Unemployment Insurance, Section 7

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Requirement

Choose one of the topics below to discuss or one of your own choosing as long as it is relevant to the course material:

1. In Section 7, you learn how states pay for UI benefits in challenging times like the one we're now experiencing. To provide assistance to unemployed workers affected by the current pandemic, the federal government enacted the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) and the Lost Wages Assistance Program (LWA). What are these programs and what is their impact on unemployed workers and state UI programs?
2. This short 9-minute Planet Money interview about "The Broken Unemployment System" (Links to an external site.)aired on November 1, 2019. Listen to the interview and explain what you learned and let us know what you think about what was said in the interview about the federal and state UI systems and why the interviewee thinks they are broken.
3. A federal government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to fund the government. The last longest one to date started in December 2018 and lasted 35 days. During that shutdown, there was controversy when some states, including California, offered unemployment pay to federal government employees who were working without pay. Here is a link to an article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle at that time: Newsom at odds with US government over unemployment for federal workers(Links to an external site.). In your discussion post, please consider addressing the following:
   • • Provide a little background about the shutdown
     • Explain why this move to pay State UI benefits to federal workers was controversial given the current UI laws
4. While several states now have paid family leave programs, the United States has no national paid family leave program. In the State of the Union address on February 4, 2020, the President called on Congress to pass the bipartisan Advancing Support for Working Families Act, which would extend family leave to mothers and fathers all across our nation. This act is one of several proposals that have been put forth in the last couple of years. Some proposals include the following:

• • The Advancing Support for Working Families Act(Links to an external site.) would allow families the option to advance up to $5,000 of their recently-doubled child tax credit in the first year of a child's life or the first year a family adopts a child. Families can also choose to advance their child credit without having to miss work or sacrifice a state or employer's family/medical leave policy to pay for other expenditures. Low-income earners who do not qualify for the full refundable portion of the child tax credit can elect to receive a benefit adjusted to 100 percent wage replacement over 12 weeks of work.
  • (Links to an external site.)The New Parents Act(Links to an external site.) which would allow new parents to use a portion of their social security after the birth or adoption of the child in any way that works best for their household
  • The CRADLE Act(Links to an external site.) which would allow new parents to take paid leave in exchange for postponing social security benefits
  • The Family Act(Links to an external site.) which would provide partial wage replacement funded by a payroll tax on employers and employees
  • The Working Parents Flexibility Act(Links to an external site.) which would establish tax-exempt parental-leave savings accounts that can be funded by employees and employers

Consider discussing in your post:

• • What would the impacts be on employers and employees if any of the above proposals were to be enacted? (You can choose one or more to explain and discuss.)
  • Why is federal or state paid family leave controversial in the U.S.?
  • Do you support any of these specific proposals or federal/state paid family leave programs in general?