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Rep. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the Ways and Means subcommittee with jurisdiction over the unemployment insurance program, recently introduced legislation (H.R. 3022) to
strengthen unemployment benefits for a temporary period through the end of calendar year 2002. The Cardin bill is cosponsored by a bipartisan group of seven other Ways and Means members.
Under CBO estimates that assume the unemployment rate will increase to about 6 percent, the Cardin bill would provide about $26 billion of increased unemployment assistance to jobless
workers. This is more than five times the amount of additional UI expenditures (including additional expenditures for administrative costs) that would result under the Ways and Means bill.
Under the Cardin bill, every worker who exhausts his or her regular UI benefits after September 11 and cannot find a job would receive up to 13 weeks of additional benefits,
regardless of where the worker lived.
The Cardin bill also would expand UI coverage temporarily to include more part-time and recently employed workers who lose their jobs.
In addition, the bill would increase UI benefit levels by the higher of 15 percent or $25 dollars per week.
Neither the Ways and Means proposal nor the Administration’s proposal contains any such provisions.
The first of these provisions would provide coverage to certain categories of workers now typically denied benefits. This part of the Cardin proposal is consistent with recommendations
made by the Congressionally chartered, bipartisan National Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation in the mid-1990s, as well as a “stakeholders agreement” on UI reforms hammered out last year by
representatives of business, labor, and state governments.
Under the Cardin bill, part-time workers who are laid off, are looking for comparable employment, and
meet all other UI eligibility criteria would be eligible for UI benefits. Currently, part-time workers in the majority of states are not eligible for UI benefits, regardless of whether they otherwise qualify
forbenefits on the basis of their wage history and regardless of the fact that UI taxes were paid on their behalf. In these states, part-time workers — who represent about one-sixth of the U.S. labor force — are
ineligible simply because they are not available for full-time work. Those disqualified by this restriction include women with young children who work 70 percent or 80 percent time but are not available to work full
time. A December, 2000 GAO reported noted that “in the last decade, unemployed low-wage workers appeared far less likely to receive UI benefits than other unemployed workers, even though low-wage workers were twice
as likely to be unemployed.”6 The report attributes some of that discrepancy to the difficulties that many low wage workers, and
particularly many former welfare recipients, may have complying with state eligibility requirements.
Provisions of the Cardin bill eliminate some of the difficulties that the GAO report noted. Under the Cardin bill, for example, an unemployed mother who is looking for 30 hours of work
a week but is unavailable for work 40 hours a week because of child care considerations would be eligible for UI benefits.
In addition, under the Cardin bill, the most recent work experience of unemployed workers would be
considered in determining their benefits. Currently, in most states, up to six months of an unemployed worker’s most recent work experience is ignored in determining the worker’s UI eligibility. In these states,
wages earned in the most recent calendar quarter and the previous quarter are not counted. (This procedure is a relic of unemployment insurance procedures established decades ago before the advent of widespread
computerization when data on recent earnings were not readily available.) As a result of these procedures, many lowwage workers who have entered the labor market fairly recently and would qualify for benefits upon
being laid off if their recent work experience were counted endup receiving no benefits (or do not begin receiving benefits until they reapply several months later).
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