For Immediate Release: Thursday, november 4, 2010
Contact: Phoebe Silag or Karen Conner, news@epi.org 202-775-8810

A new Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief by researchers Heidi Shierholz and Lawrence Mishel finds that extending unemployment insurance benefits through 2011 would create or save 488,000 payroll jobs. The extension would also generate over 12 million weekly work hours for people who already have jobs, which means that extending benefits would support a total of 723,000 full-time equivalent jobs. Furthermore, though the estimated cost of continuing the extensions through 2011 is $65 billion, the actual cost, when accounting for the revenue from taxes paid on wages from UI-supported jobs and savings on social safety net services, is $25.9 billion. Unemployment insurance benefits are currently set to expire November 30.