Editorial: Unemployment money shows need for better planning

File for your special unemployment check before the money is all gone!

This is the recommendation Pennsylvania’s jobless are getting. The state has just $2.8 billion from the Lost Wages Assistance program to give to those individuals who qualify for the $1,800 lump sum — calculated off $300 a week for six weeks, dating to the beginning of August.

The pool has to cover the 616,000 Pennsylvanians who filed unemployment claims as of the week of Sept. 5, including about 63,000 in Allegheny County and 16,000 in Westmoreland County. Do the math and it cuts that $2.8 billion down to $1.7 billion, making Labor & Industry Secretary Jerry Oleksiak’s estimate that the funds will not last until the end of the year highly likely.

Still, telling people to hurry and sign up before the money gets used up is a lot like speeding to get home before you run out of gas. It’s not terribly helpful and probably counterproductive.

The money — half the $600 per week authorized under the stimulus funding under the CARES Act in April — was put on the table in August when that first coronavirus-motivated economic countermeasure expired at the end of July.

On Sept. 11, President Trump announced the program, originally planned to run through December, will be ending.

The economic downturn that has left people in need, on the other hand, has no finish line. Even if the covid-19 pandemic that precipitated millions nationwide losing their jobs ended with a wave of a wand tomorrow, that doesn’t mean the scars it has left behind on the economy will disappear overnight.

Because of that, the safety nets that have been put in place can’t be cut too soon.

Many of the unemployed are among the most vulnerable workers — those who are just a paycheck or two away from catastrophe. As protections against evictions and utility shut-offs are ticking toward an end, having the truncated lifeline of that unemployment payment cut off could spell disaster.

The issue, as with so much in recent months, has been that government has reacted to a problem today without planning for tomorrow. This is a Republican and Democrat trait, and something that happens at the federal and state and local levels.

Government solves no problems with short-term action and replacing long-term preparation with blind hope that more won’t be needed. That only creates a need for another sudden reaction later, something that also risks a higher ultimate cost to the taxpayer.