Kaine urges expanded unemployment benefits
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine wants to help more unemployed Virginians get financial assistance while they look for work -- and boost the state's dwindling trust fund for unemployment benefits.
Kaine says he will propose changes in state law next week that would allow the state to receive $125.5 million in federal stimulus money by allowing jobless people to receive unemployment insurance while looking for part-time work or receiving job training. Currently, such people are not eligible for unemployment benefits under Virginia law.
The governor will propose the changes by Monday night so they can be acted upon by the General Assembly at its veto session April 8. But Kaine faces a political fight because of opposition from the business community and House Republicans.
"The governor thinks we should do whatever we can, within reason, to take advantage of the entire stimulus package," said Gordon Hickey, the governor's press secretary.
The decision to expand unemployment benefits already has stirred a debate over the best way to bolster a state system that is heading for insolvency because of the rising demand for benefits by people who have lost their jobs in the recession.
Employers already face a sharp increase in unemployment taxes to maintain current benefits, based on projections that show the state unemployment trust fund as low as 30.9 percent by midyear.
If the expanded benefits are adopted by the assembly, Virginia would receive a total of $187.5 million -- including $62.5 million that is not tied to changes in state law -- to lift the trust fund and postpone the need to borrow more than $232 million from the federal government to keep the system afloat.
But Virginia businesses warn that expanding benefits would raise the long-term costs of a system that already is going broke. Once the stimulus money is gone, they say, employers will bear the burden of a more expensive menu of benefits.
"You're asking Virginia employers to accept a permanent tax change for a temporary benefit," said Keith Cheatham, vice president of government affairs at the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the proposed changes. "It's helpful until it's gone. When it's gone, what you have left is a system that costs more."
On the other side, advocates say the changes -- and the federal money that comes with them -- would strengthen a state system that is weak in providing benefits.
"At a time when so many Virginians are losing their jobs in this recession, providing a boost in unemployment benefits is critical," said Michael Cassidy, executive director of The Commonwealth Institute, a Richmond-based think tank.
The additional $125.5 million depends on the state choosing among four options offered by President Barack Obama for improving unemployment benefits.
Kaine picked two optional benefits:
- allowing unemployed people to receive benefits while looking for part-time, not full-time jobs, which the VEC estimates would cost about $10 million more a year or $2.36 per employee; and
- giving benefits to jobless people who are enrolled in a state-approved training program, which would cost about $8.1 million a year or about $2.20 an employee.
Cheatham, who leads a business task force on unemployment compensation, agrees that business taxes will go up without federal aid or any change in state law. But he argues that expanding benefits would punch a bigger hole in a leaking bucket, and that the Obama administration should give back more money to Virginia from federal unemployment taxes paid by businesses here.
"We will ask the General Assembly to just say no," he said. "I know it's painful."
Contact Michael Martz at (804)
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Reader Reactions
Jordab I an sorry you are out of work. I know it is hard but why do I have to support you for an extended period of time. If tasxes keep going up then I too will join you becasue then I will not make enough money to support my family.WHY SHOULD I FEEL GUILTY BECASUE YOU LOST YOUR JOB. HIT THE BRICKS AND FIND ANOTHER ONE. Period. There are jobs/training out there so get off your fat rear end and find them. This from a NON TICH TIGHTWAD you. How does it feel to become named. We are not being negative just realistic.
THAT IS EVERYONE IN RICHMOND’S PROBLEM..NO ONES WANTS TO COME TOGETHER AND HELP ONE ANOTHER. I LOST MY JOB AND TRYING TO RECEIVE UMEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BECAUSE I HAVE KIDS. IT IS EASY FOR YOU CRITICIZE WHEN YOU HAVE A GOOD JOB AND MONEY. BUT WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU GO THROUGH HARD TIME.. YOU ARE GOING TO LOOK FOR HELP. SO ALL THE NEGATIVITY NEEDS TO STOP. YOU RICH TIGHTWADS NEED TO KEEP COUNTING MONEY AND BE QUIET
Hadenough - Three things:
1. I think it is important to be able to distinguish between helping and enabling people. 13 plus weeks of taxpayer funded unemployment isn’t helping, it is enabling.
2. Helping people, in it’s most altruistic form, does not require the coercion of an inefficient government. If you genuinely need help - say a loan of $20.00 - and you ask me for it, I can give you the $20.00 you need, no taxes, no paperwork, no hassles. Heck, if you’re a friend, it wouldn’t be a loan, it’s my gift to you. Just come look me in the eye and ask for it like an adult. On the other hand, if you route the $20.00 you need from my hand through the government to your hand, you’d probably end up with less than eight dollars.
3. Unemployment benefits are really somebody else’s money. If you want extended benefits, here’s where I stand: After four weeks of unemployment, you have to pay back anything beyond that once you find a job and you are capped at 12 weeks of benefits when the tap shuts off. Yes, your wages would be garnished and a small amount taken out to recover those costs, but, you’re highly motivated to find a job muy pronto.
I do not think, after the billions we’ve thrown into social programs and getting pathetic results, that it is too much to say to unemployment and welfare recipients that now they have a responsibility to improve their lot in life and an obligation to make their beneficiaries whole by becoming productive and paying their fair share of taxes. If you’re taking my money and my neighbor’s tax money, you need to be giving it your best effort rather than just having someone sign off on a document saying you looked for a job when you really didn’t want one.
Some may not find the notion of AIG executives getting huge bonuses all so tasteful - but, personally, I find it even more repugnant that people receive money from tax payers when they do not work, earn and produce it.
If you’re a man, you should face those you demand unemployment and welfare benefits from. The process should be distasteful and this distaste should begin the process of leveraging the dissatisfaction of the recipient’s lot in life - to strive for something more than current circumstance deal you.
There’s a saying that goes “you can either let things happen to you or make things happen for you”. So what’s it going to be?
Read “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill if you need timeless guidance on how to stay off the government dole. You can get it for less than $10.00 in paperback.
But how long must the government support them until they find another job. Look what happened to welfare when they put a limit on it. People found jobs quicker when they only got benefits for 13 weeks. Then they had to do what we all do. Get a job or find someone else to support them. Most got jobs. Now they just live off the government like they had a government job they just don’t due anything.
When did helping people become such a bad thing ?
Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a government job !
Economics 101 - If you want more of something, subsidize it, if you want less of something, tax it.
If we quit subsidizing unemployment, I think you’ll find that people can be extremely focused, resourceful and industrious about finding new work for themselves. Necessity is, in fact, the mother of invention.
This is a requirement to get the stimulus money and as head of the DNC he would look funny if he did not want what the socialist have decreed. this is why many states are refusing the money. One time influx for years of increased taxes to pay for the new unemployment money. hope the GA tells him No as this acceptance is a direct function of him being in charge of the DNC.
Still buying votes with other people’s money, eh Timmy?
This is an attempt to change welfare reform of the 1990’s through the back door. Kaine needs reminding that reform was a bipartisan initiative supported by Bill Clinton. If Kaine want to help the unemployed, then he needs to create a business environment that leads to job creation instead of milking more money out of the private sector to pay people who are out of work.
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