A Happy New Year to You and Two Million Jobless Workers

Before I knew Jesse, I thought that New Year’s Day was mainly for recovering from hangovers — and for making resolutions. Nothing like a headache to make you resolve to lead a better life.

Now I know the day is also for eating greens (for money), black-eyed peas (for luck), some sort of pork (we’re not sure for what, though I’ve read it represents progress) and cornbread (for nothing, so far as I know, except that it goes well with the mandatory dishes).

I’ve made the usual resolutions — eat less, exercise more, etc. For the blog, I’ve resolved not to be so persistently gloomy and angry. Surely there’s some unequivocally good news to impart, even in these troublesome days.

I know from past experience that the new leaves I vow to turn over usually wilt before the crocuses sprout. But it’s surprisingly easy to begin the new year with a cheerful post.

Because more than two million jobless workers who were about to lose their unemployment insurance benefits will get them after all, thanks to the last-minute, barebones bill Congress passed to pull us back from the so-called fiscal cliff.

The workers, as you probably know, are those who’ve been actively looking for new jobs for more than 26 weeks — the period that most regular state UI programs will cover.

They’ve been getting federally-funded benefits under the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program that was originally part of the Recovery Act.

The last extension of the program kept it alive, though in shrunken form, through December.

So all those jobless workers faced a hard cut-off of their EUC benefits — this at a time when there are still more than three job seekers for every job available.

Another million or so workers would have had no UI benefits by April — and by the end of the year, about three-quarters of all jobless workers.

The belated, but welcome action by Congress will be good not only for many of these workers, but for our slowly recovering economy, which will surely need all the help it can get in the months to come.

As go-to economist Mark Zandi has testified, extending UI benefits will deliver a bigger bang-for-the-buck boost to the economy than virtually any other measure in the stimulus arsenal.

The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that the spending will save and/or create 300,000 jobs — or looked at another way, that 300,000 jobs would have been lost if Congress had refused to invest in EUC benefits.

But economists didn’t save the EUC program. We’ve got to give the President credit for insisting on the extension.

More credit, I think, is due to the advocacy organizations that kept the issue on the front burner — and to 134,000 of us in the grassroots who joined the effort.

This in itself is good news because it tends to suggest our voices matter — and, of course, in some cases our votes.

Worth recalling in the months ahead because we who care about poor, near-poor and about-to-be-poor people have our work cut out for us.

UPDATE: I should also have acknowledged the majority of Democrats in the Senate and the House Democrats who urged their colleagues to extend the UI benefits.

The Fiscal Cliff No One Is Talking About

Well, not no one. But no one with the political clout — and determination — to keep many millions of Americans from falling off a cliff.

And it really is a fiscal cliff — unlike the convergence of action-forcing events that everyone is talking about, i.e., the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the onset of the across-the-board spending cuts triggered by the Super Committee’s failure to agree on a more sensible way to reduce the deficit.

In late December, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program will expire, unless Congress extends it.

This, recall, is one of two federal programs that provide benefits for a limited period of time after jobless workers have collected as many weeks of benefits as their regular state programs allow — generally 26 weeks, though fewer in some states now.

Congress has already retrenched both programs.

As a result, the Extended Benefits program — the last phase in the benefits sequence — will shut down by mid-August because the law funds benefits only in states where unemployment rates are higher than they were in the recent past.

That leaves the EUC program. It’s already shrinking, such that jobless workers will soon get, at most, 73 weeks of benefits, counting the 26 most states offer.

The latest state-level unemployment figures suggest that benefits will end sooner in all but seven states and the District of Columbia.

But as things stand now, workers who lose their jobs this month will be on their own if they don’t find work before their state benefits end because the EUC program won’t be there for them.

Nor for workers who’ve already been jobless long to be getting EUC benefits. They’ll face what the National Employment Law Project calls “a hard cut-off.”

Hard indeed, especially when we see that nearly 5.2 million jobless workers have been actively looking for employment for more than 27 weeks — many for much longer.

Those who find work at all look, on average, for about 40 weeks, according to NELP. No wonder when there three and a half times as many job seekers as job openings.

The Congressional Budget Office expects the nationwide unemployment rate to remain over 8% through 2013. Congress has never let federally-funded unemployment benefits expire when the rate was this high.

But it’s a new day on Capitol Hill. Senator Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, says the issue isn’t on the radar screen — yet. Not a peep from his counterpart in the House, Congressman Dave Camp.

And President Obama doesn’t seem to be jawboning the issue, though he played a key role in getting the benefits extended last time the Bush tax cuts were due to expire.

This may just be a replay of the last two extensions. Wait till the last minute before enacting some sort of save.

A good strategy for Republicans, who had the leverage to scale back EUC — and for all we know, may have another cutback up their sleeve.

But I wouldn’t bet on it. The price tag of the last extension was about $30.1 billion over 10 years. Another extension would presumably cost less because it wouldn’t have to include funding for the EB program, even for part of the year.

But Congress — and the President — are anxious to come up with a way to halt the across-the-board cuts and still hit the agreed-on deficit reduction target.

They’re for sure going to extend the Bush tax cuts — though when and for whom remains to be seen. Many economists believe they should — at least for all but the wealthiest 2% — because a broad-based tax spike now could set back our sluggish economy recovery.

But the tax cuts will increase the deficit — unless they’re offset by deeper spending cuts or a revenue-raising overhaul of the tax code, i.e., a massive clean-out of the deductions, credits and the like.

I’ve got a hard time seeing Democrats and Republicans come together on the “grand bargain” we’re told could emerge. But ultimately they’ll agree on something.

With all the complex, divisive priorities in play, it’s not hard to imagine the EUC program falling by the wayside.

Party leader will say the answer is more job creation. Jobless workers would no doubt agree.

But in the meantime, those who’ve been looking hard and finding nothing could fall off a cliff and into poverty — if they’re not there already.

Long-Term Unemployment Benefits Saved, But Scaled Back

So the Republicans and Democrats agreed on a deal to extend long-term unemployment insurance benefits — defying predictions of another cliffhanger or worse.

Also extended, as you’ve probably read, were the employee payroll tax cut and the “doc fix” to avert huge cuts in Medicare reimbursements. As you may not have read, some programs for low-income people got a new, temporary lease on life as well.

The UI benefits extension is surely good news for the million or so jobless workers who’d otherwise have lost their benefits in March. Also good news for jobless workers who’d have run through their regular state benefits by year’s end.

No extension would have meant benefits losses for nearly 4.5 million by December — 12,600 in the District of Columbia alone.

Add to the good news column some changes in the UI program that didn’t get into the deal — or survived only in more palatable forms.

The most problematic would have denied benefits to jobless workers without a high school diploma or the equivalent unless they were enrolled in classes leading to same. There’s no such barrier in the final bill.

But (why is there always a but?) the well-known 99 maximum weeks will soon be a thing of the past.

As I wrote awhile ago, the Extended Benefits program kicks in only when states’ unemployment rates are higher than they were during a comparable period in a prior year — and kicks off when they aren’t.

Because Congress didn’t change the law to let states shift their comparison period back, more and more states will “trigger off” EB. The expectation now is that no state — or the District — will be able to offer the final 10 or 20 weeks of benefits by December.

Because Congress did change the law, fewer weeks of benefits will be available under the other federally-funded program — Emergency Unemployment Compensation.

EUC benefits kick in directly after workers have exhausted their regular state unemployment benefits. They’re structured in tiers.

At this point, the first two are available to all jobless workers, giving them a maximum of 34 weeks — less only if they find employment.

Workers qualify for the next tier only if they live in states where the unemployment rate is at least 6%. That nets them 13 more weeks.

If they live in states where the unemployment rate is at least 8.5%, they can move to a fourth tier and get another 6 weeks.

The total then for workers in most states has been 79 weeks — counting the weeks available in their regular state program, but not EB.

The extensions legislation cuts the maximum number of weeks to 73, beginning in September. From June through August, the maximum will remain 79 weeks, but only in states where the unemployment rate is at least 9%.

At the same time, the legislation establishes a minimum 6% unemployment rate for the second tier. And it raises the minimum unemployment rates by half a percent for the remaining tiers.

As of September, the third tier becomes four weeks shorter and the fourth, final tier four weeks longer.

Bottom line is that, as of September, only 63 weeks will be available in most states. At this point, jobless workers have more weeks available in all but seven.

I suppose we should be grateful. The Republicans reportedly wanted to cap benefits at 59 weeks, as the original House bill would have.

So the Democrats got more than a strict split-the-difference deal, though only because they’d already followed the Obama administration’s lead in letting states trigger off while their unemployment rates remain abnormally high.

Even here, they negotiated a temporary fix, giving states with unemployment rates of at least 8.5% an additional 10 weeks of EUC if they’ve no EB weeks to provide. The boost is good only through May, however.

Huffington Post blogger Arthur Delaney reports that it will benefit jobless workers in at least 10 states.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t note another Democrat victory here. The estimated $30 billion the UI benefits extension will cost won’t be offset by any tampering with the Child Tax Credit.

If House Republicans had had their way, refunds that help support more than five million low-income children would have been part of the pay-for.

So it’s not a perfect deal. But a deal got made. And it’s a whole lot better than the extension the House passed in December.

UPDATE: After I (hastily) posted this, I found that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities had created two tables that lay out the changes in the EUC program and the total weeks of benefits that will be available, with and without EB. A clearer picture of the complex end results than my prose could manage.