It's long past time that unemployment insurance was brought into the computer age. The need has become glaringly obvious as the unemployment rate creeps up across the country — even in Nebraska, where unemploym
Posted: Monday, January 5, 2009 12:00 am
It’s long past time that unemployment insurance was brought into the computer age. The need has become glaringly obvious as the unemployment rate creeps up across the country — even in Nebraska, where unemployment rates are typically low.
Too many people are falling through the safety net simply because the system set up in 1935 still is operating as though payroll records amounted to reams of paper.
In Nebraska, only about 36 percent of workers who lose their jobs collect unemployment benefits. Nationally,
37 percent of workers collect benefits.
There are a variety of reasons why this might be the case. They might have had a spotty work record, or worked so little they weren’t eligible.
And some miss out because the unemployment system still is operating as though it were 1935, when the current system was installed in order to provide a cushion for workers who suddenly found themselves involuntarily out of a job.
Take the case of a college graduate who went to work at a job in Nebraska in June and was laid off suddenly in December.
That worker would not be eligible for benefits because none of that work history or income would be counted.
Benefits are based on pay earned, amount of time worked and the reason the person is unemployed. In Nebraska, as in most of the country, state agencies do not count the weeks in the quarter in which the worker was laid off, or even the preceding quarter.
“I think it’s a shock to people that the safety net is in such bad shape,” Maurice Emsellem, an advocate for better unemployment benefits, told The Associated Press.
Emsellem and other advocates are pushing for a wide range of improvements in benefits to reflect the reality of today’s workplace, in which people change jobs frequently, work several part-time jobs or work independently as private contractors.
Reasonable people may disagree on whether some of those changes are advisable.
It should be remembered that expansion of benefits would come at a cost. In Nebraska, unemployment compensation is paid by a tax on employers. Boosting benefits could put more financial pressure on employers and make it more difficult for them to keep people on the payroll.
But there is no reason in this day and age for the system to still be mired in practices that date to the pre-computer era. That hole in the safety net for willing workers ought to be fixed.