Thread: There’s been lots of attention on the $600 per week federal #unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, but that’s not the only big unemployment insurance issue now before Congress. #ExtendUI https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/many-unemployed-workers-will-exhaust-jobless-benefits-this-year-if-more-weeks-of

Another key issue is the number of weeks for which unemployed workers can draw benefits — it’s now much less than in the Great Recession.

Unless Congress extends the number of weeks, growing numbers of workers will exhaust their UI benefits and receive nothing further, starting this fall, with the numbers affected quickly mounting to high levels. https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/many-unemployed-workers-will-exhaust-jobless-benefits-this-year-if-more-weeks-of

There’s also a racial dimension here: Black, Latino, and immigrant workers have seen particularly large increases in unemployment, and they historically have been the last rehired when the economy begins to improve.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/robust-unemployment-insurance-other-relief-needed-to-mitigate-racial-and-ethnic

This means that workers of color are more likely to run out of UI than other workers. Failure to provide additional weeks of benefits will further aggravate the pandemic and recession’s already glaring racial disparities.