New Reed-Heller emergency UI agreement supported by 5 leading Democrats and 5 leading Republicans
WASHINGTON,
DC (March 13,2014) – Seeking to boost the economy and provide relief for the more
than 2 million job seeking Americans who have lost emergency unemployment
insurance coverage since December 28, 2013, a group of 10 U.S. Senators led by
Jack Reed (D-RI) and Dean Heller (R-NV) today announced an agreement to
reauthorize emergency unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for 5 months.
The bill is cosponsored by Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Rob Portman (R-OH),
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Mark Kirk (R-IL), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Cory
Booker (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Dick Durbin (D-IL). The plan
will allow for retroactive payments to eligible beneficiaries going back to
December 28th.
This new legislation seeks to strengthen the U.S. economy
while providing vulnerable job seekers and their families with a vital lifeline
as they continue to look for work. The proposal is fully paid-for using a
combination of offsets that includes extending “pension smoothing” provisions
from the 2012 highway bill (MAP-21), which were set to phase out this year, and
extending customs user fees through 2024. The bill also includes an
additional offset allowing single-employer pension plans to prepay their flat
rate premiums to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).
Further, the legislation includes a provision modeled on
Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) and Jon Tester’s (D-MT) language that ends
unemployment insurance payments to any individual whose adjusted gross income
in the preceding year was $1 million or more. According to 2010 income
tax data, there were 0.03% of filers that earned over $1 million and received
some form of UI at either the state or federal level. This provision received
unanimous support in the Senate when it was voted on in 2011.
The legislative proposal also includes language championed
by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) to strengthen reemployment and eligibility
assessment (REA) and ReEmployment Services (RES) programs. In an effort
to help get job seekers back into the workforce, individuals receiving
emergency unemployment compensation will be eligible for enhanced,
personalized assessments and referrals to reemployment services
when they begin their 27th week of UI (Tier I) and 55th week of UI (Tier III).
“There are a lot of good people looking for work and I am
pleased we’re finally able to reach a strong, bipartisan consensus to get them
some help. Restoring this much needed economic lifeline will help job
seekers, boost our economy, and provide a little certainty to families,
businesses, and the markets that Congress is capable of coming together to do
the right thing. It has now been 75 days since UI expired and it needs to
be renewed. We’re not at the finish line yet, but this is a bipartisan
breakthrough. I am grateful to Senator Heller for his leadership and for
my many colleagues on both sides of the aisle who worked constructively to find
a way forward. I join Rhode Islanders and millions of people across the country
in calling on Congress to pass this essential, common sense legislation without
further delay and take additional action to help save and create jobs,” said
Senator Jack Reed, noting that about 8,000 Rhode Islanders have lost their UI
coverage since the benefits were cutoff on December 28th and more than $20
million worth of unemployment checks have gone undistributed in Rhode Island as
a result of UI’s expiration.
“These past few months have been extremely difficult for
thousands of Nevadans who have been unsure of how to pay the bills or feed
their families. I am so glad that both Democrats and Republicans have come
together on a proposal that will finally give Americans certainty about their
unemployment benefits. This deal extends these important benefits for five
months, pays for them, and brings buy-in from both sides of the aisle. I
am grateful to Senator Reed and to Senators Collins, Portman,
Murkowski and
Kirk for the determination and hard work involved in order to reach this
point,” said Senator Dean Heller. As many as 21,000 Nevadans have lost
their unemployment insurance benefits since they were cut off in December.
Now that the bill has been introduced, it must pass a
60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster. Reed and Heller expressed
confidence that they would have more than enough votes to advance the measure
in the U.S. Senate.
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