This
page was printed from the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Web site at www.paaflcio.org.
For more information about the information in this document contact:Protecting Unemployment Insurance
Job loss is traumatic event in the life of anyone. Psychologists rank job loss among the most stressful of life events along with the death of a parent, child or spouse.
Job loss is all the more stressful when it comes as the result of factors that are outside the control of a worker alone - like off shoring or unfair foreign trade or labor competition - reasons for job destruction that Pennsylvania workers are all too familiar with. Just ask the 180,000 workers who lost jobs in manufacturing over the last five years or so.
For just about 100 years unemployment insurance has helped ease the economic stress of unemployed Pennsylvania workers as they look for a new job, increasing the chances that they will be able to preserve the standard of living they have worked hard to achieve.
From the point of view of communities and the state as a whole unemployment insurance buffers the economic impact of job loss. Unemployment insurance benefits businesses because unemployment insurance payments ultimately go to pay their customers' bills.
Why is Unemployment Insurance More Important Than Ever?
Recent research from the Economic Policy Institute suggests that people who lost their jobs in the last recession have been unemployed for longer periods of time than after other recent downturns.
SHARE YOUR WORKERS' COMP STORY
Have you been denied the workers' compensation benefits you are entitled to? Have you had to live on workers' comp alone? Have you found Pennsylvania's workers' comp system impossible to deal with? Send us your story.