State Representative Nancy Dembowski (D-Knox) yesterday labeled the unemployment bill coming up in the House as totally unacceptable. Dembowski, saying the way to fix unemployment is through creating jobs, released a report that first talked about the proposed bill.
“The Majority has come up with another bill and their plan to fix the unemployment issue is to shift hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes from big businesses to small businesses and then cut benefits to the workers by 25 percent,” said Dembowski. “That’s totally unacceptable and it is the largest benefit cut in the history of the State.”
With a 25% cut in benefits, Dembowski talked about how much Indiana workers would lose.
“The average benefit for an unemployed worker in Indiana is about $283 and that’s average. Some are higher and some are lower. This will cut it by about 25 percent, to $213 a week.”
She also talked about what that would mean to Starke County’s economy.
“The economic impact weekly loss to Starke County for these unemployment cuts will be $170,791 per week. That’s money that won’t go to grocery stores, gas stations, rent, or any of the other businesses that we have here in Starke County. Annually, that amounts to over $8,800,000.”
Dembowski said the best way to help reduce what is owed to the federal government for borrowed funds for unemployment was to increase some premiums and fix some loopholes that would deny benefits to people who are not entitled to them.
