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The 'fiscal cliff' will hurt many in Wisconsin and the USA by ending their unemployment benefits.
At the end of the year federal unemployment benefits come to an abrupt end, ending all unemployment benefits beyond the 26 weeks of benefits provided by the state. This change, which is part of the fiscal cliff, will make it harder for jobless workers in Wisconsin to make ends meet and could slow the Wisconsin economy.
Right now, jobless workers in Wisconsin have access to 37 weeks of federal unemployment benefits. About 44,000 Wisconsin workers who haven’t been able to find a job currently receive federal unemployment benefits, pumping $42 million a month into the Wisconsin economy. Those out-of-work workers will see their benefits suddenly terminated.
Nationally, more than two million jobless workers could lose their federal unemployment benefits at the end of the month. In addition, nearly one million people who would otherwise become eligible during the first three months of 2013 may not be able to receive any EUC benefits if this lifeline for the long-term unemployed is not extended. The failure to extend it would remove close to $30 billion of income from the pockets of jobless workers next year, which would be a huge hit for local communities and the national economy.
This is a bad time to end federal unemployment benefits. Wisconsin’s unemployment rate has been slow to drop – in October 2012, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate was 6.9%, the same that it was nine months earlier in January 2012. To get back to pre-recession levels of employment, Wisconsin needs to add nearly 250,000 new jobs, according to the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. Wisconsin isn’t making meaningful progress towards that goal – in fact by some measures, Wisconsin’s job growth has been among the slowest in the country.
There simply aren’t enough jobs in Wisconsin for everyone who is seeking work. Congress should wait until the economy is on a sounder footing to let federal unemployment benefit expire.
For more, go to our website: www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org.
Photo by DonkeyHotey released under a Creative Commons license.
7 Comments
Your unemployment rate is 6.9% which is at least 1% lower than the national average. 60% of the States have worse unemployment than you do and you want the people who are worse off to send you more?
http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
Sorry if you find this offensive, but it’s a fair question and I’m Just Askin’
That’s a false alternative, and you know it. Extending unemployment benefits for long-term Wisconsin unemployed could be paid for by reducing war spending, taxing stock transactions, or printing more money, none of which affects the “people who are worse off” in the slightest. To pretend that 6.9% unemployment is acceptable is vile.
justasking is employing a typical 1% divide-and-conquer tactic, trying to get the extremely poor to resent the merely-too-poor as a way to justify stealing everybody’s money. Like the “workers in the private sector don’t get pensions, so why should government employees?” garbage promulgated, ironically enough, by Scott Walker, Koch-puppet of Wisconsin.
EUC should be extended everywhere, indefinitely, until national unemployment goes below 3% (the most generous-to-business “readjustment” figure, which argues that those workers are merely jobless because they’re transitioning from one job to another). There’s plenty of funding for this, as there is for everything that would help people…it’s just being spent on war, corporate welfare, and the allowed accumulation of obscene wealth.
So, no, “the people who are worse off” don’t have to “send” WI unemployed a fucking thing. Sheesh.
And no, it’s not “a fair question”.
First, sure we could fund a lot of extended UI if President Zero called off his illegal wars, etc. Good luck with that in the future, but right now THAT’S the false alternative, and you know it.
Second, I did not say 6.9% unemployment was acceptable. Do you think liars are “vile”?
Third, what do pensions have to do with this?
Last, more Federal money to WI means less to go elsewhere so extending Federal UI for WI will cost other states. Maybe the FIRST concern should be the people who are in the DEEPEST shit?
Nowhere does WI Budget Project argue for extending UI for only Wisconsin. He/She/They is/are merely discussing the impact that the UI termination will have on their state. Obviously EUC will be extended nationwide or not at all.
If you can’t comprehend this, perhaps you shouldn’t be commenting on the piece. Just saying.
Nowhere does WI Budget Project argue for extending UI for anyone except WI, a state named like a dozen times in the diary.
The fricking poster’s NAME includes WI, not US, and the damn website is wisconsinbudgetproject.org
Hey, did you overlook the three questions I asked or is it simply that you have no answers?
And I’ll comment on whatever the fuck I like, same as you and everybody else, regardless of what state tthey live in.
Extending unemployment benefits is not a stimulus program.
A jobs program is a stimulus program.
Hoover did not know that. FDR did.