Politics

Shorter Benefit Period Ahead for Georgia’s Jobless

April 6th, 2012

The amount of the time Georgians can stay on unemployment is about to get shorter. The change means Georgia will have among the shortest payout periods in the country.

After July, the benefit period shrinks from 26 weeks to between 14 and 20 weeks, depending on the state unemployment rate at the time. That means the state’s unemployed stand to lose up to $1,800 per person.

Alan Essig is with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

“We have one of the least generous benefits to begin with, our weekly rate is among the lowest in the country and the changes to the length of benefits would make us one of the bottom 2 or 3,” he said.

Lawmakers made the changes to repay the federal government more than $700 million dollars. Georgia borrowed the money to pay out the high number of unemployed during the Great Recession.

Businesses will share the pain. Lawmakers raised unemployment taxes for employers.

Still, Essig says Georgia’s unemployed are taking on too much of the burden.

“We have some of the lowest unemployment taxes for businesses in the country, if we just raised it up to the national average it would have broadened the sharing and prevented the massive sharing and prevented the massive cuts we’ve made to those who are out of work through no fault of their own,” he continued.

Georgia’s unemployment rate was 9.3% in March.