Newton Independent
Iowa Workforce Development Deputy Director Joseph Walsh joined labor commissioners from across the country in Washington, D.C., today in calling for Congress to renew provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that if let to expire would force millions of Americans to become ineligible for unemployment and COBRA benefits.
"The unemployment crisis will not disappear simply because we move into 2010," Walsh said. "Without an immediate extension of ARRA benefits, thousands of Iowans will lose benefits during the first quarter of 2010."
Walsh said that more than 10,000 Iowans will exhaust their regular state unemployment benefits during the first quarter of 2010. Without a deadline extension, these people will not receive any of the federal unemployment benefit extensions. An additional 20,000 Iowans will exhaust a portion of the three tiers of federal extensions and will not be allowed to continue in the program, he said.
Walsh, along with other state labor officials, met at the National Press Club for the release of a report called "Keeping a First Line of Defense for the Jobless," a state-by-state look at the impacts should the Recovery Act unemployment and health provisions be allowed to expire at the end of the year.
According to the report:
- One million workers will be left unemployed in January with no access to benefits. That number will swell to more than three million workers by the end of March.
- Twelve states will have to return to paying a 50 percent share of the federal Extended Benefits program - which provides 13 to 20 weeks of jobless benefits - because the Recovery Act's full federal funding of the program expires. Iowa is not included.
- The state agencies that process unemployment benefits will have to notify all recipients of an interruption in federally-funded benefits and adapt to new benefits programming and major processing delays.
- Hundreds of millions of dollars in income will be lost to unemployed families when the Recovery Act's $25 boost in weekly benefits expires, along with a provision suspending the federal income tax in the first $2,400 in unemployment benefits.
- Failure to reauthorize and expand the 65 percent COBRA subsidy could result in nearly half of those now enrolled in the COBRA program becoming uninsured.
The Center for American Progress Action Fund, one of the groups composing the report, has further information here.
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