Sequester Hits the Long-Term Unemployed

Sunday was the five-year anniversary of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, a federal program signed into law by President George W. Bush that initially added 13 weeks of unemployment benefits to the standard 26 weeks states already offered eligible jobless workers. The 13 additional weeks of benefits were intended to be temporary, but as the recession worsened, Congress decided to keep the program going and even lengthened the amount of time that workers could receive benefits. For a while workers could receive as many as 99 weeks in some states, the longest duration of jobless benefits on record.

Those benefits have been pared back over the last year and a half, though, and are being cut more severely now as a result of the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester.

A new report from the National Employment Law Project calculates exactly how much: Of the more than $80 billion in automatic budget cuts that must occur between March 1 and Sept. 30, about $2.4 billion is being slashed from the federal emergency unemployment benefits program, says NELP, a labor-oriented research and advocacy group.

The organization estimates that upward of 3.8 million unemployed workers will ultimately be affected by the cuts. The average weekly benefit check of $289 is being cut by $43, or about 15 percent.

“It is the workers who have benefited least from the economic recovery who are bearing the largest share of the burden of the sequester,” the organization said in a statement.

Almost every state has carried out the federally mandated cuts to its unemployment benefits at this point, but many waited until recen! tly to do so. The longer the states took to put the cuts into effect, the sharper the reduction in each remaining weekly benefit check.

For example, the 20 states that cut their benefits starting on March 31 or April 6 trimmed 10.7 percent from each weekly benefit check, whereas Maryland and New Jersey started decreasing benefits on June 30, which required slashing all future weekly checks by 22.2 percent to achieve the total required savings.

The advocacy group has put together a table showing what’s happening in each state, a portion of which is below.

Note that there is one outlier in North Carolina, which on Monday ended its participation in the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation program altogether. That’s for reasons unrelated to the sequester; basically North Carolina reduced its state-level jobless benefits (which workers go on before qualifying for the later tier of Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits) by so much that it is no longer legally eligible for the fderal extended benefits.

The National Employment Law Project estimated that North Carolina, which has the fifth-highest unemployment rate in the country, is cutting off federal benefits for an estimated 70,000 workers.

State	Date Cuts Take Effect	Weekly Percentage Cut	Average Weekly E.U.C. Benefit	Sequester Cut to Average E.U.C. Benefit
Alabama	28-Apr	12.80%	$203	$26
Alaska	31-Mar	10.70%	$229	$25
Arizona	2-Jun	16.80%	$21! 0	$35
Arkansas	6-Apr	10.70%	$269	$29
California	28-Apr	17.7% (Limited to new E.U.C. claimants and to claimants moving to next tier)	$303	$54
Colorado	28-Apr	18.2% (Limited to new E.U.C. claimants and to claimants moving to next tier)	$340	$62
Connecticut	16-Jun	19.20%	$338	$65
D.C.	31-Mar	10.70%	$287	$31
Delaware	28-Apr	12.80%	$252	$32
Florida	26-May	Will eliminate last 4 weeks Tier 3 as of date.	$223	-
Georgia	31-Mar	10.70%	$225	$24
Hawaii	28-Apr	12.80%	$426	$54
Idaho	31-Mar	10.70%	$246	$26
Illinois	27-May	16.80%	$316	$53
Indiana	31-Mar	10.70%	$292	$31
Iowa	31-Mar	10.70%	$303	$32
Kansas	31-Mar	10.70%	$323	$35
Kentucky	31-Mar	10.70%	$301	$32
Louisiana	Not Yet Implemented		$201
Maine	12-May	Will eliminate 8 weeks of Tier 3 (to 1) as of date.	$263	-
Maryland	30-Jun	22.20%	$325	$72
Massachusetts	4-May	12.80%	$399	$51
Michigan	31-Mr	10.70%	$275	$29
Minnesota	31-Mar	10.70%	$343	$37
Mississippi	28-Apr	12.80%	$187	$24
Missouri	1-Jun	Weeks ending Jun. 1, Jul. 27, and Sep. 21 are “nonpaid weeks” for all E.U.C. claimants.	$224	-
Montana	5-May	19.60%	$260	$51
Nebraska	5-May	19.4% (Limited to new Tier 1 claimants)	$252	$49
Nevada	Not Yet Implemented	Ac! ross-board percentage reduction (“Preferred”)	$309
New Hampshire	28-Apr	16.7% (Limited to new E.U.C. claimants)	$291	$49
New Jersey	30-Jun	22.20%	$382	$85
New Mexico	2-Jun	25.0% (Limited to new Tier 1 and 2 claimants)	$329	$82
New York	31-Mar	10.70%	$296	$32
North Carolina		Stop all E.U.C. July 1.	$287	-
North Dakota	28-Apr	18.0% (Limited to new Tier 1 claimants)/td>	$324	$58
Ohio	5-May	16.4% (Limited to new E.U.C. claimants and to claimants moving to next tier)	$310	$51
Oklahoma	31-Mar	10.70%	$269	$29
Oregon	6-Apr	10.70%	$310	$33
Pennsylvania	6-Apr	10.70%	$337	$36
Rhode Island	21-Apr	12.20%	$382	$47
South Carolina	18-May	Weeks ending May 18, Jul. 13, and Aug. 31 are “nonpaid ! weeks” ! for all E.U.C. claimants.	$232	-
South Dakota	22-Jun	16.80%	$259	$43
Tennessee	31-Mar	10.70%	$233	$25
Texas	31-Mar	10.70%	$278	$30
Utah	28-Apr	17.0% (Limited to new E.U.C. claimants)	$318	$54
Vermont	6-Apr	10.70%	$299	$32
Virginia	12-May	14.20%	$279	$40
Washingto	19-May	21.1% (Limited to new E.U.C. claimants and to claimants moving to next tier)	$367	$77
West Virginia	31-Mar	10.70%	$277	$30
Wisconsin	31-Mar	10.70%	$246	$26
Wyoming	26-May	23.1% (Limited to new E.U.C. claimants)	$306	$71
Average			$289	$43