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A judge rejected plaintiffs' attempt to have $300 jobless benefit reinstated. A Franklin County judge rejected the plaintiffs attempt to have the $300 jobless benefit reinstated while a lawsuit made its way through the court system. In addition to their broader complaint, the plaintiffs had requested relief in the form of a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, which was denied.The judge ruled that the laws referenced by the plaintiffs do not place an obligation on the state government to continue participation in the program, nor did Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine act outside the scope of his authority. Therefore, the...

A new audit of California's Employment Development Department (EDD) finds the agency was unprepared and had ineffective management to handle the surge in jobless claims during the virus pandemic. In September, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee ordered State Auditor Elaine Howle to conduct an in-depth audit into EDD following a tidal wave of abuse reports. One of the most notable abuses was rapper Fontrell Antonio Baines, 31, who fraudulently collected $1.2 million in EDD claims. He even detailed the EDD scam in a rap video. State lawmakers had criticized the agency for massive backlogs that delayed claims, along with its...

In the latest revelation of potential criminal fraud involving California jobless benefits, an analysis has found that more than $42 million in claims went to out-of-state prison and jail inmates, giving more clarity to what officials now estimate could be $4 billion in scammed coronavirus relief funds. A large number of Florida inmates, including a man sentenced to 20 years for second-degree murder, are among the thousands of out-of-state prisoners who have allegedly received California pandemic unemployment benefits, according to a December analysis commissioned by the state Employment Development Department and reviewed by The Times. The disclosures come as state...

WASHINGTON — The Senate failed to move forward on a three-month extension of assistance for the long-term unemployed on Thursday, leaving it unlikely that Congress would approve the measure soon and dealing a setback to President Obama’s economic agenda. The vote was 55-to-42, falling short of the 60-vote threshold to break a Republican filibuster effort. Republicans and Democrats, many from the nation’s most economically depressed states, had been trying to reach a solution that would allow people who have exhausted their unemployment insurance to continue receiving benefits as long as the government offset the $6 billion cost. Ultimately, how to...

A controversial jobless benefits bill narrowly cleared a key Senate hurdle on Tuesday, over the objections of Republicans who complain the $6 billion measure is not paid for. Senators voted 60-37 to advance the bill extending long-term jobless benefits, which expired Dec. 28. Democrats needed 60 votes to move the bill forward. But Republicans blasted Democratic leaders for pushing the bill without any plan to offset the cost elsewhere in the budget. "This is all borrowed -- every penny of it," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., told Fox News. Backers of the extension still need to clear several additional votes in...

Legislation introduced Tuesday would give about 400,000 undocumented immigrants in California the same rights as citizens to unemployment benefits and various other government services.

Eight states will cut off long-term jobless benefits this weekend, which comes from an agreement in Washington to dial down the length of benefits from 99 weeks to 79. The move will add more than 230,000 to the numbers of those cut off in 19 other states, bringing the total this year to over 400,000 who have been dropped before the end of the 99-week provision. But Congress isn’t the only driving force behind the change. Thanks to the oddities of the jobs data, the federal formula for jobless funds have shut down the support: Most states provide 26 weeks...

A scrounger who almost died after cutting his own foot off so he could stay on jobless benefits has been told he might still qualify for work despite his amputation. Long term unemployed Hans Url, 56, had just been told his hand-outs would stop if he did not accept work found for him by job centre staff. And when his claims that he was too sick and did not like the work were challenged with the offer of a medical, he took drastic measures. Url, of Mitterlabill, southern Austria, rigged up a mitre saw and sliced off his foot –...

If there's one thing the Wall Street Journal editorial page loves, it's arguments that the extension of jobless benefits creates unemployment by discouraging people to find work. And so it is today that Harvard economist Robert Barro is out with a new piece arguing that if Obama hadn't extended unemployment benefits, we'd be at 6.8% unemployment and not 9.5%. How does he arrive at this number? Simple, he just presumes for no reason that the nature of the recent jobless spike is no different than the one seen in the early 80s. (An examination of unemployment in the early 80s...

In extending jobless benefits this week, Democrats are trying to claim the moral high ground -- pretending they "stood on the side" of "working families," as President Obama put it, while heartless Republicans stood in the way. It's rubbish. Starting with the fact that the extension -- which will let out-of-work Americans collect weekly checks for almost two years, instead of the traditional 26 weeks -- will bloat the federal deficit by some $34 billion. That's right: The entire tab for stretching out benefits will simply be added to this year's shortfall, now pegged at a mind-blowing $1.4 trillion. As...

3 MILLION CUT OFF IN TWO MONTHS During the Senate impasse, from the week ended June 5 to the week ended July 10, more than 2.1 million Americans lost their benefits. Another million will join them by July 31. In Ohio alone, where unemployment stood at 10.7 percent in May, more than 83,000 people lost their benefits in June. Sister Barbara Busch, executive director of non-profit housing group Working in Neighborhoods in Cincinnati, 65 percent of the people who come seeking help with their mortgages are unemployed or underemployed. "I fear once the benefits run out, I suspect we'll see...

Conservative Democrats Balk at Jobless Benefits Plan Thursday, May 27, 2010 02:16 PM Democrats struggled Thursday to extend jobless benefits for people who have been out of work for long stretches as lawmakers worried about the growing budget deficit balked at a scaled down package. House leaders had scheduled a vote Thursday on a bill that would extend the benefits through November, but they ran into opposition from Republicans and some Democrats concerned about the cost of the overall bill. "They need to go back to the drawing board," said Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, a member of the conservative Blue...

...and they don't want to use unused stimulus money, either, to pay for jobless benefits... Democrats gave their full support to PAYGO last year. Obama said that they must pay-as-you-go like the rest of America, which means that these jobless benefits must be deficit neutral: either raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere to pay for them. But Democrats don't want go by PAYGO rules, don't want to raise taxes to pay for the jobless benefits, don't want to take any unused stimulus bill money (even money that won't be used until 2011) to pay for jobless benefits and don't want...

Unemployment benefits provide a small amount of help to a number of people who desperately need it. But some economists have gone too far by claiming that unemployment insurance is stimulating the economy. Unemployment insurance is jointly administered and financed by the federal and state governments, offering funds to “covered” people who lost their jobs and have as yet been unable to find and start a new job. The program has been around for decades, but this recession has created an especially large group of laid-off workers who, despite an extensive search, genuinely cannot find another job. With no new...

Temporary safety net or permanent entitlement program? That’s the question some conservative voices are asking as Congress eyes yet another filing extension for federal unemployment benefits. The Washington Post reports: [C]omplaints that extending unemployment payments discourages job-seeking have begun to bubble into the political debate. [...] [Arizona GOP Sen. Jon] Kyl told the Senate he questioned why anyone would see unemployment benefits as helpful to the economy, or to the job market. ”If anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work,” Kyl said. “I am sure most of them would like work...

White House officials and Democratic leaders in Congress on Friday said they were weighing extending key elements of the economic-stimulus program as the nation grapples with a deteriorating job market. Obama administration economists said they would like the enhanced unemployment-insurance program to extend beyond its Dec. 31 expiration date. They also want to maintain a program that offers tax credits to pay 65% of the cost of health insurance policies under the COBRA program, which allows laid-off workers to purchase the health plans they had through their previous employer. White House officials said they also are examining whether to extend...

A letter I am drafting currently. If you don’t know how unemployment taxes work, see here. Governor Schwarzenegger: As a business operating in California as well as twelve other states, I have the ability to compare the regulatory and business climate across states. And while I could discuss many issues with the state of California regulatory affairs, I will focus on just one in this letter: administration of the state unemployment insurance program. All the states have an unemployment insurance program with roughly similar rules. The fund will pay workers some percentage of their past earnings if they are terminated...

Just as the recession is throwing people out of work at an alarming rate, the unemployment insurance system in New York and many other states will start cutting off benefits this week for thousands of people who have been unable to find jobs since early last year. About 50,000 New Yorkers who had been collecting unemployment checks for 11 months — the longest stretch that benefits have been available since the last recession eight years ago — will stop receiving weekly payments this week, according to the State Labor Department. In normal circumstances, people laid off from full-time jobs can...

CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are considering major expansions of government-assisted health care insurance and unemployment compensation as they begin intensive work this week on a two-year economic recovery package. One proposal, as described by Democratic advisers, would extend unemployment compensation to part-time workers, an idea that Congressional Republicans have blocked in the past. Other policy changes would subsidize employers’ expenses for temporarily continuing health insurance coverage to laid-off and retired workers and their dependents, as mandated under a 22-year-old federal law known as Cobra, and allow workers who lose jobs that did not come with insurance...