Unemployment benefit activity finally ebbing
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June 23, 2011 |
The pressure on Idaho’s once-broke Unemployment
Insurance Trust Fund is finally easing, but the
impact of the worst recession since World War II
is still being felt.
Regular unemployment benefit payments have been
running below year-earlier levels for the past
18 months for both the number of recipients and
amounts paid weekly. Regular benefits totaled
just under $3.5 million for 15,000 jobless
workers during the third week of June, less than
half the amount paid during the same week in
2009 to nearly 27,000 workers.
But even that two-year decline leaves the
state’s unemployment program at levels
unprecedented before the recession that began in
December 2007. During the third week of June
2006 when Idaho was in the midst of a
significant economic expansion, less than $1.3
million in benefits was paid to 5,700 jobless
workers.
To some extent, the declining pressure on
Idaho’s regular benefit program is the result of
workers exhausting their 10- to 26-week
allotments without finding jobs and moving to
federally financed extended benefits. Nearly
16,000 jobless workers received extended
benefits during the third week of June.
In addition, over 10,000 unemployed workers have
exhausted all benefits without finding jobs.
Federal extensions run from 29 to 73 weeks.
The latest report from the New York-based
Conference Board, a business think tank, showed
there were still nearly four unemployed Idaho
workers for every job opening in the state. Jobs
listed with the Idaho Department of Labor’s 25
local offices have also been down dramatically
from pre-recession levels.
The department has also been aggressive in
ensuring that benefits only go to workers who
qualify and that businesses pay the taxes they
owe to finance the program.
During 2010, the department’s workforce
consultants handled 20,000 disputed claims for
benefits, ruling against the claimants and for
the employers in 58 percent of those cases. Over
2,300 benefit claims were denied on grounds of
suspected fraud, and nearly 5,000 because the
claimant failed at some point in the process to
actively look for work or take acceptable job
offers.
Over the last four years, the department has
recovered more than $16 million in benefit
overpayments from claimants.
Even before benefits are paid, the department
denied the claims of nearly four of every 10
workers who had been fired, a higher denial rate
than 28 other states and 2 percentage points
higher than in 2008 as the recession was just
taking hold.
Benefits were denied to three of every four
workers who quit their jobs. Benefits in those
cases were allowed in cases where people quit
for medical reasons, intolerable workplace
conditions or similar circumstances.
At the same time, with unemployment insurance
tax rates for employers at their legal maximum
and the trust fund still owing the federal
government $202 million it borrowed after going
broke in 2009 and 2010, department audits of
over 500 employers last year uncovered more than
1,000 workers who had not been properly reported
for tax purposes. Those audits produced $7
million in wages that should have been taxed –
and ultimately were.
Employers have immediate, around-the-clock
access to the department to monitor their
unemployment accounts, update business data like
addresses and communicate with department staff
in a secure environment on issues like benefit
claims. This tool can help keep unemployment
insurance costs under control, especially in the
worst of times, but so far only about a tenth of
Idaho’s employers have chosen to use the system
that has been in effect for the last four years.
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