A Five-Month Extension for Emergency Unemployment? (S. 2149)
Do you support or oppose this bill?
What is S. 2149?
(Updated November 14, 2014)
Extends emergency unemployment insurance benefits for five months and provides retroactive payments to those who would have received benefits after the program expired in December 2013.
Argument in favor
Protecting unemployment insurance is critical to ensuring family stability and, consequently, the well-being of thousands of children. Long-term unemployed individuals receive neither a paycheck nor unemployment benefits. Need to enact emergency legislation for long-term unemployed is a problem that should never have arisen in the first place.
Argument opposed
Would encourage prolonged unemployment for many Americans and would be paid for using accounting gimmicks that would pose unnecessary risks to taxpayers. Separately, the bill provides only a quick fix: if backdated to ~January 1st, 2014, the legislation will expire before summer.
Impact
Impacts the roughly 2.2 million people who lost their benefits on or since December 28th, 2013.
Cost of S. 2149
The Congressional Budget Office said in a preliminary estimate that the emergency benefits would cost almost $9.9 billion while cutting the deficit by almost $9.4 billion through 2019. That’s because prepayment of Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. premiums would generate almost $18.4 billion in extra revenue over the next five years.
Additional Info
Media:
Bloomberg: Senate Advances Long-Term Unemployment Benefits
Reed Seeks to Advance Bipartisan Help for Job Seekers
Brookings Institute: How the Long-Term Unemployed Are Doing
Of Note:
-A recent report released by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee shows that more than four million Americans, 37 percent of the unemployed, have been out of work for more than six months, making long-term unemployment one of the most significant challenges of the economic recovery.
-In addition, a House Ways and Means Committee analysis projected that the expiration of federal unemployment benefits cost the economy over $3 billion in January and February, including over $51 million in Wisconsin.
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