Taft supports jobless benefits for SS recipients

Ohio is the only state that reduces unemployment compensation by 100 percent.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Gov. Bob Taft is urging state officials to allow Social Security recipients who work to draw unemployment benefits if they lose their jobs.
Ohio is the only state that reduces unemployment compensation by 100 percent of a recipient's Social Security benefits, according to Policy Matters Ohio, a nonprofit research organization based in Cleveland that advocates changing the state's system.
Taft sent a letter Friday to the co-chairmen of the state's Unemployment Compensation Advisory Council, urging it to allow some compensation for Social Security recipients. He did not specify how much.
"Unemployment compensation meant in the past, and continues to mean, that a worker had lost a job involuntarily and that the worker was willing, able to work, and actively searching for a job," Taft wrote. "Social Security was utilized as retirement income for someone who voluntarily left the labor force. In today's society these are no longer separate paths."
Proposal on table
The council is considering a proposal that would reduce unemployment compensation by only 50 percent of a recipient's Social Security benefit.
The current reduction means that unemployed workers entitled to $200 a week in unemployment benefits get only $50 if they receive $150 a week from Social Security. If Social Security benefits are higher than what their unemployment checks would be, they receive nothing.
An advisory council subcommittee is to meet Wednesday to discuss the matter. Its recommendation is to be considered by the full council April 7.