Tag Archives: Unemployment insurance

Well Hey, Vermont’s Unemployment System Is in the Shitter Again

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Behold, tidings of great joy. Just in time for the holidays, the Scott administration is forcing jobless Vermonters to jump through hoops and navigate needless obstacles because the Labor Department can’t seem to keep the unemployment system working. The above messages are what you see when you visit the Department’s Unemployment Insurance webpage.

I mean, seriously. Each claimant is required to file every week. But the UI Claimant Portal is on the fritz, and the call center is so overwhelmed that people are being urged NOT to call. If I were of a conspiratorial bent, I’d suggest that this is a nice way to try to keep costs down — by making it very difficult for claimants to comply with the terms of the UI program.

But really, given the Labor Department’s recent track record, the explanation is more likely a combination of incompetence and underfunding.

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Sure Is Quiet Out There

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A strange hush has fallen over the #vtpoli landscape. The Legislature is set to adjourn at the end of the week, and yet we hear no arguing, no complaining, no House/Senate or even Legislature/Governor sniping, no last-minute knifings of inconvenient bills. The governor hasn’t vetoed anything yet, and he’s barely made any veto threats.

This is looking like the quietest, least contentious session in years. Now, maybe this is a consequence of The Year Of Zoom, with reporters unable to lurk outside closed doors and buttonhole people in the hallways and trade rumors with lobbyists. But when you look at the available record, there’s no evidence of the usual endgame drama.

I mean, just look at VTDigger’s Bill Tracker. It shows no gubernatorial vetoes, five bills signed by Gov. Scott, four bills awaiting his action, 11 passed the House and Senate with differences being resolved*, and seven that have passed one chamber and not the other. The Bill Tracker is not comprehensive, but it is a thoughtful compilation of high-profile issues before the Legislature. And it shows a pretty decent record of accomplishment with few apparent flashpoints.

*Most differences are fairly minor, and agreement this week seems certain.

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A Canard Comes Home to Roost

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Vermont’s “business leaders” scored a rare double last week. Their complaints resulted in stories published on the same day by Seven Days and VTDigger. Congratulations.

The articles trod the same well-worn path: The Usual Suspects in the business community are raising fears that proposed state unemployment benefits will hurt their efforts to attract workers. Both stories are replete with quotes from worried business owners and their paid lobbyists.

Because, as we all know, workers are inherently lazy. And the lower they are on the totem pole, the lazier they become — all the way down to the mythical creature known as the Welfare Queen.

In these stories, you won’t read any quotes from actual workers. Nor will you see anything from business groups that aren’t cut from the Chamber cloth. It’d be nice to know how Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and the Main Street Alliance see things before deciding whether we should consider “business leaders” as united on the moral hazard of unemployment insurance.

It’s true that many unemployed people have gotten more in Covid-enhanced UI than they could expect to earn in their line of work, and that would again be the case under S.10. I’d argue this says more about the overabundance of low-paying jobs than about the excessive generosity of pandemic benefits. And there’s plenty of research that shows that the “business leaders'” fears are unfounded; that the effect of temporarily sweetened UI on the supply of available workers is negligible at most.

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