Just in case anybody wondered if Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) give a whit about jobless workers in their states, we’ve got an answer. They don’t.
Both let a Monday deadline pass to apply for hundreds of millions of dollars—$555 million in Texas and $176 million in Ohio—in federal funds for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. The money was part of the 2009 economic stimulus package.
To receive the money, both states would have had to slightly expand eligibility requirements for receiving UI, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. But both Perry and Kasich turned their backs on the money and the jobless workers.
Each state had four options in providing more UI help for their unemployed residents and only had to pick two of the ways. The states could have made workers in job training programs or those seeking part-time employment eligible. They could have provided larger benefits for unemployed workers with children or to people who have to leave their jobs because of domestic violence, a spouse’s job transfer or illness of an immediate relative.
At least 33 other states found no problems with the requirements, but Texas and Ohio claimed the modest increase in costs for expanded eligibility was too much to bear.
In Texas, Ed Sills, Texas AFL-CIO communications director, says some high-ranking Perry administration officials believed the state could have easily afforded the small extra costs.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst calculated that the higher cost of modestly improved eligibility, which was a condition of receiving the stimulus funds, would have been offset by the $555 million for more than a decade.
Instead, unemployed workers in Texas continue to suffer with a rock-bottom eligibility rate for UI benefits and employers continue to pay much higher taxes.
Employers as well as workers benefit from the federal unemployment funds, through lower unemployment taxes or delays in scheduled hikes.
But Perry and Kasich made their choice and eventually so will voters.
