Something To Think About Over The Weekend

These are some talking points to think about over the weekend as everyone continues to  survive this disaster.  If you have been paying attention to the job market, you see the upward trend of job creation.  It is in fact going in the right direction for now.  That's great news but means squat for the millions of unemployed who have exhausted their benefits and need additional assistance now.  Is that agreeable?  I think most unemployed can agree on that one. 

There is no greater case for the need for a Tier 5 than if you look at this graph.  To a person happily employed right now - it means to them perhaps it is okay to go ahead and shut off the funding for the longest-term unemployed.  To a person who is unemployed, it underscores the fact that if you were laid off in 2008 - you are just now having the opportunity to truly compete for jobs.  Both sides agree that this graph is good news but the graph speaks for itself about the jobs that just did not exist during 2008 and 2009.

Sure, the longest-term unemployed were applying their hearts out.  But during 2008 and 2009 the country was losing jobs.  How can anyone say that all of the longest-term unemployed are not doing their best is absurd.  There can be no change in the number of those who are unemployed until jobs are created.  When there are this many millions out of work - 162,000 jobs in one month is a great start but there are not enough jobs for everyone. 

Why shut off the lifeline that so many thousands need until the jobs that the country lost get created again?  The numbers do not add up.  To be totally fair about the situation:  If you were laid off in the year 2008, just recently have you had a true opportunity to apply for a job and get serious consideration.  There was massive job loss in 2008 and 2009.  Your only opportunity was to take the position of someone else who quit their job. 

If you are eligible to receive unemployment benefits - you know that you cannot even receive the benefit unless your state verifies that you were laid off.  The unemployed did not quit their jobs - they were laid off.  Unemployed through no fault of their own.  If there is anyone out there who is a 99er wishing that you had done more in 2008 and 2009 - look at the number of job losses.  There's nothing more you could have done.

It's just simple math.  It speaks to what Senator Menendez was mentioning in that Senate Finance Committee hearing.  The jobs did not exist during '08 and '09.  The graph tells us that.  Common sense tells us that.

Bailout Bank (JP Morgan/Chase) Released Report Stating Extended Jobless Benefits Is Reason For High Unemployment - Republicans Agree

Lengthened availability of jobless benefits has raised the unemployment rate by 1.5 percentage points and has increased the average duration of unemployment spells by over a month, according to a report put out yesterday by JPMorgan Chase Bank.

The report claims that jobless benefits have the potential to increase the unemployment rate by softening the blow of losing a job and encourage people who would otherwise drop out of the labor force to be counted as job seekers and therefore in the labor force.

Analyst Rick Ellis explains the math behind the report's findings:
If the current national rate was 10 percent, half of that (or 5 percent) is what you would typically expect to see in a healthy economy. Of the remaining 5 percent, 1.5 points is attributable to the extension of unemployment benefits past the recent historical threshold of 26 weeks.

Republican pundits were already repeating that 1.5 point number late Wednesday, using it as a talking point in favor of letting the extended benefits expire.

Ellis disagrees with the premise behind the JP Morgan Chase theory:
The national unemployment rate peaked in late 2009, and at that point, only 20 of the 47 weeks of extended coverage had been enacted. ... The addition of another 27 weeks of coverage should have sent the national unemployment rate back up sharply. Instead, the number remained at pretty much a steady level.

However, the analysts at JPMorgan Chase aren't the only ones claiming that extended federal unemployment benefits are adding to the country's jobless problem.

Gary Wolfram of the Business & Media Institute writes: "It ought to be clear that if we reduce the cost of becoming or remaining unemployed, then we will have greater unemployment ... One reason we have had such a “jobless recovery” is due to the reduction in the cost of remaining unemployed due to the expansion of unemployment benefits."

You can expect to hear more of these arguments in the weeks ahead when the U.S. House of Representatives takes up the Senate jobs bill that would extend the deadlines for filing for federal extended unemployment benefits through the end of the year.

Source Story

Note from the blogger: This article was found today from MLive.com. Remember that the American taxpayer bailed out the goons at JP Morgan/Chase. Michael Feroli, Chase Bank, is the person we all have to thank for this recent study from Chase bank.

I bet our tax dollars helped pay Mr. Feroli for this study. His email is michael.e.feroli@jpmorgan.com in case you had something to say to him.

If stories like this infuriate you as much as they do me, let me know in comments. It would seem to me the reason for our high unemployment is the simple lack of jobs. But what do I know - I'm just an average tax paying, law-abiding citizen.

Job Bill Clears Hurdle in U.S. Senate With Republican Support

A $15 billion jobs bill cleared a procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate yesterday after a handful of Republicans, including Scott Brown of Massachusetts, broke with their party leaders to help advance the Democratic measure.

The vote that allows the measure to proceed was 62-30, with 60 needed to overcome Republican stalling tactics. Most Republicans opposed the bill after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scaled back an $85 billion jobs-related measure that had been crafted in committee by a group of Democrats and Republicans.

Reid said the Senate will take a final vote on the stripped-down bill “in a day or so.”

Brown, in just his third vote since being seated earlier this month, said that while the bill was “not perfect” he “came to Washington to be an independent voice, to put politics aside and to do everything in my power to create jobs for Massachusetts families.”

Also siding with Democrats were Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Christopher Bond of Missouri and George Voinovich of Ohio. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska was the sole Democrat to vote against advancing the bill.

Democrats, who lost their 60-vote supermajority with Brown’s surprise win in a special election last month, needed support from at least two Republicans in yesterday’s vote because New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg is being treated for stomach cancer.

Obama ‘Grateful’

President Barack Obama issued a statement saying he was “grateful to the Democratic and Republican senators who voted to support” the bill’s provisions.

“The American people want to see Washington put aside partisan differences and make progress on jobs” and with yesterday’s vote “the Senate took one important step forward in doing that,” Obama said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said lawmakers there may pass the Senate plan without any changes.

The measure’s centerpiece is a $13 billion plan to fight joblessness by offering companies a one-year holiday from paying a 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax for each worker they hire who has been jobless for at least 60 days. The plan would save or create as many as 234,000 jobs, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The plan would spend $2 billion to aid state governments by expanding subsidies for bonds used to finance construction projects, give small businesses more power to write off expenses and transfer $19.5 billion in tax revenue into the government’s highway trust fund.

Republican Demand

Republican leaders had demanded a chance to restore provisions Reid dropped earlier this month, including a package of business-related tax cuts. Reid’s decision amounted to a bet that at least a few Republicans wouldn’t vote against his stripped-down bill in an election year when the economy is at the top of the list of voters’ concerns.

The provisions eliminated by Reid included an extension in unemployment benefits, a package of individual and business tax cuts worth $31 billion, and provisions preventing looming cuts in Medicare reimbursements to doctors. Reid said lawmakers would take up those items later.

The House approved a jobs bill in December costing more than $150 billion. It would spend $53 billion to extend unemployment benefits, $24 billion to help states to pay their Medicaid bills, $48 billion for infrastructure and $26 billion to shore up funding for public service jobs.

Source Link: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-23/job-bill-clears-hurdle-in-u-s-senate-with-republican-support.html

Understanding COBRA and "Mini-COBRA"

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the economic stimulus legislation) provides assistance with premiums to help involuntarily unemployed workers purchase their former employer's COBRA or other continuation coverage. Originally, the act provided nine months of premium assistance for people laid off between September 1, 2008, and December 31, 2009. However, emergency legislation that President Obama signed into law on December 19, 2009, has extended this assistance: People can now get assistance paying for their COBRA premiums for up to 15 months if they were laid off between September 1, 2008, and February 28, 2010. Furthermore, in 2010, Congress may consider passing legislation that assists people who are laid off later than February as part of the anticipated jobs bill.

Currently, under the act and its extension, for up to 15 months, eligible unemployed workers will need to pay only 35 percent of their total COBRA premiums to continue the health coverage that they had through their jobs, and the federal government will reimburse employers or health plans for the remaining 65 percent of premiums. People are eligible for premium assistance if they were (or are) laid off between September 1, 2008, and February 28, 2010; have annual income during the tax year that does not exceed $145,000 for individuals and $290,000 for families; have a right to continued health coverage under COBRA or another law; and are not eligible for coverage under another group plan (such as through a spouse’s employer) or for Medicare. People with adjusted gross incomes between $125,000 and $145,000 (or between $250,000 and $290,000 for joint filers) will need to repay a portion of the assistance that they receive, while people with incomes below $125,000 for single filers and below $250,000 for joint filers are eligible for full assistance with no repayment.

More: http://familiesusa.org/issues/private-insurance/understanding-cobra-premium.html