Even millionaires need a helping hand, right?
A new report showing that some 2,400 “jobless millionaires” received unemployment checks during the depths of the economic downturn has renewed calls on Capitol Hill to cut assistance to well-heeled Americans.
The study was requested by a group of Republican legislators who want to eliminate jobless benefits for richer folks to reduce the nation’s ballooning deficit — even though there’s little evidence it will make much of a dent.
Just 0.02 percent of tax filers who received unemployment benefits in 2009 qualified as millionaires, according to the study by the Congressional Research Service, the government’s in-house research arm.
Nevertheless, the debate rages over whether millionaires — who like their less well-off counterparts are entitled to collect employer-financed unemployment insurance benefits — deserve this assistance when hordes of needier jobless are struggling just to put dinner on their tables
“This is outrageous” said William Sannwald, a professor of business ethics at San Diego State University. “They don’t need it; others do.
“For someone with that kind of income to claim benefits while millions of others have exhausted theirs is just incredible.”
The report said wealthier Americans — who are entitled by law to collect a maximum weekly check of $405 for up to a year in New York — also got a hefty raise of nearly 12 percent in their unemployment checks from one year to the next.
“Sending millionaires unemployment checks is a case study in out-of-control spending,” said Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, who has introduced legislation to boot Americans who make $1 million or more a year from the public dole.
“Providing welfare to the wealthy undermines the program for those who need it most while burdening future generations with senseless debt.”
In 2008, at the outset of the economic collapse, some 2,840 millionaires filed for jobless claims, for a total $18.6 million in benefits.
The following year, that figure jumped by 12 percent to $20.8 million for 2,362 millionaires on the dole.
Claims ordinarily were paid for no more than one year during the early recession. All checks were paid by states using federal grants.
In a footnote, the report did acknowledge that the actual number of millionaires collecting checks “is somewhat understated” because of loopholes in tax laws for big earners with joint tax filings.
The report examined IRS tax filings of the highest earners during 2008 and 2009, covering all sources of reported income.
It also found that other well-to-do taxpayers earning between $500,000 and $1 million a year also climbed on the bandwagon, with 8,011 collecting checks in 2008 and 8,335 in 2009.