Iowa to get $71 million in jobless help

DES MOINES – Federal financial help to stimulate the economy hit home for Michelle Paulson and thousands of other Iowans on Wednesday.

Paulson, a Huxley mother of two undergoing community college retraining after she was laid off by a Story City window manufacturer last August, was on hand to watch Gov. Chet Culver make Iowa the first state to enact new federal guidelines modernizing Iowa's jobless insurance system.

“Without my unemployment, I wouldn't be able to go to school and take care of my kids. It would be one of the other,” said Paulson, who hopes to graduate in 2010 from an industrial electromechanical technology program and land a maintenance job in advanced manufacturing.

Culver's signature Wednesday on Senate File 197 expanded Iowa's safety net for out-of-work Iowans by pulling down $71 million in federal economic stimulus money to bolster the state's unemployment benefit system.

For laid-off workers like Paulson, the bill provides for an additional 26 weeks of benefits for workers who enroll in high-demand or high-tech training programs – with no cost to employers.

The legislation also eliminates a waiting period before unemployed Iowans can begin collecting benefits and makes it easier to rehire returning veterans by not charging employers for claims filed by temporary workers who replaced active-duty military employees.

“As the national economic crisis continues to take its toll on Iowans,” Culver said, “this law strengthens the safety net provided to people who lose their jobs and, in the long term, it strengthens our economy.”

Iowa already received $13.1 million in federal stimulus funds for state grants to youth, adult and dislocated workers to meet immediate workforce needs of local communities and to invest in summer youth employment and training programs.

The federal economic recovery package also funded a weekly increase of $25 for about 60,000 Iowans receiving jobless insurance benefits.