Ohioans' jobless benefits in crisis

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/07/15/broke.ART_ART_07-15-08_A1_V8AON0T.html?sid=101

Raise payroll taxes, freeze payouts or fund will go broke, report says
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 3:12 AM
By Catherine Candisky
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Jobless Ohioans will need to get by with reduced benefits and employers must pay higher unemployment taxes to keep the state's unemployment compensation trust fund from going broke, a report released yesterday recommends.

With the fund paying out more in benefits than it collects in unemployment taxes, state officials are projecting it will go belly up by the end of this year or early next, forcing the first federal bailout since 1982.

The Ohio Unemployment Compensation Fund Advisory Council solicited the recommendations for shoring up the fund. The panel is expected to issue its own plan to the General Assembly this fall for approval.

"It is likely that policy actions to raise the trust fund balance will involve both tax increases and benefit reductions," wrote the report's author, Wayne Vroman, of the Urban Institute.

Among his recommendations:

• Freeze the amount of benefits paid from 2009 to 2011.

• Expand the wage base on which employers pay taxes by $1,000, $2,000 or $3,000.

• Link the taxable wage base to earnings so it goes up as wages increase.

• Eliminate dependents' benefits.

With a three-year freeze on benefits, the maximum weekly benefit paid in 2011 would be $365 instead of $400.

FULL story at link.

[Skittles]

1. getting less for more

it's the repuke order of the day