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A bill to raise New York's unemployment benefits, which allow a maximum payout of $430/week ($150 less than states like NJ and Connecticut), has died on the vine. Despite support from Governor Paterson, labor leaders and many lawmakers, the highly dysfunctional Senate seems incapable of passing the bill, which would have raised maximum weekly jobless benefits on July 1st to $625, and close the gap in the state’s unemployment trust fund. According to the Times, it's as good as dead, because apparently the Assembly is not currently scheduled to convene until January. Meanwhile, the state’s Labor Department reports that more New Yorkers were out of work than at any time in more than 30 years; last month the jobless rate hit 7.8% (in NYC, the rate is 8.1%). Advocate for the unemployed Andrew Stettner says, "It’s a big problem that we’ve fallen so short in terms of not doing this. What was nice about this legislation was it got the benefits out during the recession and it had a plan for paying back the fund over several years. It was a smart approach." Ah, but Albany doesn't really do smart approaches.
With State Senate Circus, Jobless Benefit Bill Gets The Hook
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$625, who will pay for this if it did passed?
Employers' payroll taxes.
But isn't the State the underwriter for the insurance? Doesn't the state lose money?
I read a while back that the NYS Unemployment Insurance Fund was operating in the red and the state had to borrow money to make payments.
Isn't that true of pretty much every state at the moment?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/20/national/a140117S46.DTL
Based on this list of maximum weekly unemployment benefits available in each state, if bill was passed then it would have made NYS the highest paid unemployment benefits.
That list you posted isn't sorted by amount. Halfway down you'll see Massachusetts = $900. A week.
That's fucking ridiculous. It's more than I make working a good job. $46,800 a year to sit on your ass. I understand the need for unemployment insurance and payouts, but you can't have it be better than actually working. ZERO incentive to look for a new job and eat gubbament cheese instead.
So hey, it could be worse!
thanks for pointing it out. I think it was a typo since currently the weekly maximum Unemployment benefit is $628. perhaps it should have been 600 and not 900. Wow 900 would have been great for me. I get my ass fired and bum around.
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=elwdterminal&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Claimants&L2=Unemployment+Insurance+(UI)&sid=Elwd&b=terminalcontent&f=dua_initial_claim_benefits_overview&csid=Elwd
Do you know how unemployment works? Those amounts are not what everyone gets, they are maximums. Usually your benefit is about half of what you were making before. If you're making $2000 a week and suddenly you're making $900, you're not going to sit around on your ass.
NY State is too uptight. They need to chill and hang like their homies down south in Louisiana:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEdJ_tlX2A
(hit the 5:00 mark if you want to get to the point)
With any luck, members of this State Senate will be trying to collect jobless benefits soon.