Feb 17 2009
Federal Money For California Unemployment
California’s unemployment fund ran out of money earlier this year and had to borrow from the federal government. Many more people are unemployment right now than have ever been before, and still more are trying to file and cannot get through the call center or computern system.
If you believe in unemployment, you believe that the government should help out people in tough times. Unemployment was created to help people in the few weeks it took to find a new job, not the few months or years people are using it for now. So of course the fund ran out of money.
The federal government wants to give Californai $60 million to upgrade the call center and computers used to process applications - no strings attached. When the federal government is giving money away, of course the state is going to take it.
But then there is the additional money. It has strings attached.
In order to get the money, the state would have to change the law to allow people to earn $200/week without their unemployment benefits getting reduced instead of the current $25/week limit. The state would also have to change the law to allow for the most recent wage to be used, not the current process of the average of the past 4 quarters.
Business fear this means they will have to pay more, since unemployment is going to be paid at a higher rate. And they will have to be paid more.
If the changes in the law get made, they should sunsent when the federal money runs out. That isn’t the way things work in California. Instead the law will remain changed, even when the money runs out, forcing business to pay more.
Businesses employ workers. Changing the amount it costs for a business to hire, or keep someone on staff, doesn’t make sense when you need businesses to hire people in order to end the recession. If you want people hired, you have to make it cheap and easy enough to hire them. This proposition doesn’t do that.
Besides, it is offensive that someone would be able to make $625/week ($200 + $425 payment) and be considered “unemployed.” That is a lower income person, but that person isn’t unemployed.
