Pennsylvania Unemployment Deal Will Avert Benefits Cutoff For 45,000

- (Huffington) - 11 months, 1 weeks ago...

Pennsylvania lawmakers have struck a deal that would prevent 45,000 jobless Pennsylvanians from abruptly losing their unemployment benefits next week. The agreement ends the latest in a series of ideological skirmishes across the country over how much government should help people who lose their jobs because of economic factors beyond their control. While the new compromise bill would forestall a sudden loss of benefits, it would also make Pennsylvania's unemployment compensation program a bit stingier in the future, according to a summary of the bill. For higher earners, it freezes the maximum benefit rate at $573 in 2012 and slows future benefit growth, and it limits benefits for people laid off with severance packages. For low earners, it requires them to have worked longer and to have made more money to be eligible for benefits in the first place. It tightens work-search requirements for all jobseekers. "I don't like the fact that we're compromising the folks at the bottom to make this deal," said Sharon Dietrich of Community Legal Services, a nonprofit that advocates for the legal rights of low-income Pennsylvanians. Read More... More on Unemployment ...