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Making Do with Less
Want a glimpse of life as an unemployed worker?
Check out the Economic Policy Institute’s online benefit calculator. By plugging in your state, the number of dependents and your income, you’ll find out what you’d make if you lost your job.
For instance, if you live in Ohio, have two children and earn $15 an hour, fulltime, you’d qualify for $300 a week — that’s half your normal salary. Ohio ranks 29 out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., in benefit generosity. Under the same circumstances, the most generous state would be New Jersey, which would pay $399 a week and the least generous would be Alabama, which would pay only $190 a week.
You can try it at www.epinet.org/datazone/uicalc/index.html. Or simply go to the AFL-CIO site, www.aflcio.org, where you can link to the full unemployment study, the benefit calculator and other information.
Check out the Economic Policy Institute’s online benefit calculator. By plugging in your state, the number of dependents and your income, you’ll find out what you’d make if you lost your job.
For instance, if you live in Ohio, have two children and earn $15 an hour, fulltime, you’d qualify for $300 a week — that’s half your normal salary. Ohio ranks 29 out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., in benefit generosity. Under the same circumstances, the most generous state would be New Jersey, which would pay $399 a week and the least generous would be Alabama, which would pay only $190 a week.
You can try it at www.epinet.org/datazone/uicalc/index.html. Or simply go to the AFL-CIO site, www.aflcio.org, where you can link to the full unemployment study, the benefit calculator and other information.