A growing pile of debt for state unemployment insurance programs, By Joey Peters, August 4, 2010, Stateline.org: “When Pennsylvania officials met earlier this year with business and labor leaders to fix the state’s depleted unemployment insurance trust fund, they thought they’d be able to make progress. Since March of 2009, the state has borrowed more than $3 billion from the federal government to continue paying out unemployment benefits. That seemed impossible to sustain. Among the ways to raise money were increasing the wage taxes paid by employers, or simply reducing the level of unemployment benefits to jobless residents. The talks unraveled. Business groups dropped out of the negotiations, possibly because of a proposed wage tax hike. The state’s Department of Labor and Industry is looking into holding new negotiations, this time without that provision, but for now progress on finding a solution is stalled. The result is that after this coming December, when a provision of the federal economic stimulus law expires, Pennsylvania may have to start paying interest on every federal dollar borrowed…”
Day: August 4, 2010
Trade Adjustment Assistance Program
When jobs go away for good, By Christine Vestal, August 3, 2010, Stateline.org: “In 2003, a now-defunct textile company called Pillowtex closed its plant in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Pillowtex was the town’s biggest employer by far, and most of the 4,800 workers who lost their jobs had little education and dim prospects for finding new jobs in manufacturing. Mike Easley, who was then the governor of North Carolina, responded by invoking a federal program targeted at workers who lose their jobs to foreign competition. Although the Trade Adjustment Assistance program had been around since the 1970s, states weren’t taking advantage of it much at the time. Easley managed to get millions of dollars in grants to help the Pillowtex workers and more than 12,000 others who also lost manufacturing jobs in the state. The money went for basic education, including high school equivalency degrees, and to re-train workers for jobs in other fields such as health care and construction that were in demand in the local communities and nearby cities. The program also came with generous health insurance subsidies and unemployment checks for more than two years – much longer than unemployment insurance normally lasts – while the workers pursued training and job searches…”
Stimulus Funds to States with High Unemployment
Jobless rates no factor for stimulus money, By Dennis Cauchon, August 4, 2010, USA Today: “States with the highest jobless rates are getting less money per person under the federal stimulus program than states with below-average unemployment, a USA TODAY analysis finds. Hard-hit Florida ranks last in stimulus benefits per resident despite having the nation’s fifth-highest unemployment rate. Nevada has the nation’s worst unemployment – 14.2% – but ranks 46th in stimulus benefits. By contrast, North Dakota has the nation’s lowest jobless rate – 3.6% – but ranks fourth in stimulus benefits. Alaska ranks No. 1 in stimulus aid – $3,505 per person – and has a jobless rate below the 9.5% national rate. Stimulus benefits skew to better-off states because of longtime federal spending formulas that consider many things – income, population density, highway fatalities – but usually not unemployment. Result: States that do well under federal formulas prospered again in the $862 billion stimulus law, regardless of their jobless rate…”