COMMENTS: A Toad for Breakfast
Levinson, Mark
Zola once explained how to cope with times like these. One must buy a toad every morning and devour it alive and whole. Only after such a breakfast can one face the newspapers with a tranquil...
...This occurrs at a time when only 34 percent of the unemployed were receiving unemployment benefits in an average month in 1984—the lowest level ever recorded...
...The Labor Department figures for the number of unemployed do not count discouraged workers (individuals who have been out of work for so long they have given up looking for a job...
...When FSC expired, some 325,000 unemployed workers who were receiving unemployment benefits—all of whom had been out of work for more than half a year and were still looking for a job—immediately lost their assistance...
...An additional 3.2 million jobless workers, who are now in the first 26 weeks of unemployment and are receiving state-funded unemployment benefits, will be affected as well...
...This information is taken from Unemployed and Unprotected, by John Bickerman, issued by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 236 Massachusetts Ave...
...Including discouraged workers, 6.6 million jobless received no benefits in February 1985...
...In most of these states, unemployed two-parent families are also ineligible for any Medicaid coverage for themselves and their children, no matter how low their income...
...FSC provided 8 to 14 weeks of benefits to jobless workers who have exhausted state-funded unemployment benefits (which usually run 26 weeks...
...395...
...This occurs at a time when long-term unemployment remains at high levels...
...N.E., Suite 305, Washington, DC 20002...
...The latest news, best read after a breakfast of toad, is that on March 31, 1985 the Federal Supplemental Compensation (FSC) program expired...
...In over half the states, families of the unemployed in which both parents are present are ineligible for welfare aid, even if the family is impoverished...
...This compares with 50-70 percent of the unemployed receiving benefits in the late 1970s...
...Wait—the news gets worse...
...With the end of FSC this level is likely to fall below 30 percent in 1985...
...The Center has published a number of first-rate reports on the federal budget, programs affecting low-income Americans, defense spending, and tax policy...
...More than 5.6 million officially counted unemployed people are without benefits...
...Only after such a breakfast can one face the newspapers with a tranquil stomach, read and swallow the squalid contents, and withstand what would make normal people sick...
...What happens to those who have exhausted unemployment benefits...
...Labor Department data show that there are now 1.3 million long-term unemployed (those out of work more than half a year and still looking for a job...
...Until now, these workers would have been protected for another 8-14 weeks if they failed to find a job by the time the 26 weeks of state benefits were up...
...Because a claimant must be seeking work to receive unemployment compensation, discouraged workers, by definition, do not receive unemployment benefits...
...If discouraged workers are added to the number of officially unemployed, the number of jobless who are without unemployment benefits rises even higher...
Vol. 32 • September 1985 • No. 4
