Unemployment Benefits

I am writing in response to Jeremy Schwartz's op-ed defense of extending unemployment benefits ("Unemployment benefits are not like welfare," Dec. 21). He babbles on about the virtues of continuing the give unemployment benefits and tries to decry those who see these benefits as another form of welfare. Mr. Schwartz is a professor of economics at Loyola University, but not a very good psychologist. I personally know of several people receiving unemployment benefits, and they have all have told me that it would be foolish to seriously look for employment as long as they can get a free handout.

General Motors Corp. has lost another scrimmage with the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation over the payment of unemployment benefits to workers at its Baltimore van assembly plant.A three-member appeals board of the department ruled yesterday against the automaker's request that workers at its Baltimore plant repay one week in unemployment benefits they received last year.About 2,900 hourly workers at the plant received unemployment benefits last summer when the factory was closed for 10 weeks as a result of strikes at GM parts plants in Flint, Mich.

* Jobless Marylanders who have used up their 26 weeks of unemployment benefits will start getting an extra 13 weeks of payments by Thanksgiving.* Extended benefits could help up to 40,000 Marylanders who have exhausted their benefits since March 1, when the extra coverage takes effect, and those whose benefits will run out by July 4.* The state unemployment insurance office is mailing notices to Maryland claimants who could qualify.

Beware of outside websites claiming they want to help you file for unemployment benefits. The Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing & Regulation's unemployment insurance division warns these sites can collect personal information about you and possibly leave you open to identity theft. The state named one of the sites, Unemployment Help Center, in a press release. The only way to apply for unemployment benefits, the state says, is directly through the state's unemployment insurance division's website or by calling its office at 410-949-0022 or 800-827-4839.

Because of an editing change, an article in yesterday's Maryland section incorrectly suggested that the state unemployment rate was high enough to authorize extended weeks of jobless benefits to claimants.The Sun regrets the errors.Taking its campaign into state unemploymrnt offices, a new organization began signing up jobless Marylanders yesterday on petitions demanding that unemployment benefits be extended beyond the current limit of 26 weeks.The newly formed Baltimore Unemployed Council got permission from the state to hand out leaflets and solicit signatures from benefit claimants at Baltimore-area unemployment offices.

Gov. Martin O'Malley wants to expand unemployment benefits to part-time workers and allow state unions to collect fees from employees not in a bargaining group - two labor items in his legislative package unveiled yesterday. In a session that has the General Assembly grappling with a $2 billion shortfall, few of the governor's two dozen initiatives cost money. Among the proposals are an effort to repeal the death penalty, legislation to prevent the Maryland State Police from spying on peaceful protest groups and a pair of bills to take guns away from people who are the subject of protective orders.

I was laid off in April 2002 after 29 years with a major telephone company. I collected unemployment benefits for 10 months. The next year, I again applied for unemployment benefits because I wasn't able to find a job. I filled out a form stating that I hadn't worked or earned a salary since filling out my initial claim form. The unemployment benefits office checked with my former employer and granted me another 10 months of benefits - or so I thought. The unemployment office now tells me that I need to pay back the second round of benefits.

President Bush's chief economic adviser, Michael Boskin, this week confidently declared an end to the recession that he predicted would never come. But even if Boskin is technically right in applying the arcane formulas of economics, the recession is by no means over for the 8.7 million Americans without jobs.Less than half that army of unemployed, however, is receiving unemployment benefits. The reason: Either they never qualified under increasingly stringent federal standards, or if they did qualify, their benefits have expired.

WASHINGTON -- Albert Hall, a laid-off Baltimore truck driver and bricklayer's helper, came to Congress yesterday to say that 26 weeks of unemployment benefits won't cut it."I can't live my life on 26 weeks," said 33-year-old Mr. Hall, whose benefits and pay from a part-time janitorial job of three months bring in $230 every two weeks.Mr. Hall was joined by more than a dozen other laid-off workers from Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York who said the current benefits limit for most states expires before they can find a decent job."

WASHINGTON -- In the face of huge layoffs at companies like Sears Roebuck, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney, the Clinton administration is preparing to extend the unemployment benefits of the 1.7 million Americans now receiving them, Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich said yesterday."