The Hawaii State Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO wholeheartedly endorses the above two bills. The State of Hawaii is most fortunate that it currently enjoys the lowest unemployment percentage in the United States. However, many of our working men and women have experienced hardship and personal embarrassment in trying to receive unemployment compensation which is justly due them.

It is most difficult to explain to children in our State or any of our Sister States why there is no meat or bread to go along with rice or potatoes. When the need arises for a member of the rank and file to depend on the benefits of the UC program, it matters little what part of the country you live in. We cannot stress too strongly the need for uniform federal standards for the amount of weekly benefits; the duration of weekly benefits; uniform disqualification penalties; and a minimum of twenty-six weeks of extended Federal UC benefits.

We feel that implementation of a strong and just UC program would strongly enhance the President's Poverty Program, which we strongly endorse.

We would like to emphasize the point that in any legislation passed regarding UC programs, that any new federal legislation must not reduce the standards established by a State when that State's UC program is higher than the minimum payment program established by Congress.

We respectfully request that our position on H.R. 8282 and S. 1991 be printed in the record of your Senate Finance Committee.

Sincerely,

GORDON H. BEACH, Executive Secretary-Treasurer.

NEW MEXICO STATE AFL-CIO, Albuquerque, N. Mex., July 20, 1966.

Hon. RUSSELL B. LONG,

Chairman, Committee on Finance,
U.S. Senate,

Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR LONG: It is my understanding that the Committee on Finance will be meeting soon concerning Unemployment Compensation.

Some of the problems that we run into in the State of New Mexico concern denial of payment to a claimant for sundry reasons, therefore, forcing the claimant to go to an Appeal Board. In some cases it has been felt that the hearing officers or possibly the judges do not hear the case of the claimant with an open mind, rather, that they are "Employer Orientated".

It is the feeling that possibly some broader rules to collect payment could be effected. Our minimum rate in our State is $36.00 per week, with a maximum of $1080.00 or thirty weeks.

We feel it imperative that these rates be brought up, however, this is a matter for State Legislature to act upon.

If it would be possible for the Federal Government to subsidize in weekly benefits and also in length of benefits it certainly would be to the advantage of the working man, because the way that benefits stand today and the concern of this nation and the poverty program, we can certainly see that these benefits put the worker and his family in a substandard poverty program.

It is our sincere desire that your Committee would be able to make great strides in improvement of Unemployment Compensation.

I would request that this letter be printed in the record of Committee hearings and if there should be any further information that we could give you from this office, please do not hesitate to advise.

Sincerely,

(Mrs.) BILLIE L. SPONSELLER, President.

Mr. Toм VAIL,

General Counsel, Senate Finance Committee,

Senate Office Building,

Washington, D.C.

VIRGINIA STATE AFL-CIO.
Richmond, Va., July 20, 1966.

DEAR MR. VAIL: On behalf of the Virginia State AFL-CIO I would like to submit for the record the following statement in support of S.B. 1991. I might say that a similar statement was made by me before the House Ways and Means Committee where a record is available of my statement.

We support the purposes and provisions of S.B. 1991, and I will describe some of the experiences we have had in Virginia that have led us to this position. First, I would like you to direct your attention to the climate of feeling and concern that settles over a state legislature when it grapples with such matters as state protective labor legislation. At such times there are many concerns that rise to the surface in addition to the objectives of the law under consideration. The state, rather than thinking itself one of many, becomes insular, selfpreoccupied, and concerned with its competitive position. It has been pointed out to your committee that this preoccupation is what inhibited states from venturing into the field of unemployment insurance in the first place—a hesitancy that was not broken until Congress paved the way with the Social Security Act. From your vantage point of concern with national problems, it may seem difficult to understand, but I assure you from my experience with state legislation that these pressures are still with us year after year. Every time the question of unemployment benefits for workers comes before the legislature, there arises a smokescreen of concern over the effect any changes will have on employer tax rates, over the state's industrial climate, over business incentive to enter and expand in Virginia. With this line of reasoning, it is possible to justify the weakest benefit provisions, the tightest eligibility requirements, the most severe disqualifications. The state officials who are responsible for the administration of the program seem to us, in their recommendations to the legislature, more concerned with low tax rates than with the plight of unemployed workers who come through their doors. By their standards, it should be a matter for joyous celebration that we have now the lowest unemployment insurance tax rate of any state in the United States.

It is true that Virginia is enjoying relatively good times, and we have no objection to lower tax rates when the full standard rate is no required for funding purposes. But it should be a matter of concern to officials in Virginia that the rapidly disappearing unemployment insurance tax is not only a reflection of employment levels, but is also a reflection of our benefit structure. Our weekly benefits are among the lowest in the country; the duration of our benefits is among the shortest of all the states; our disqualification penalties rank with the most severe in the United States; and our test of attachment to the labor force has the distinction of being the most limited and restrictive of all.

I do not see any prospects for change in this situation so long as the test for success is "how much cheaper can we make the Virginia law than that in any other state?" By such a test our law is a complete success. Unless the Congress defines what the objectives of the program are, benefit adequacy will have little influence on the public policy in our state, being completely subordinated to these other considerations.

I do not want to leave the impression that this attitude toward unemployment insurance is of recent origin. It has not been invented suddenly. It has been made operative in little bits and pieces over the course of many years. When the Virginia State AFL-CIO points out that benefits are falling far behind the movement in wages, an accommodation is worked out in which a small and insufficient adjustment in the maximum is made but at the same time a more restrictive wage qualifying requirement or disqualification provision is also added. There is no doubt that our law has evolved; it has changed with the times. It has changed so that benefits have become a smaller and smaller part of wages lost and fewer and fewer people can qualify for benefits.

In the beginning the maximum in Virginia was only $15 but this was 74 perIcent of the average weekly wage in the state. Yes, the maximum has been adjusted upward six times until it is now $42, but that $42 is only 46 percent of the average wage. The measure of decline in our benefits as wage insurance is from 74 to 46 percent.

We urge the committee to enact the benefit provisions of S.B. 1991. By setting the maximum at two-thirds of the average weekly wage, this bill will go a

long way-not all the way-but a long way toward restoring the original wage insurance principle that has all but disappeared in Virginia.

A great deal is currently being made of the prosperity in Virginia and when many people are working there is a general feeling of well-being. However, this feeling is not shared by all and we cannot forget that last year almost 15,000 people among the unemployed, who had been fortunate enough to establish their eligibility for benefits, still could not find a job before their benefits ran out. A major reason for this is simply that the benefit duration is too short-in our state we cut off benefits as early as the two or three states with the most restrictive duration provisions in the United States. The typical worker who uses up all his benefits has been cut off after 16 weeks. It is true that some workers can qualify for 26 weeks, but there is another provision that limits total benefits to only one-fourth of base period earnings, and it is this formula that cuts many workers off with less than 26 weeks. We urge your support of the duration standard in S.B. 1991 because it will require that our law be brought more in line with others that provide 26 weeks of benefits for most of their eligible claimants.

I know personally a lot of workers in Virginia who have tried to make out on unemployment insurance which averages about $27 a week. I can assure the committee that when you have tried to keep body and soul and family together on that little for 18 or 19 weeks, and then you have your benefits cut off altogether, you are well on your way to the poorhouse. You are getting ready to join the poverty war on the wrong side of the battle line.

I must again repeat that despite this sorry record of performance, the unemployment insurance program in Virginia is widely regarded as a success because the only test of success that is being applied to it is how little does it cost? In 1964 a whole series of amendments were offered and the package, as a whole, was about typical: a two dollar raise in the maximum, and two week raise in the duration for some persons. Offsetting this, however, were provisions that dropped lower paid workers at the bottom of the benefit schedule, and other provisions that tightened the wage qualifying requirement so that many peoplewe were never told how many-would not be able to qualify for benefits. The effect of those last two requirements was to eliminate from entitlement workers in whole segments of our economy.

Virginia went further than any other state, possibly excepting Wyoming, in limiting the definition of who is in the work force. The law was amended to require that base period earnings be as high as 46 times the weekly benefit amount. It hasn't taken long for the effect of those changes to become apparent, and I must emphasize that these changes had the support of the state officials who administer the system.

One group of workers knocked out of the program were those in the tobacco fields. Most of them do not have any opportunities for employment except working in tobacco. They work two or three quarters of their base year in tobacco and make anywhere from $700 to $1500. This is their income for the year. Thata is why they are poor people from any definition of poverty that has been developed by the Council of Economic Advisors, the Office of Economic Oppor tunity, or the Social Security Administration. At the very time when we are concentrating nationally on the problems of poverty, the state of Virginia set about, without making explicit even its objective, to eliminate these people from any claim on unemployment insurance.

I have submitted to the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives many copies of claims of these people from the neighborhood of Danville, Virginia. They used to draw benefits, but now, thanks to the requirement that their base year earnings be 46 times their weekly benefit amount, they are denied benefits. Here are four examples for your records:

In every case the worker has earnings in three quarters. In every single one of these cases the worker cannot qualify in Virginia but he could qualify in all surrounding states and in most other states of the United States. To disqualify workers with this amount of earnings, spread over so large a part of the year, is to make a mockery of unemployment insurance. I hope the committee will study these records because they show clearly the need for federal standards on the earnings qualifying requirements. In all these cases if S.B. 1991 had been in effect and Virginia were in compliance, these individuals would have qualified for benefits, as indeed they should under any fair definition of attachment to the labor force.

In closing may I thank this committee for allowing us to submit this statement in support of Senate Bill 1991.

Sincerely yours,

Hon. RUSSELL B. LONG,

H. B. BOYD, President.

WEST VIRGINIA LABOR FEDERATION, AFL-CIO,
Charleston, W. Va., July 21, 1966.

Chairman, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR LONG: On behalf of the workers of West Virginia, I want to briefly plead the case for realistic and much needed reforms to the Unemployment Compensation Act. I know of no other piece of state legislation which so vitally affects wage earners and to which this Federation has directed more effort toward trying to improve over the past ten years than unemployment compensation; yet, as the record will show, to little avail.

What began as a wage-related benefit has now become little more than a token effort to replace a minor percentage of the worker's wage. The following table is ample proof of the deteriorating quality of the wage loss concept in West Virginia since 1940.

Average weekly wage replaced by maximum unemployment compensation weekly benefit-1940 to 1965 in 5-year increments

It is quite evident from these figures that the percentage of average weekly wages replaced by the maximum weekly benefit has decreased by 25.8 percent in the past twenty-five years. If the current average weekly benefit of approximately $24 is used in this computation, then the decrease would obviously be much

more severe.

Needless to say, the average worker who is laid off through no fault of his own can expect to decrease his living standard and that of his family by a staggering 67.8 percent. We believe this sacrifice is too great for innocent victims of a fluctuating economy or technological change to endure. In addition, it fails to provide the buying power that may be badly needed to bolster a sagging economy was the case in West Virginia in the late fifties and early sixties.

The second point which vitally affects the workers in our state is duration of benefits. Currently, the state act provides for twenty-six weeks at the benefit level for which the worker qualifies. Under the conditions which prevail in West Virginia and throughout most of Appalachia, this time is simply not adequate to provide protection against the economic hazards of unemployment. The changing technology of old established industries and the technical and

skill requirements of new industries in our state frequently deprive older workers with an obsolete skill and young workers with no skill of employment opportunities for many months and years. Thus, many proud workmen who have made a substantial contribution to the economic development of the state and nation are forced to accept jobs below their capabilities or depend on gratuitous help. Such alternatives offer little hope to either the old or the young and certainly cannot in the long run be good for the economy. More time is needed for workers in this category to develop their own alternatives or for the economy to respond to other factors and forces.

The third point on which I would like to comment is the extension of coverage to thousands of workers in West Virginia not now covered. Over the years, hundreds of calls have been received in my office by workers who had been denied benefits because their employers were not covered. There can be no sound social or economic reason for denying coverage to any worker who is part of the permanent workforce and who depends on his wages to feed, clothe and house his family. The time for relegating these workers to second class citizenship is long passed and we would hope that Congress, in its wisdom, will end this inequitable condition.

There are other sections of the proposed legislation dealing with funding, disqualification, etc. which, if enacted, will correct several inequitable and unrealistic provisions of the West Virginia Act. We would urge favorable consideration of these proposals also.

We respectfully request that the Committee give every consideration to the humane aspects of this legislation as well as the economic and that this letter be made a part of the record of the Commitee hearings.

DEAR SENATOR LONG: In behalf of the membership of the AFL-CIO and other trade unionists in Missouri, we desire to express some opinions on and improvements in the unemployment compensation program. We hope that you will incorporate provisions in the bill before your Committee that will improve the program of employment security throughout the several states.

First, we think there is a definite need for some uniform standards that will provide at least a minimum of assurance to unemployed persons that when they are out of work, through no fault of their own, and actively and earnestly seeking work, they would receive benefits during the period of their unemployment and related to their earnings while employed. Unfortunately, unemployment benefits in Missouri do not bear much resemblance to the earnings of the worker.

Secondly, we think the present program should eliminate a fixed dollar ceiling and replace that with a variable benefit formula based on a percentage of the worker's earnings. We think this percentage should be 66% percent. Average weekly wages in Missouri under employment security is $111.39. We have a ceiling of $45, but the average weekly benefit paid is less than $38, slightly more than 33% percent of the average weekly earnings.

Third, we think there should be a uniform duration of weekly benefits. Fourth, we think there should be an extension of benefits made possible through a federal fund, beginning with the 27th week of unemployment that would extend to the 52nd week of unemployment. Such long term benefits are necessary where jobs disappear through automation, or plant transfer. Further they would be helpful to the economy in recession periods.

We earnestly hope that your Committee will give serious consideration to the above subject matter by incorporating same in a bill.

With best wishes, I am

Respectfully yours,

JOHN I. ROLLINGS, President.