
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 4, 1991                   TAG: 9104040576
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-7   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

UNEMPLOYMENT SYSTEM WEAKENED, REPORT SAYS

A smaller percentage of Americans on the unemployment line received benefits in 1990 than during any other recession year since World War II, said a report released today.

Only 37 percent of the nation's jobless received unemployment benefits in an average month of 1990, said a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a labor-backed research organization that studies social programs.

That figure was a record low for the percentage of people receiving unemployment help for a year in which the U.S. economy was in a recession, the report said. "This low level of protection . . . is unparalleled," it said.

During 1975, for instance, when the country also was in a recession, 75 percent of the nation's unemployed received benefits, the report said.

Last week, the Labor Department said the number of new claimants remained above the half-million mark for two straight weeks in March, something that had not happened in more than eight years.

Today, the department was releasing the number of Americans who filed new claims for unemployment benefits for the third week of March.

The number of people filing new claims can vary widely from week to week, but analysts said the persistent high levels in early March suggested that the recession was continuing despite other, more-favorable reports on improved consumer confidence and a rebound in the housing market.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' report is the latest in a string of criticisms of the unemployment insurance system, which was created in the 1930s as a cushion for jobless Americans during lean economic times.

Unemployment protection insurance averages 33 percent from 1984 to 1989, which were economic boom periods. But the trend of low unemployment insurance protection continued into 1990, a recession year, rising only slightly to 37 percent.

In recent years, states, which pay the benefits with money collected from employer taxes, have tightened eligibility requirements so that fewer people qualify.

Legislation is pending in Congress to force states to ease eligibility requirements and to speed up the process by which the unemployed can receive extended benefits.

by CNB