U.S. Congress - H.R.6867 Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008
H.R.6867 - Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008
To provide for additional emergency unemployment compensation. view all titles (6)
All Bill Titles
- Official: To provide for additional emergency unemployment compensation. as introduced.
- Popular: Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 as introduced.
- Short: Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 as introduced.
- Short: Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 as passed house.
- Short: Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 as passed senate.
- Short: Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 as enacted.
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whats the deal with michigan tapping into federal funds for the unemployed?
Michigan’s unemployment fund is empty..
Well maybe they are going to party….I know they have applied for them but Granholm does not tell us anything.
October 27, 2008, 8:57 am
Reforming Unemployment Benefits
By Alan B. Krueger
Alan B. Krueger is an economist at Princeton.
With unemployment rising and the economy slowing, a number of politicians and pundits have called for extending Unemployment Insurance benefits, which are given to eligible workers who have recently been laid off. Benefits were already extended an additional 13 weeks in all states in July 2008 thanks to the Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act, but that extension expires in March 2009. While it is not always clear what those who are calling for extended benefits are actually calling for – extending benefits longer than 13 weeks or extending the extended benefits beyond March 2009 – it is clear that there is a lot of sentiment to address the growing unemployment problem with the U.I. program.
Unemployment Insurance was started during the New Deal to help unemployed workers get by until they could find a new job. Today about half of unemployed workers looking for jobs are eligible for U.I. benefits. Workers need to have worked for a certain period of time to qualify for benefits, and employers contribute on behalf of their employees. Benefits typically equal 50 to 60 percent of pre-displacement earnings, subject to a maximum, and last for up to 26 weeks (unless they are extended). The program is an automatic stabilizer for the economy, as benefit payments automatically rise when the economy slows.
In addition to extending benefits, several other potential reforms to U.I. deserve attention.
First, the tax system that funds U.I. is severely broken. A hallmark of U.I. is that employer contributions to fund the program are experience-rated, meaning that employers who have had a worse record with layoffs in the past pay more. Experience rating makes economic sense because employers who contribute more to the problem of unemployment bear more of the cost of funding the program. Experience rating provides an incentive against layoffs, and discourages employers from gaming the system by putting workers on temporary layoff during predictable seasonal downturns. But experience rating has become virtually nonexistent, as many states have given employers a backdoor tax cut by assigning only a small share of employers to the top tax rates. In addition, the top rates are far too low, so employers in industries that frequently lay off workers are highly subsidized.
The erosion of experience rating contributed to a second problem: U.I. is seriously underfunded in many states. Half the states have reserve ratios (trust fund balance relative to wages) below 1.0. Phillip B. Levine of Wellesley College told me, “The ones with a reserve ratio under 0.5 are toast.” Ten states have reserve ratios below 0.5 (from lowest to highest: Michigan, New York, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, South Dakota, South Carolina, North Carolina, California, Kentucky, Texas, and New Jersey). You can learn about the financial situation of the U.I. fund in your state here.
Third, the tax base used to fund U.I. is capped at extremely low levels. In eight states (Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas), employer contributions are limited to workers’ earnings below $7,000 per year. This cap makes the financing highly regressive. If Idaho uses a taxable earnings base of $32,000, can’t California?
Fourth, the rules for automatically extending U.I. benefit duration in individual states are out of reach in all but an extreme recession. Extending benefits nationwide is a blunt instrument if unemployment does not rise equally in all regions of the country. Congress should not have to extend benefits with ad hoc legislation. Unemployment Insurance would be a more effective stabilizer for the economy if benefits were automatically extended in a state based on the conditions on the ground.
Fifth, U.I. benefits are low in some states because benefits are capped. Early in 2008 Senator Edward M. Kennedy proposed temporarily boosting U.I. benefits by $50 a week and extending benefits. I evaluated these proposals and other reforms for U.I. in testimony at a hearing that Senator Kennedy held on March 6, 2008. It is unfortunate that Congress and the Bush Administration did not devote attention to shoring up U.I. when the economy was stronger, but it is not too late to improve the program.
hey michigan people is granholm gonna extend our unemployment benefits?
Extensions are based on law not your defamed leaders.
Michigan has 00000000000000000000000000 money left for the unemployment insurance look it up !!!!!!!! California is running a close second . They are running into trouble and having to dip into reserves also, this isn’t a good thing.
No , she says they don’t don’t have any left. They are dipping in to the road, bridge, school funds for unemployment. Look at your Detroit Free Press online, it will keep you updated.
Read the posts above
Moderated Comment
Moderated Comment
You are right this site doesn’t have anything new ,probably because there isn’t any news check you newspapers online. I check the Detroit Free Press every morning. Lots of people losing their jobs out there.
It’s not because there’s no news, but because of your deceipt and stupidity. News or not, people should be posting their stories for members of congress and others to read. Because of your deceipt and stupidity, no one gives this forum credibility.
The regulars will be back when need be.
Filtered Comment [ show ]
thelowa is liberty 1 and patriot Jungle Phantom pleae broker a deal to maintain the peace because you know that McCain started taking narcotics for herself, the report shows. To get them, she asked the charity’s medical director, John Max Johnson, to make out prescriptions for the charity in the names of three AVMT employees. is alli have to say
The employees diid not know their names were being used. And under DEA regulations, Johnson was supposed to use a form to notify federal officials that he was ordering the narcotics for the charity. It is illegal for an organization to use personal prescriptions to fill its drug needs.
“The DEA told me it was okay to do it that way,” Johnson told The Washington Post recently, in his first media interview about the case. “Otherwise, I never would have done it.”
The county report showed that Johnson told officials he knew it was wrong, but he wrote prescriptions at McCain’s request at least twice.
After Johnson wrote the prescriptions, McCain, and sometimes her secretary, picked them up from his home. Once they were filled, Johnson was supposed to maintain custody of the narcotics, but he said he let McCain control them and carry the medications in her luggage on charity trips.
No one tracked the narcotics in between the charity’s missions, the county report shows.
When the county investigator asked Johnson where the charity stored its narcotics, he said they were in a safe. When asked where the safe was located, Johnson said he had never seen it.
Officials with other medical charities contacted by The Post said it is unusual to distribute narcotics overseas, particularly in Third World countries where medical teams treat disease and infection rather than performing painful surgeries.
Some of the doctors and nurses who went on McCain’s missions said they never saw narcotics on AVMT trips and would have discouraged carrying such medications. “You don’t bring narcotics into a foreign country, especially with people who have machine guns around,” said Michele Stillinger, a nurse during a 1991 AVMT mission to Bangladesh
s/s Green Troll
Moderated Comment
WHAT DOES AN ECONIMIST FROM PRINCETON HAVE TO DO WITH THE EXTENSION?
WHAT DOES AN ECONIMIST FROM PRINCETON HAVE TO DO WITH THE EXTENSION?
Extending unemployment benefits during times of recession is nothing new. In the past 30 years Congress has acted 3 times to establish temporary extended benefits, each time during a recession . studies indicate that extending unemployment is essential to provide much needed support to those who have lost their jobs and are struggling to reenter the job market. I am a cosponsor of the emergency unemployment compensation ACT and the unemployment insurance modernization ACT These bills receptively would extend unemployment benefits for 20 weeks with an additional 13 weeks for states with high unemployment like Michigan, and would provide for the modernization of unemployment insurance programs with Michigan receiving more than $90 million immediately under the bill. These bills have been referred to the senate committee on finance where they await further consideration. Sincerely Carl Levin. MI.
I think everyone of these recessions has been because of Reagons’s trickle down economy . 1980, 2003, 2008
Trickle Down Economics
The Treasury Department will start doling out $125 billion dollars to nine banks this week to get credit flowing again giving a lift to US markets on rising confidence that the Government’s moves would stave off a protracted recession. (((( I think they are pissing to the wind, we’re in a recession, the banks will hoard the money, and no one will want to borrow anyway.. This coming from a poor high school grad, but I think I am right!!))))
Am I missing something? Were benefits extended, or are we still just hoping?
Hoping!
If your a bank your gonna get christmas early this week.
Moderated Comment
I just spoke to the UE of here is Cali..they told me and I asked 3 TIMES!!! they were very surprised the extension didn’t happen yet..like kind of a very of matter of fact answere..HOWEVER here we are no extension..my point I asked how would the extension work my ORIGINAL claim is up on Jan 11th. IF the extension gets passed prior to that I can collect what I am now collecting from my original claim…381 dollars per week..IF the extension does pass on my ORIGINAL claim I can only collect until Jan the 11th…I asked as I said 3 TIMES!!!
OMG..let’s get this going!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..As I said the man said he was very surprised that it hadn’t taken over already..he has worked at the UE office for 10 years..He said off the record..he thinks “they” are going to see how this bailout money works first..HE DID NOT AGREE WITH THAT AT ALL!!!! He feels the same way we do….like again Where is the extension????
I am so discouraged….UGH!!!!!I NEEED TO WORK!!!!!! BUT WHERE?
Pressing on in California.
Bless all of you..
Thank you Cali for the info, that’s exactly what I posted earlier if the extension is passed and your benefit year is up, I was called “misinformed” Hope it gets passed soon, I’m in same boat as you, NY here.
Not true, as I said, misinformation. I’ve been receiving the extension for weeks past my benefit year end date.
To add, you are not in California or in New York. You are in Michigan repeatedly posting false information. If there were a California person the extension would attach to the original claim as it extends it, even past the benefit year’s end. Each extension following, would also attach. I know for a fact as I received unemployment 16 months 2002 – 2003.
Since the (2008) original 13 weeks backdated to 2006, past the benefit year endings of thousands of people, were paid, and they were, so would any other claim be paid as extending the original.
Stop fabricating garbage just to keep the forum active. Your posts are rambling lies and full of purposeful spelling errors. You never change your syntax bipolar troll, you’re obvious.