TABLE 7.-Summary of duration provisions, December 1949 and 1953 1 Minimum applies to claimant with minimum qualifying wage concentrated largely or wholly in high. quarter and weekly benefit amount above minimum. Larger number of weeks for claimant with minimum weekly benefit. Statutory minimum for Alaska, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey (1949), and Utah. 2 Higher figure applies to claimants who have been employed in Colorado for 5 consecutive calendar years with wages in excess of $1,000 per year and no benefits received during period. 3 If benefit is less than $3 (1949) or $5 (1953), benefits are paid at rate of $3 (1949) or $5 (1953; no qualifying wage and no minimum or annual benefits are specified (1953). 4 Weighted schedule in percentage of average State wage. TABLE 8.-Number of claimants exhausting wage credits and ratio to first payments, by State, calendar years 1949, 1950, 1953 1 Exhaustions for calendar year as percent of first payments for 12 month period ending in September. Alabama. State Alaska Arizona. Arkansas. California.. Colorado. Connecticut. District of Columbia. Florida.. TABLE 9.-Computation of weekly benefit amount 1/26. Fraction of high-quarter wages unless otherwise indicated 1 2.1 to 1.2 percent of annual wages, plus 20 percent weekly benefit amount for each dependent up to weekly benefit amount. 125, plus $2 for each dependent up to $6. 1/21 to 127. 119 to 123. Georgia Hawaii. 125. 125 up to 50 percent of State average weekly wage but not more than $28. 2.0 to 0.9 percent of annual wages. 126, plus $2 for each dependent up to $8. 120, plus $2 for each dependent but total may not exceed average weekly wage. 67 to 53 percent of average weekly wage, plus $1 or $2 per dependent, by schedule $1 to $8. 2.6 to 1.0 percent of annual wages. 126. 1/25. 125 to 128. 121 to 23. 125, plus $3 for 1 dependent and $5 for each additional dependent up to $20 but total may not exceed 6 percent of high-quarter wages. 2.2 to 1.2 percent of annual wages. 33 of average weekly wage. 126. 67 to 52 percent of average weekly wage. 2.4 to 1.0 percent of annual wages. 124, plus $1 or $2 per dependent, by schedule $2 to $6. 117 to 25, plus $2.50 for each dependent up to $5. 3.4 to 1.4 percent of annual wages. 125. 20. 1/20. 121 to 23. 121 to 25. 126. 120. 18 to 28 (effective Apr. 4, 1954, 22 to 126). 125. 1.5 to 1.2 percent of annual wages. 1.8 to 1.0 percent of annual wages. 69 to 51 percent of average weekly wage. 21 to 125, plus $3 for each dependent up to $6 but total may not exceed 8 percent of high-quarter wages. 1 When State uses a weighted high-quarter formula, annual-wage formula, or average-weekly-wage for mula, approximate fractions or percentages are taken at midpoint of lowest and highest normal wage brackets. When dependents' allowances are provided, the fraction applies to the basic benefit amount. 2 When 2 amounts are given, higher includes dependents' allowances except in Colorado where higher amount includes 25 percent additional for claimants employed in Colorado by covered employers for 5 consecutive calendar years with wages in excess of $1,000 per year and no benefits received; duration for such claimants is increased to 26 weeks. Higher figure for minimum weekly benefit amount includes maximum allowance for 1 dependent at minimum weekly amount. In the District of Columbia same maximum with or without dependents. Maximum augmented payment to individuals with dependents not shown for Massachusetts since any figure presented would be based on an assumed maximum number of dependents. EXCERPT DEALING WITH UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FROM THE REPORT OF THE RESOLUTIONS COMMITTEE ADOPTED BY THE 20th NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LABOR LEGISLATION The 20th National Conference on Labor Legislation is as dedicated as are the President and the Secretary of Labor to the maintenance of a healthy and prosperous economy. The conference commands and supports the steps they have proposed "to protect and maintain economic stability" at a high level. Governors' delegates from State labor departments and organized labor in 41 States and Territories bring to this problem an unparalleled collective experience with the employment conditions of millions of American wage earners, a major segment of the population whose well-being is essential to economic health and prosperity. At this critical time, this conference reemphasizes certain basic truths under which this Republic has become a great industrial nation. That labor is not a commodity, that free collective bargaining best promotes the climate of industrial harmony in which free enterprise and free labor advance the standard of living, that the best antidote to the prospect of a recession is to place increased purchasing power in the hands of all American citizens so that they may buy the products of industry and keep the wheels of business turning. No better means of exparding purchasing power exists than the enactment and vigorous enforcement of sound labor standards. The conference therefore strongly reaffirms its support of a floor under wages, raising of child labor standards to guarantee suitable job standards for the Nation's youth and to prevent child-labor competition with rightful employment for adult workers and heads of families, sound standards of industrial safety and health, of workmen's compensation and unemployment insurance, and better wages and working conditions for migrant labor. We commend President Eisenhower for his awareness of the deteriorating employment situation throughout the country and his eagerness to remedy it by such means as are at the command of the Government. We commend particularly his proposals for an expanded public works program to provide employment and increased business activities and we urge the Congress to provide necessary appropriations immediately to carry out the President's purpose. In harmony with these reaffirmations, the conference discussed the common and current problems of wage earners and makes the following recommendations: (1) Unemployment is a problem national in character and is currently increasing. There has been a tendency over the past several years to weaken and undermine Federal participation in, and influence over, the present Federal-State program of unemployment compensation. Funds presently appropriated and available for administration of State unemployment compensation laws are inadequate and have resulted in delaying payment of benefits by biweekly instead of weekly reporting. Increases in the load of initial and continued claims for benefits have resulted in a mounting backlog of cases and delays in payment: Therefore be it Resolved, That this conference endorse the request made to the Congress for a supplemental appropriation of $18 million needed to reestablish weekly reporting, keep current the claims load and meet obligations for wage and salary adjustments incurred by the State administrators; and be it further Resolved, That the conference oppose the adoption of H. R. 5173 in its present form and support amendments thereto which would (a) provide for grants to distressed States instead of loans and (b) eliminate automatic distribution of earmarked funds and, in lieu thereof, establish an adequate contingency fund for administrative purposes which may be allocated to the several States by the Secretary of Labor on the basis of demonstrated need in conformity with the standards in the Social Security Act; and be it finally Resolved, That this conference respectfully advise the Secretary of Labor that, in its judgment, if H. R. 5173 were amended as herein proposed it would strengthen the unemployment compensation program rather than weaken it as the present bill would do, and request that the Secretary transmit this resolution to the appropriate committees of the Congress. (2) State unemployment benefits have failed to keep pace with rising living costs and wage levels. When first paid under the program, unemployment benefits averaged from three-fifths to two-thirds of average weekly wages paid in covered employments, whereas they now average only about two-fifths of such wages. At present from two-thirds to nine-tenths of weekly benefit payments are at the maximum. The impact of sharply rising unemployment is now more severe because a large proportion of workers exhaust their rights before being reemployed, demonstrating the unrealistic character of maximum duration periods. The present unemployment compensation program does not effectively sustain purchasing power because nearly 31⁄2 million wage earners are excluded from State benefits since they work in small firms not covered by the system: Therefore be it Resolved, That this conference support amendments to the Social Security Act to provide for the addition of the following Federal standards required of each State: (a) maximum benefit amounts shall not be less than two-thirds of the average weekly wage in covered employment; (b) duration of the period in which benefits shall be payable to eligible unemployed workers shall not be less than 26 weeks; (c) all employment by employers of one or more employees shall be covered; and be it further Resolved, That the conference respectfully ask the Secretary of Labor to request of the Congress the enactment of such additional Federal standards. [From the Economic Outlook, CIO, Department of Education and Research, Vol. XIV, No. 8, Aug. 1953] HOW THE MINORITY RULES IN THE STATES Some years ago the Supreme Court of Kentucky declared: "Equality is the basis of patriotism. No citizen will or ought to, love the state which oppresses him; and that citizen is arbitrarily oppressed who is denied equality of representation with every other of the Commonwealth. These words could apply with considerable force to our Federal Government as well, since millions of American citizens, as we have seen, are being deprived of equal representation in the Congress of the United States.1 In the legislatures of the States, however, minority rule is becoming so oppressive and has become so widespread, that it has taken on the nature of a national scandal. Who are the second class citizens in this underrepresented majority? They are the millions living in our towns and cities, says the United States Conference of Mayors, pointing to the fact that the 59 percent of all Americans who were living in urban centers in 1947 elected only 25 percent of the State legislators. "59 percent equals 25 percent is bad arithmetic-and bad government. It hurts not just city dwellers, but everybody." 2 Today, 64 percent of all Americans live in urban centers and each year the proportion continues to rise. Yet the representation of city dwellers in most of the States has hardly increased at all. Take New Jersey, for example, the most heavily urbanized State in the Nation. In the upper House of its State legislature sit 8 senators who represent 8 counties which contain four-fifths of the population. Outvoting them time after time are 13 Senators from 13 rural counties who represent only one-fifth of the population fo New Jersey. In Connecticut, the city of Hartford with 177,397 people has 2 representatives in the lower House; the town of Colebrook with a population of 592 also has 2. In agrucultural Iowa, Polk County with 226,010 inhabitants-half of them living in Des Moines-is allowed 1 senator in the upper house. Mahaska County with 24,672 people has 1. (The population of Polk County increased 30,000 between 1940 and 1950; Mahaska lost 2,000. Representation? Still one each.) In California, Los Angeles County with 40 percent of the population, is entitled to only 22 percent of the State senators. In Georgia, the 393,000 people who live in Fulton County (Atlanta) had 3 representatives in the lower House in 1947, Echols County (population 3,000 has 1 Let a legislator from Oregon speak for himself: "I represent 81,000 people. A few desks away sits a senator from a realm of sagebrush and mountains and he represents 7,200 people. This is the total population of his district. Any time there is a rollcall, regardless of the proposal at issue, his vote can cancel mine. The result, of course, is that each resident of this senator's district in the backwoods has 11 times the voice in the State senate of one of my constituents in Portland." 3 Take a rollcall of the 48 State legislatures and you will find minority rule almost everywhere. Study the facts about your own State legislature. Check each representative in the senate and in the house against the number of people he represents. Prepare to be shocked by what you find. America is predominantly an urban nation-over 95 million people now live in cities and towns-but the minority control over the city-dwelling majority goes far beyond the writing of State laws alone. It touches every level of government-Federal, State and local. We have already seen how the minority controlled State legislatures influence the composition of the National Government through unrestrained power to set up rotten borough Federal congressional districts within the State. But that is not all. The city majorities are even deprived by the legislatures of local selfrule in their own home towns. Not only are municipal governments controlled 1 See Our Unrepresentative Congress: A National Problem, CIO Economic Outlook, July 1953. 2 See Government of the People, By the People, For the People, a pamphlet issued by the United States Conference of Mayors, 730 Jackson Pl. NW., Washington, D. C. 3 Our Rotten Borough Legislatures by Richard L. Neuberger, The Survey, February 1950. |