Thursday, June 23, 2011

State Board Decides To Stop Shortchanging Unemployed Wisconsinites

Remember the other day when a vice-president at the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce refused to lift a finger on a powerful labor/management state government advisory board, and federal unemployment compensation (UC) funds covering 10,000 out-of-work Wisconsinites for 13 additional weeks - - at no expense to the state - - therefore went unspent?

James Buchen, also the WMC's chief lobbyist, in part justified the board's inaction to The New York Times because he said he was hearing from businesses that unemployed workers preferred getting UC payments to finding jobs.

I suppose looking like Scrooge in major media was an embarrassment, so the advisory board agreed belatedly to seek the release of the money, and is also asking Walker to remove from the budget a provision that would arbitrarily trim one week's UC stipend from future eligible recipients.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

62, unemployed, pension fund bankrupt, looking @ only 70% of ss benefits. On my 25th week of UC benefits, living in fear in America, Wisconsin, and Milwaukee. I'm thinking of Parody! How can some unemployed individuals collect for 2 years and I only qualify for 26 weeks? If there was any opportunity out ther for me you could keep the UC extension. Where are the jobs Gov. Walker is talking about?