Too few Georgia workers qualify for unemployment

Unemployment in Georgia has hit an all-time high of 8.6 percent. That number represents more than 400,000 Georgians struggling to pay the rent, buy groceries and put gas in the car.

Yet fewer than 40 percent of those out of a job are covered under Georgia’s unemployment insurance program because of restrictive, antiquated policies that keep low-income workers, especially women and people with part-time jobs, out of the program.

Georgia Legal Services Program attorneys represent these folks every day when their applications for unemployment benefits get denied. Many of them are desperate and facing homelessness if they are not given some kind of aid.

Now, through the federal stimulus package, the state has the opportunity to make unemployment insurance available to thousands more Georgians by choosing two simple changes governing how eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits is determined.

In return for those changes, the federal government will send millions of dollars into the state’s economy, many millions more than what the new coverage will cost to provide for several years.

Gov. Sonny Perdue, after considering turning the money down, has wisely decided that the required changes in the law are “feasible” and “minimal.” He’s right, yet those small changes will help thousands of Georgians weather this economic downturn.

We hope the Legislature will go along with the governor and make the changes needed and not hold them up for fear of a tax increase on employers later. The National Employment Law Project points out that the stimulus money will flow into the states’ unemployment insurance trust funds immediately once the changes in the law are made, but the payouts to workers will be made over time. There should be no tax increase necessary for years, if ever.

The state has already qualified for $72 million in new federal funds because it adopted an “alternative base period” for unemployment benefits a few years ago. That change made it possible for workers to qualify for benefits sooner by taking into account their most recent quarter’s earnings.

But that is just a third of the $216 million available to Georgia. To receive the rest, the state would have to make at least two other improvements.

The change that would help the most Georgians would allow part-time workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own to qualify for benefits while they look for similar work.

A current estimate puts the number of workers who would be helped by this change at 6,630 at a cost of $7 million per year. Making this change would free up another $72 million in federal funds.

Thousands of Georgians work part-time because they cannot find full-time work. Others do because they are needed at home to take care of children or ailing older relatives. Twenty states cover part-time workers with unemployment insurance.

Another change that would bring millions of federal dollars flowing into Georgia would cover people who lose or must quit their jobs for a compelling family reason. Many states already incorporate these “good cause” exceptions that include having to leave work as a “trailing spouse,” or because of domestic violence, or to care for an ill or disabled family member. About 2,175 workers would be covered under this provision at a cost of $5.2 million. Again, this change would free up $72 million in federal money.

Legislators also could choose between extending benefits by 26 weeks for current recipients who participate in specific retraining programs for industries in which there is a labor shortage or providing modest extra benefits for dependents.

The stimulus package requires these changes in state laws because most states have policies that date back many decades and have not been updated to cover hardworking people in today’s economy. If Georgia complies, the result will be more Georgians putting their benefit checks right back into the state’s economy.

Without those benefits they may wind up drifting into homelessness or welfare, all of which is much more expensive to the taxpayers.

> Mary Irene Dickerson is a specialist attorney with the Georgia Legal Services Program.