WASHINGTON - A new report from Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) shows the number of people in each state who have lost access to federal unemployment benefits through September as a result of the termination of the program and illustrates why opposition to helping the long-term unemployed misreads history and overlooks the benefits to the economy. Through the end of September, more than 3.6 million people have been cut off unemployment insurance because of the expiration of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program last December, according to new data from the Department of Labor. The report cites several studies that highlight the program’s benefits to the economy and millions of Americans since it was enacted in 2008, including evidence that federal unemployment insurance helped prevent 1.4 million foreclosures between 2008 and 2012 and that unemployment insurance helped more than 12 million people avoid falling below the poverty line between 2008 and 2013.
“Evidence proves that federal unemployment benefits played a critical role in preventing the recession from collapsing into a depression and should be part of the nation’s effort toward continued economic recovery," Ranking Member Levin wrote in the report. “The positive impact of unemployment insurance in the recession was substantial - improving consumer spending, job creation, labor force attachment, poverty, and the rate of home foreclosures. Unfortunately, 3.6 million long-term unemployed Americans have been denied the value of this program since December and our economic recovery has suffered as a result."
