These cuts will fall the hardest on African Americans, Chicanos and Latinos, and Native Americans who have higher unemployment rates than whites. For example, in Mississippi, one of the four states ending federal benefits now, two-thirds of those collecting unemployment are African American, which is almost twice their percentage of the population.

These four states will soon be followed by 21 more Republican-led states which will also cut benefits for these federal programs. This will end benefits for more than 3 million more unemployed. The end of the $300 a week supplement will drop the average replacement in these states from 60 to 90% of their previous income down to 25 to 50%. The purpose is to drive the unemployed to take jobs at low wages that will further increase businesses’ bottom line. Many of these governors or their families own businesses that will benefit from being able to keep wages low.

The PUA and the PEUC provide benefits to almost 12 million people, who are more than three-quarters of all the jobless getting unemployment benefits. These two programs, along with the FPUC, will expire on September 6, unless the federal government passes an extension. This will cut an additional 8 million people from their unemployment benefits.

These benefits are being cut even as the federal eviction moratorium is ending on June 30. With more than 10 million tenants behind on their rent, the unemployment cut will just add to the number of renters facing eviction.

The weekly new claims for unemployment insurance have hit new pandemic lows and are less than 10% of the peak in April of 2020. However, the number of new claims last week are still more than twice the weekly number of claims in February 2020 when the recession began. The total number of people collecting unemployment insurance has declined more slowly, to more than 15 million in the latest numbers from a peak of more than 30 million last May. So, while businesses are laying off fewer workers, the number of jobless workers who need unemployment benefits to survive is still very high, seven times the number when the recession began.

Corporate profits are at an all-time high. The monopoly capitalists who own and control the large corporations have seen their wealth soar with new record highs in the stock market. But there are more than 7 million fewer people working than before the recession started in February. Companies are using the recession to reduce their labor costs to boost profits. What workers can actually buy with their wages is down 3%, as inflation is rising faster than paychecks.

Mainstream media claims that prices are rising because people are spending. But the economy has become even more dominated by big corporations during the recession; with small businesses folding, big businesses are selling and profiting more. These corporations can raise prices to increase their profits without a lot of competition. One example of this is Campbell Soup, whose sales are falling as people venture to eat out more. What did Campbell Soup do? They raised prices to protect their profits.

#SanJoséCA #PandemicUnemploymentAssistance #FederalPandemicUnemploymentCompensationOrFPUC #orPUA

These cuts will fall the hardest on African Americans, Chicanos and Latinos, and Native Americans who have higher unemployment rates than whites. For example, in Mississippi, one of the four states ending federal benefits now, two-thirds of those collecting unemployment are African American, which is almost twice their percentage of the population.

These four states will soon be followed by 21 more Republican-led states which will also cut benefits for these federal programs. This will end benefits for more than 3 million more unemployed. The end of the $300 a week supplement will drop the average replacement in these states from 60 to 90% of their previous income down to 25 to 50%. The purpose is to drive the unemployed to take jobs at low wages that will further increase businesses’ bottom line. Many of these governors or their families own businesses that will benefit from being able to keep wages low.

The PUA and the PEUC provide benefits to almost 12 million people, who are more than three-quarters of all the jobless getting unemployment benefits. These two programs, along with the FPUC, will expire on September 6, unless the federal government passes an extension. This will cut an additional 8 million people from their unemployment benefits.

These benefits are being cut even as the federal eviction moratorium is ending on June 30. With more than 10 million tenants behind on their rent, the unemployment cut will just add to the number of renters facing eviction.

The weekly new claims for unemployment insurance have hit new pandemic lows and are less than 10% of the peak in April of 2020. However, the number of new claims last week are still more than twice the weekly number of claims in February 2020 when the recession began. The total number of people collecting unemployment insurance has declined more slowly, to more than 15 million in the latest numbers from a peak of more than 30 million last May. So, while businesses are laying off fewer workers, the number of jobless workers who need unemployment benefits to survive is still very high, seven times the number when the recession began.

Corporate profits are at an all-time high. The monopoly capitalists who own and control the large corporations have seen their wealth soar with new record highs in the stock market. But there are more than 7 million fewer people working than before the recession started in February. Companies are using the recession to reduce their labor costs to boost profits. What workers can actually buy with their wages is down 3%, as inflation is rising faster than paychecks.

Mainstream media claims that prices are rising because people are spending. But the economy has become even more dominated by big corporations during the recession; with small businesses folding, big businesses are selling and profiting more. These corporations can raise prices to increase their profits without a lot of competition. One example of this is Campbell Soup, whose sales are falling as people venture to eat out more. What did Campbell Soup do? They raised prices to protect their profits.

#SanJoséCA #PandemicUnemploymentAssistance #FederalPandemicUnemploymentCompensationOrFPUC #orPUA

San José, CA – This past week, on March 11, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and White House passed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue law without the support of a single Republican in the House or the Senate. The law provides much-needed relief for millions of people whose finances have been wounded by the pandemic. Yet much more needs to be done, especially in the fight against the growing economic inequality.

The latest report on unemployment insurance or UI showed that the number of new claims for the week ending March 6 continued to be at high levels. The number of applications for state UI was 712,000, still higher than the pre-recession record of 695,000 set all the way back in the early 1980s. While the number of new claims for regular state unemployment insurance dropped by more than 40,000, the number of new claims for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, rose by almost the same amount, leaving the total almost unchanged from the week before, at almost 1.2 million claims.

The same report showed that the total number of people collecting state UI, the PUA, or other unemployment programs rose again to more than 20 million people for the week ending February 20. While the number of people receiving state UI was virtually unchanged at 4.8 million, the number collecting PUA benefits jumped by more than a million to total almost 8.4 million. The federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, or PEUC, for the long-term unemployed also increased by almost a million to more than 5.4 million. The state Extended Benefits or EB program for the long term unemployed in states with high unemployment rates also increased by a small amount to 1.3 million.

Without the American Rescue Plan (ARP), the PUA and PEUC would have stopped new claims as of March 15, and would have ended benefit payments on April 15, cutting off 13.8 million people from their unemployment benefits financial lifeline. The ARP also extended the unemployment insurance from the regular six months to a year and a half: the PUA now pays benefits for 79 weeks, and the PEUC to pay benefits for 53 weeks after the regular state UI, which lasts 26 weeks, runs out. These extended benefits run until September 6.

The ARP also extends the unemployment insurance supplement at a lower level of $300 per week until September. This supplement is much needed, as the maximum amounts of state unemployment are often nowhere enough to even pay the rent, much less survive. It also exempts the first $10,200 of UI from federal taxation – providing some relief to those hit by first losing their jobs, and then having their UI benefits taxed by the federal government.

With more than half of Americans getting their health insurance from their jobs, the ARP expansion of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will provide some relief to those who lost their health insurance along with their paycheck. The ARP also adds money to the COBRA program that allows laid-off workers to keep their former health insurance at a lower cost than before. There is also money for paid sick leave, but it does not require businesses to offer paid sick leave. The lack of sick leave helped contribute to the pandemic, as American workers have been forced to develop a culture of coming to work sick in order to avoid loss of pay or worse.

While the aid to renters, homeowners and homeless people is a very small part of the ARP (only $37 billion or about 2% of the total), it is a start towards aiding the tens of millions of renters and millions of homeowners who have fallen behind in their rent or mortgage. But, with some 3 million people without their own homes, the ARP aid is nowhere near enough to solve the problem.

The ARP also provides more money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, previously known as Food Stamps. It extends the 15% increase in benefits through September, past the existing cut-off of June. But the ARP does not permanently increase the benefit level, relax the work requirement, or loosen the savings limit that restrict participation and contribute to the high levels of hunger in world’s leading food producer.

The ARP also sends money to state and local governments that have fallen into budget deficits with the recession. Other states, such as California, have been lucky not to have developed big deficits. But California still had to borrow more than $18 billion from the federal government to pay for the historic surge in regular state UI benefits. State and local governments have cut more than a million jobs to try to balance their budgets, and the aid will allow them to restore programs and services that were cut.

There is also a wide array of money for institutions hit hard by the pandemic from schools to transportation agencies to retirement funds. The ARP also beefs up health care funding, mainly for vaccine distribution and COVID testing and tracking, but also in other areas.

COVID-19 also accelerated the increase in economic inequality that has been growing in the United States for the last 40 years. The pandemic led to historic lines at food banks, while the stock market hit record highs. Tens of millions of working people saw their savings and small businesses decimated even as total wealth increased and the wealth of billionaires skyrocketed. The estimated wealth of U.S. billionaires increased 44% to a total of $4.3 trillion, even as tens of millions lost their jobs, their businesses, and have their homes put at risk.

The ARP makes some short-term steps towards addressing economic inequality. The most popular one is the $1400 per person checks for about 85% of the people. These will start hitting people’s bank accounts this week. This round of relief checks includes adult dependents such as parents and college students that were left out of the checks under the Trump administration. However, it still does not include undocumented immigrants, as the checks require a Social Security number, while undocumented pay taxes using a Taxpayer Identification Number or TIN. However the legal resident and citizen members of a mixed household with an undocumented are eligible this time around.

The United States has the highest poverty rates for children among middle- and high-income countries, with more than one in every seven children living in poor households even before the pandemic began. The U.S. official poverty rate, on which this number is based, is way too low. It was designed in the 1960s based on data from the 1950s, and is centered around the cost of food. But in the last 50 years, rent, childcare, health care and other necessities have risen in price much faster than food, leading to a falling ‘official’ poverty rate even as inequality and homelessness grow.

The ARP marks a step in the fight against child poverty by expanding the child tax credit, increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor, and increasing the childcare tax credit for working parents. While these actions could cut child poverty by as much as half, these provisions only apply to 2021; but permanent changes are needed.

#SanJoséCA #PeoplesStruggles #COVID19 #PandemicUnemploymentAssistance #AmericanRescuePlan

San José, CA – On Thursday, October 15, the U.S. Department of Labor reported the biggest one week increase in new claims for unemployment insurance since late July. The latest report for the week ending October 10 saw 898,000 new claims for regular state unemployment insurance, up 53,000 from the week before.

The broadest measure of unemployment insurance – which includes those actually being paid under the regular state UI, the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the state Extended Benefits and the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) – fell by 215,000 for the week ending September 26. But the Extended Benefits and PEUC, both of which provide benefits for those whose regular unemployment insurance has run out after 13 weeks, was up by more than 820,000 the same week, showing the growing numbers of long-term unemployed.

The most recent jump in UI claims reflects the growing wave of layoffs being announced by major corporations. There is also a small but growing number of smaller businesses being done in by the long-feared third wave of the pandemic. There were more than 60,000 new cases of COVID-19 infections, the highest since August. Forty-four states (and the District of Columbia) reported higher rates of new infections.

The recession and the petering out of federal government aid, including the additional $600 a week in unemployment insurance benefits, has pushed 8 million more Americans into poverty, according to a report released by Columbia University. Almost a third of this group are children. African Americans, Chicanos and Latinos are being forced into poverty at twice the rate of white Americans as lower-paid workers are hit the hardest.

#SanJoséCA #recession #PandemicUnemploymentAssistance

San José, CA – On Thursday, June 4 the federal Department of Labor reported that 1.9 million new claims for state unemployment insurance or UI benefits were filed in the week ending May 30. This was down by 250,000 claims from the previous week, continuing the slow decline in new applications. However, this was still more than two and a half times higher than the previous pre-pandemic record of almost 700,000 claims made during the deep 1981-82 recession.

The total number of people receiving state unemployment benefits – which is delayed by a week – rose by 650,000 to 21.5 million for the week ending May 23. The total number of the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA and Pandemic Employment Assistance or PEA rose by 3 million to a total of almost 11 million in the week ending May 16. Putting together the state UI totals along with the federal PUA and PEA means that almost 30 million individuals, or 20% of the total labor force, were collecting aid for lost jobs or income as of the middle of May.

Years of underfunding and neglect at best, and sabotage at worst, has hamstrung the ability of state and federal government to get aid to those who need it. Thousands who lost their livelihoods have not been able to file for state unemployment benefits, and at least four states – Arkansas, Kansas, New Hampshire and West Virginia – all with Republican governors – have not even started to pay federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

Things are so bad that there is a growing number of errors in the reports. For example, there are at least a half a million PUA and PEA claims being paid through states that are not showing up in the federal reports, meaning that the actual total benefits being paid in mid-May was more than 30 million.

Worst of all, thousands of people are being thrown off of unemployment for refusing or even hesitating to return to work in unsafe jobs. States such as Oklahoma and Ohio are encouraging employers to report workers unwilling or unable to return to work and cut them off of unemployment benefits. This is one of the reasons that almost all states are rushing to ‘reopen’ despite a majority of Americans thinking that the pace is too fast. Businesses and their bought and paid for politicians want to use the threat of hunger and homelessness to force people back to work to try to restore profits, the pandemic be damned.

#SanJoséCA #PoorPeoplesMovements #unemploymentInsurance #DepartmentOfLabor #PandemicUnemploymentAssistance