Realted Stories
Unemployment Insurance: More
than just a benefit
Unemployment Insurance Stops Recessions
from becoming depressions.
Unemployment Insurance:
Will it pay the bills? A laid off IAM member's experience.
Different flavors of unemployment
Understanding the causes of unemployment is vital to combatting it.
Using unemployment as a weapon
Employers have traditionally used unemployment to drive down wages, divide workers, and undermine unions.
They call this 'wage insurance?'
A look at the avearge weekly UI benefits by state and projected solvency of state UI trust funds.
Resources & Contacts
How you can help effect unemployment reform.
Get the VideoOrder "Reality Checks" a free IAM-produced video that explores the current state of the nation's unemployment insurance system.
Email your order to IAM Communications
Director Rick Sloan at rsloan@iamaw.org
or call the ommunications Department. 301-967-4520.
Reforming Unemployment
By International President Tom Buffenbarger
A steady income vanishes with the pink slip. Bills mount. Hard choices loom. Tensions at home rise. Want ads do not apply. After waiting weeks, a check arrives. The unemployment insurance system has ridden to the rescue. Or has it?
In California, those who qualify get an average of $160 per week. Texans get $227 per week. An unemployed Ohioan gets $236 per week. When your take home pay was $700 to $900 each week, that unemployment check seems terrifyingly small.
Worse still, less than 40 percent of the workers laid off in this recession will even qualify for a check. The eligibility rules, steadily tightened during the last twenty years by corporate lobbyists, ignore the new reality of work in America.
As the article Reality Checks shows, state governments must take a hard look at their unemployment insurance systems. Two questions must be asked: Are we ready for a prolonged recession? Can laid off workers survive on such small sums?
Time is running out. The governors and state legislators who fail to act now will face an army of angry voters in just sixteen months.
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