Low-Wage Workers

Low-wage workers are often denied unemployment benefits despite having worked as many hours as higher paid workers or because of inequitable  state rules that fail to count all their recent earnings.  NELP resources provide models for reform that benefit low-wage workers, including the “alternative base period.”

Clearing the Path to Unemployment Insurance for Low Wage Workers: An Analysis of Alternative Base Period Implementation    (September 2005)  The Alternative Base Period is an unemployment insurance reform that fixes a technocratic flaw in UI eligibility rules that omits up to six months of worker's wages from their UI application. Now adopted in 20 states, this new study finds that the reform already increase UI eligibility by 211,000 per year, and would reach another 439,000 if taken nationwide.  

Earned but Not Received, Unemployment Benefits for Low-Wage Workers During the Illinois Recession. (January 2005) This original analysis finds that low-wage workers in Illinois were twenty percentage points less likely to receive jobless benefits, representing a major program shortfall.  The report recommends changes that would help reduce the gap for low-wage, women and minority workers. 

What is an Alternate Base Period and Why Does My State Need One? (Revised, April 2003)  Learn about this key reform that can significantly increase the low-wage worker eligibility for UI.

Failing the Unemployed: A State-by-State Examination of UI Systems. (March 2002) America's state-by-state patchwork of unemployment benefits systems fails to meet the needs of out-of-work Americans and is in urgent need of repair. This is the conclusion drawn by researchers from the Economic Policy Institute, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the National Employment Law Project in a comprehensive national report. 

With the recession, many more states actively debated measures to expand unemployment benefits in 2002. This piece, “2002 State Legislative Highlights” (and the attached chart)  features this year's changes in state legislation, focusing on measures of special significance to low-wage, women and part-time workers. (Revised, February 2003)

Women, Low-Wage Workers and the Unemployment Compensation System: State Legislative Models for Change.  (1997)  This report provides a checklist of reform proposals, model state legislation and a summary of the mounting empirical research supporting these initiatives. 

The Texas Unemployment Insurance System: Barriers to Access for Low-Wage, Part-Time & Women Workers  co-authored by Katherine Allen and Lois Shaw of the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR). (1999) The first study of its kind using state level data, this report documents in detail how Texas workers, especially low-wage, part-time and women workers, are losing out on UI benefits, and it provides a list of recommendations for state reforms.  Click here for more state and national research on UI and low wage workers.