linked to the Chicago Tribune:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-ap-us-congress-unemployed,0,1087036.story

[tj21121008]

thf does this mean?????Reid and McConnell were obviously negotiating the parameters of the second — a broader, longer-term measure — in a private conversation on the Senate floor. A top Reid aide could be overheard suggesting a full-year extension of unemployment insurance and a 65 percent health insurance subsidy for the unemployed through the federal COBRA program.

At issue is extending several layers of additional weeks of benefits that have been approved by Congress since June 2008. The core benefit is 26 weeks, with up to 20 additional weeks in states with high unemployment!!! it says nothing about tier 5 ... anyone else know????????

[daytonaman]

thf does this mean?????Reid and McConnell were obviously negotiating the parameters of the second — a broader, longer-term measure — in a private conversation on the Senate floor. A top Reid aide could be overheard suggesting a full-year extension of unemployment insurance and a 65 percent health insurance subsidy for the unemployed through the federal COBRA program.

At issue is extending several layers of additional weeks of benefits that have been approved by Congress since June 2008. The core benefit is 26 weeks, with up to 20 additional weeks in states with high unemployment!!! it says nothing about tier 5 ... anyone else know????????

Unless I'm reading it COMPLETELY wrong, Reid is pushing for an extension of BENEFITS, not eligibility, " Facing a Feb. 28 deadline, Reid hopes to pass two measures, one as soon as Tuesday. The first includes a 30-day extension of several of soon-to-expire provisions such as jobless aid, parts of the Patriot Act and prevention of cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. - Tuesday being TODAY

[tj21121008]

Unless I'm reading it COMPLETELY wrong, Reid is pushing for an extension of BENEFITS, not eligibility

[Unemployed In Orlando]

Unless I'm reading it COMPLETELY wrong, Reid is pushing for an extension of BENEFITS, not eligibility

Whats up TJ, long time no see

I think its just how the tribune is reporting it, the extension of benefits would be to extend EUC so those collecting can continue to move on to the next established tier. Currently you will exhaust your benefits on EUC but without this eligibility extension (which is what they should call it to keep from confusing people with additional weeks extension) the claimant would fail to roll into the next tier if available thus ceasing their benefits.

I think when they said costly piece, they were referring to keeping the EUC tiers going, not adding additional weeks, see below as excerpt from the article.

"The most costly piece of the measure would continue to provide additional weeks of benefits to jobless people whose unemployment insurance would otherwise expire. They have been extended several times by Congress since June 2008."

[GonzoFL]

When I see the phrase that congress is pushing for the extension of "benefit tiers",then I will be excited. Don't be fooled by what the media is spinning,they don't know a tier extension from a benefit extension....it's all synonymous to them. To some,these articles state good news,to many more, they mean nothing. We need to see an article that address's additional benefit tiers. But alas,a pool table has more balls than these reporters do. They treat the congress like they were "Gods"......what a joke.

[nancym]

...a pool table has more balls than these reporters do.

ROFL! Thanks--I've just cataloged that into my personal database of put-down insults for those times when I need an especially powerful one. Hee-hee!

[Michael55]

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_local_blogonomics/2010/02/senate-considering-unemployment-extension.html

[Jeff]

If there are fifteen million unemployed Americans. How many of those have exhausted or are about to exhaust all available Tiers(1-4), regardless the window being extended. Does anyone know the percentage of all unemployed who simply have no more Tiers? And what are they supposed to do....for a roof, food, electricity, etc.?

I find it odd that in this economy, Congress is working on healthcare while the unemployed are facing losing everything. One would think that a home, food, and so on would be of greater value to ones overall health and well being. Hence, more Tiers.

[Robyn]

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_local_blogonomics/2010/02/senate-considering-unemployment-extension.html

From Jim Stratton's blog: "The extension would provide only short-term relief and is designed to give Congress a little breathing room to craft a more comprehensive bill ensuring that the jobless don’t lose their only source of income.
The stopgap measure, which could be voted on as early as tonight, doesn’t add new weeks to the maximum anyone is allowed to claim — about 99. Instead it amounts almost to a procedural measure, allowing people who are coming to the end of one tier of benefits to move into the next without a break."

OK, so... An extension would keep claimants from being cut off mid-tier. (I'm not including anything about Medicare.) An extension would *not* help the many here who are on the last tier. As soon as "a stopgap measure" or extension is approved, the Senate can get to work on a new and improved bill. Will that help those of us on Tier 4? Ideally, it would help everyone -- and it could add another tier. But think of the time element: A bill must be voted on and passed, so we're looking at close to 12 weeks, as it moves from Senate to state/AWI implementation. That's too long for many....

I would feel better if I heard specifics about jobs creation. We're in so deep, and we can't turn to the industries formerly known as auto, banking and building for help. So all of the above seems artificial at the moment.

[GonzoFL]

Fossils form faster than congress moves when it comes to helping Main Street America. Personally I think this is the time to bring forth a bill that adheres strictly to helping ALL(tiers baby,more tiers) the unemployed and the creation of jobs. It's an election year,strike while the iron is hot. With all of congress and some 33 senators up for re-election,who in their right mind would vote against such a measure? I realize that it will be costly,what the hell isn't? But we need to extend the "lifeline". You don't leave drowning people in the water because your short on rope.....you get more rope!

I want to see specifics too Robyn, simple black and white specifics....not this crap we have been seeing. Congress needs to stop hobnobbing these little piecemeal bills together and get a real fix on the table. Don't let them kick us to the curb.

[daytonaman]

Fossils form faster than congress moves when it comes to helping Main Street America. Personally I think this is the time to bring forth a bill that adheres strictly to helping ALL(tiers baby,more tiers) the unemployed and the creation of jobs. It's an election year,strike while the iron is hot. With all of congress and some 33 senators up for re-election,who in their right mind would vote against such a measure? I realize that it will be costly,what the hell isn't? But we need to extend the "lifeline". You don't leave drowning people in the water because your short on rope.....you get more rope!

I want to see specifics too Robyn, simple black and white specifics....not this crap we have been seeing. Congress needs to stop hobnobbing these little piecemeal bills together and get a real fix on the table. Don't let them kick us to the curb.

I agree completely!

Pray that Harry Reid heard the calls this week for Additional Tiers and moves forward with it.
Currently Republican Senator Judd Gregg from New Hampshire is crying NO to all provisions of the Jobs bill

Here is a copy of the Amended part of the Bill regarding Unemployment insurance, It DOES NOT mention anything about tiers:
The amendment also provides $79 billion in continuing emergency funding, including $41 billion to extend unemployment insurance for six months, $12.3 billion to extend from nine to 15 months the 65% COBRA health insurance subsidy, $354 million for small business loan programs, $23.5 billion to extend FMAP through June 2010, and $2.3 billion to increase eligibility for the child tax credit.

How many have contacted congress and STRESSED the IMMEDIATE NEED of additional Tiers?

The Amended Jobs bill passed the Senate today at 10:48am - From what is being posted across the screen, the Unemployment Insurance bill will be addressed next

[nancym]

If there are fifteen million unemployed Americans. How many of those have exhausted or are about to exhaust all available Tiers(1-4), regardless the window being extended. Does anyone know the percentage of all unemployed who simply have no more Tiers? And what are they supposed to do....for a roof, food, electricity, etc.?

[This post is EDITED from earlier in the day due to new info I received about the numbers and new calculations I had to make.]

I posted a rough breakdown of this on Open Congress a couple of times, not sure if I posted it here. A new spreadsheet with updated data for the number of people on each EUC tier as of Jan 30 can be found here:

http://ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/finance.asp
Go to the heading "Subject Data Available" and click on "Persons Claiming UI Benefits in Federal Programs (Weekly Data Unadjusted)" --you have to be able to open an Excel spreadsheet to see the data for all the people on all forms of extended benefits, broken down by dates and type.

All the people on extended benefits of any kind make up 41% of the total unemployed on benefits. There are over 6 million people on all forms of extended benefits, of which 5.8 million are on EUC tiers as of Jan 30. I posted earlier that all six million would have exhausted all their benefits by July 31, which is an error, sorry, since obviously those just starting Tier 1 will have benefits til Christmas of this year(!)

But the corrected figures are still absolutely dismal, and I'll try to break them down further. If anyone has more experience in data analysis, take a look at that spreadsheet. (To estimate the monthly numbers switchover from one tier to another is a little difficult since there are several factors involved with timing and the different states.)

So let's start with the first "group" of people to enter Tier 3 when the law was passed last November. Those total about 1.2 million; and as we all know, that group will run out of all benefits by March 27--if they haven't already due to having shorter numbers of awarded weeks.

Then we have Tier 2, which totals now (Jan 30) 1.5 million. ALL of those people will exhaust everything on or before July 31. So we start with 1.2 million by the end of March or earlier, then add those advancing from their current point in Tier 2 thru Tier 3 and Tier 4, ending in July or earlier, which comes to an average of roughly 350,000 additional each month til then who are falling off the rolls of benefits.

That adds up to about 2.7 million by the end of July, not counting those on EB, Veterans' benefits, or govt employees laid off with benefits, about a few hundred thousand; so about 3 million is a pretty safe and conservative figure I would think who would exhaust by end of July. A few will go longer because of getting temp work or regular jobs, but those numbers will most likely be overwhelmed by the numbers of people who exhaust earlier than July 31, including some with shorter weeks from Tier 1.

Please understand that these figures hold even if they extend the program deadline til December!

This what I've been trying to get across to anyone I talk to, that the 1.5 million that NELP advertises who are going to be cut off if the deadline is not extended is about the same or less than the number of people in the group who are already at the end of their benefits entirely. And unless there is a strategy to deal with ALL, even many of those who benefit from extending the Feb 28 deadline will have only a few more months of benefits and will ALSO be potentially homeless by the end of July!

For future numbers, the above link will be updated weekly with a new downloadable spreadsheet. But there will also be a different link just above that "Persons..." link on that same page that will soon have PDF files that will present the actual number of people exhausting all benefits by state. Not sure exactly when that update is coming, but I'll post when I see it, and I would assume it will be only up to date for the previous month or previous week.

[daytonaman]

The Unemployment extensions just started on the Floor of the Senate, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse was the 1st to speak and request the extension, although he did not mention additional tiers, he quoted letters and calls he's received from people that have been unemployed for 2 years who are at the end of benefits, and without them, they will not have the necessary means to stay in their homes.
I have been trying to call Senator Nelsons office all day, all I get is a FULL answering machine, I did fax a letter urging the need for extended benefits and additional tiers for the long term unemployed, IF ANYONE can get through to your local senators for your area, PLEASE DO IT NOW, it is the end of the line for many of us, I have a balance of $345.00 left for my claim on March 1, and thats it, No more benefits, end of tier IV, completely expired, and I know from what I'm reading here in these post's, I'm 1 of MANY, so I ask again, don't stop pushing this through to your elected officials, this MUST GET DONE THIS WEEK.

God help all of us, I pray we all can keep our homes and our families fed.

[Jeff]

If there are fifteen million unemployed Americans. How many of those have exhausted or are about to exhaust all available Tiers(1-4), regardless the window being extended. Does anyone know the percentage of all unemployed who simply have no more Tiers? And what are they supposed to do....for a roof, food, electricity, etc.?

[Quote is edited to correspond with corrected post and edited to save space.--nancym]

...So let's start with the first "group" of people to enter Tier 3 when the law was passed last November. Those total about 1.2 million; and as we all know, that group will run out of all benefits by March 27--if they haven't already due to having shorter numbers of awarded weeks.

Then we have Tier 2, which totals now (Jan 30) 1.5 million. ALL of those people will exhaust everything on or before July 31. So we start with 1.2 million by the end of March or earlier, then add those advancing from their current point in Tier 2 thru Tier 3 and Tier 4, ending in July or earlier, which comes to an average of roughly 350,000 additional each month til then who are falling off the rolls of benefits.

That adds up to about 2.7 million by the end of July, not counting those on EB, Veterans' benefits, or govt employees laid off with benefits, about a few hundred thousand; so about 3 million is a pretty safe and conservative figure I would think who would exhaust by end of July. A few will go longer because of getting temp work or regular jobs, but those numbers will most likely be overwhelmed by the numbers of people who exhaust earlier than July 31, including some with shorter weeks from Tier 1.

Please understand that these figures hold even if they extend the program deadline til December!

This what I've been trying to get across to anyone I talk to, that the 1.5 million that NELP advertises who are going to be cut off if the deadline is not extended is about the same or less than the number of people in the group who are already at the end of their benefits entirely. And unless there is a strategy to deal with ALL, even many of those who benefit from extending the Feb 28 deadline will have only a few more months of benefits and will ALSO be potentially homeless by the end of July! ...

Thanks Nancy. Sobering numbers. Hopefully Congress will do a follow-up bill addressing this. I also hope the jobs bill they just passed will spur new hires.

[nancym]

Jeff, my big apologies to you and everyone here; I just now got updated info on those numbers and I re-did my calculations. While the numbers are still dismal (what's a few million jobless more or less), I don't want to post wrong info here. I'm going to EDIT my previous post to reflect more fully what those new numbers are with a couple of links I learned about today. (I'll also edit the quoted section, so it's not totally confusing here.)

So please read that edited post sometime after 6PM today and I'll have it fixed.

[nancym]

The discussion about upcoming possible federal legislation was getting a bit unwieldy and hard to follow in separate threads. So we've MERGED those four threads into this one. (All posts remain in order by date.) Please use this thread for all thoughts and info about what's going on in Congress about new or continuing benefits.

Note that we still have other threads for state legislation and other topics under this heading of "Senate bills, State policies, and federal Initiatives," and you may continue to post new topics as long as they don't fit into the subjects of existing threads.

(There is still some ongoing discussion about new bills under "Latest UC, EB, ...etc.. News"--please use that section for procedural stuff about AWI and individual problems and situations, and keep the political and legislative discussion in this thread as much as possible.)

FYI, it may or may not be obvious, but when in a section, using "Post new topic" will start a brand new thread, not just a new post within that thread, since we don't have sub-divisions of threads here. So to stick within a thread but not reply to a specific post, simply don't use the "Quote" function and hit "Post reply" instead.

Thanks, everyone, for helping to keep this board organized!

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