Charlestown's unemployed took a big hit
By Andy Boardman in UpRiseRI
At the start of
September, tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders were receiving federal
unemployment benefits. Then that support evaporated.
EDITOR'S NOTE: As I had predicted, Charlestown's unemployed took a big hit when federal benefits expired with almost 100 Charlestown workers dropping off the chart. This artificially reduced the town's unemployment rate substantially - though the loss was as illusion since all it meant was 100 households had now lost all or most of their income.
Charlestown is listed by the RI Dept. of Labor and Training as a "Labor Surplus Area" where unemployment has been running at 20% higher than the national average for the last two years. The CCA's solution: donate to RI-CAN, which of course is a good thing to do but doesn't help our town's chronic unemployment problem. - Will Collette
As the economic
fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the gaping holes in America’s safety
net in early 2020, the federal government stepped in to aid jobless workers. A
series of new programs were
established, extending lifelines to those left out of work by the pandemic.
But
on September 4 of this year those programs abruptly expired,
eliminating support for approximately 46,000 unemployed Rhode Islanders and
reducing benefits for another 11,600.
For months leading up
to the end of the federal programs, some employers in Rhode Island blamed the benefits for
their trouble finding
employees — lamenting that
“people don’t want to work” because “they get more money not working” and contending that
“the main thing” impeding hiring is “it’s hard to compete with unemployment.”
Yet the programs’ expiration brought no surge in job-finding. Data shows the withdrawal of jobless support had no perceptible impact on employment growth in Rhode Island — casting doubt on claims that the benefits were meaningfully holding back the return to work.
Despite the termination of unemployment support for tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders, September’s job growth was no different from previous months’ increases.
Employment in the state climbed just 3,000 on a seasonally-adjusted basis, identical to the monthly gain experienced on average over the three months prior to the end of the federal programs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A separate
government estimate indicates
Rhode Island employers made the same number of hires in the month of September
as they did in August.
Nor did the picture improve the following month. In October, employment fell, leaving the state with just 900 new jobs on net since August.
The result: More than 50 Rhode Islanders were cut off from unemployment benefits for every one job added in September and October. By all measures, employment in Rhode Island remains far below its pre-pandemic level.
At least
for now, recent unemployment insurance cuts show little evidence of spurring
workforce recovery.
