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$51,627 IN
UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS FOR AVERAGE SALARIED PARENT IN ILLINOIS
Illinois Policy Institute/
Noah Shaar
Illinois employers are hurting from a lack
of workers while the state unemployment rate remains high. When a parent
can stay home and make $51,627 on unemployment, the prospects of getting
more workers back to work this summer appear dim. |
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 Illinois’ unemployment rate rose to 7.2% July 15, the 8th worst
in the nation, at the same time employers are having trouble filling job
vacancies.
The average Illinoisan earns $55,770 a year at work. If that person stayed home
with their kids and collected unemployment, it would be $51,627.
For a parent earning around the state average, that’s $4,000 less for deciding
not to work, and with no child care or transportation expenses.
Crunch the numbers another way and add federal stimulus, and the Chicagoland
Chamber of Commerce calculated an unemployed worker receives $35 an hour.
“In Illinois alone, there are tens of thousands of unfilled jobs. Employers are
offering substantially higher wages, employment bonuses and taking other steps
to encourage people to return to work,” the chamber wrote in an open letter to
Gov. J.B. Pritzker. “The problem is employers cannot compete with the
approximate $35 per hour unemployed workers have received over the last four
months as a result of enhanced UI benefits, tax credits, and stimulus payments.”
Illinois’ 7.2% unemployment rate exceeds the national average of 5.9%.
Government policies are not helping reduce it.
Unemployed Illinoisans before the COVID-19 pandemic were required to upload a
resume on IllinoisJobLink.com, a state-run job bank. The state rescinded the
requirement for those unemployed by the pandemic. Currently, employers have
posted over 120,000 jobs on the state jobs site; residents have only posted
37,834 resumes.
This month, Washington joined a growing list of states to require unemployment
recipients to search for a job. Illinois will not be joining them.
“I don’t want to pull the rug out from under people that have certainly
legitimate reasons for remaining on unemployment,” Pritzker said when asked
about the reform.
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He also promised to keep paying the extra $300 in
federal pandemic unemployment relief through the federal
expirationdate of Sept. 6. Over half of states are already putting
an early stop to the additional $300 over concerns it is
incentivizing people to stay unemployed.
Pritzker’s solution has been to ponder paying people bonuses for
returning to work. The program has been used in Arizona, Montana,
New Hampshire and Oklahoma and replaces extended benefits with a
$1,000 bonus received upon return to work. Even with the bonuses,
recipients will still have trouble making more by working than by
staying home.
Maximum unemployment benefits – which are set based on the average
wage of a person paying into unemployment – are currently $805 per
week for single, childless Illinoisans. That is $505 from the state
and $300 from federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation
funds. Because lower wage individuals are more likely to collect
unemployment benefits, average unemployment payouts are lower than
what the average worker would make on unemployment. Across all
recipients, the average benefit paid out was $364.76 as of May 2021
plus the additional $300.
A recipient with a child can receive up to $993 in weekly benefits.
The state gives a maximum of $693 to individuals with children,
regardless of how many children, plus the $300 from the federal
government. Parents as of July were also eligible to receive their
child tax credit monthly, which has also been increased per child
and per month.
So go to work, average $55,770 and pay for child care,
transportation and taxes. Stay home, save the expenses, collect tax
breaks and get up to $51,627.
It would be nice if Illinois didn’t leave people questioning their
work ethic.
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