Without another extension of emergency unemployment compensation, tens of thousands of jobless Ohioans will exhaust their benefits each week, beginning next week, a top state official warned yesterday.
"As public awareness of this problem continues to grow, so does public desperation," Douglas Lumpkin, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, wrote to Ohio's congressional delegation.
Lumpkin is urging Congress to extend emergency unemployment compensation by the end of the week to avoid any lapse in benefits.
Yesterday, the House voted to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and included in the same bill an extension of jobless benefits.
The $636 billion Pentagon bill includes $128 billion to pay for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate is expected to vote Friday or Saturday on the bill, which passed by the House, 395-34, with almost no debate.
Defense measures generally enjoy bipartisan support, although this year Republicans objected to using the legislation as the base bill to which less-popular measures are attached.
Those included two-month extensions on several acts that are to expire at the end of the year. There are continued unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, a 65 percent health-insurance subsidy for the unemployed, highway and transit funding, three provisions of the anti-terror USA Patriot Act and an act that shields doctors from a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments.
Lumpkin said the state agency is receiving 2,600 e-mails daily about the status of the extension and has logged more than 300,000 phone calls since Dec. 1.
"These workers rely on the financial support of unemployment benefits to pay for ongoing basic needs," Lumpkin wrote.
Ohio's unemployment rate is 10.5 percent, up from 6.9 percent a year ago.
According to an analysis by the National Employment Law Project, 1 million workers nationwide will become ineligible for unemployment benefits in January unless Congress reauthorizes emergency unemployment compensation programs by the end of December.
By March, that number will grow to more than 3.2 million workers, including an estimated 145,461 in Ohio, the report found.
The 2009 Stimulus Act included up to 73 weeks of federal unemployment-benefit extensions, an additional $25 per week of compensation and a subsidy to cover 65 percent of COBRA premiums for unemployed workers. Those provisions end Dec. 31 unless extended by Congress.
In Ohio, if emergency benefits are not extended, 200,000 current claimants will be eligible for no more than the traditional 26 weeks of benefits.
"By contrast, Ohioans who became unemployed earlier in 2009 or in 2008 will receive anywhere from 46-93 weeks of benefits, depending on when they began collecting," Lumpkin said, referring to federally funded extensions.
Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.
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