The economic news gets bleaker by the week, if not the day. If government intervention is going to make a difference in stemming job losses, it has to come soon.
While Congress and the incoming Obama administration negotiate details of a massive national stimulus package, Gov. Chris Gregoire is asking the Legislature to quickly approve a much smaller — but more targeted — state stimulus plan. It’s a smart proposal, one that lawmakers should resolve to approve by early February.
It consists of two main elements. One is an accelerated schedule of construction, transportation and environmental cleanup projects that were already on the state’s to-do list. Most of them are small and unexciting, but they’re necessary projects that are ready and can put people to work immediately. Quick passage will ensure work can begin this spring.
The other main element would spend 10 percent of the state’s very healthy unemployment insurance trust fund, $400 million, to temporarily enhance unemployment benefits and give all Washington businesses that pay unemployment taxes a substantial break for 2009. Most unemployed workers would get an extra $45 per week from May through the end of the year, a boost that they’ll likely spend locally on living expenses. Businesses would see a key component of their unemployment insurance taxes cut by more than two-thirds.
The governor’s plan would also expand access to a training program in which workers who have lost their jobs receive benefits while they’re being retrained. The expansion would target jobs in high-demand fields. The Shared-Work Program would also be expanded, giving more employers the option of temporarily cutting workers’ hours rather than laying them off. Workers whose hours are cut would get partial unemployment benefits.
Business groups oppose tapping the unemployment insurance trust fund, worrying that if the recession continues to worsen, their members will be asked to pay more into it down the road. The fund is among the most flush in the nation, though. It contains enough money to pay benefits for 21 months, far more than the federal government generally recommends. Besides, by the time we know how bad the recession will get, it may be too late for such measures to do any good.
The time to act is now, while employers are making decisions about how deeply they must cut their own budgets. Quick action will make a big difference to small businesses, which employ the lion’s share of workers in Washington and would benefit from the injection of extra cash into the local economy.
Preserving as many jobs as possible now, in an effort to keep the recession from getting even worse, is a critical priority. Lawmakers should get right to it by approving the governor’s plan.
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