New Orleans, a city of nearly half a million people, had the largest increase in unemployment of 337 metropolitan areas in 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Joblessness rose from 3.4 percent the previous year to 4.7 percent. In addition, the number of people on welfare in the city is increasing after four years of decline. Statewide, January 2001 unemployment was 6.7 percent, up from 5.3 percent in December 2000.

Louisiana is among the states that has set more severe limits on welfare benefit eligibility than those required under the overhaul of the federal welfare system carried out in 1996. In that year, acting on his 1992 campaign pledge to "end welfare as we know it," President William Clinton signed the bipartisan Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The law eliminated the federally guaranteed Aid to Families with Dependent Children and cut off food stamps and Medicaid to many working people. In addition, the law set a five-year lifetime limit on welfare benefits. Louisiana law only allows people to receive benefits for two years in a five-year period.

The federal-state unemployment benefit program provides for some jobless workers to collect a weekly check, usually ranging between 10 percent and 25 percent of their previous weekly earnings. But as a result of restrictive rules on qualifying and aggressive employer challenges to applications, only 38 percent of those who lose their jobs become eligible for this program, down from 50 percent in the 1950s.

A January report from the General Accounting Office of the U.S. Congress stated that in the event of an economic downturn, "many low-wage workers may find that, unlike higher-wage workers, they will be unable to qualify for unemployment benefits."

In Louisiana, eligibility is tied to previous earnings. An applicant must have worked at least six months in a 12-month period, but their earnings of the past three to six months are not factored in. So a worker who got a job six months ago and lost it recently would probably be ineligible.

In addition, a worker must have earned at least $1,200 to qualify for the minimum benefit of $10 a week for 26 weeks. To continue receiving the benefits, workers must prove that they are looking for work, and in most cases they must be willing to work full-time, even if their previous job was part-time, making it difficult or impossible for some women with children to qualify. So a Louisiana woman with young children who received welfare benefits for more than two of the past five years and cannot obtain or afford child care to allow her to work full-time, is not eligible for any benefits.

One reason that fewer than 25 percent of unemployed workers in Louisiana receive unemployment benefits is because employers--in order to avoid the higher tax they must pay if they have a history of many layoffs--frequently challenge workers' claims. Denise Butler, for example, a 39-year old worker who has three children, told a New York Times reporter she was fired from her $5.30 an hour supermarket cashier job because her employer said she was insubordinate. She denies her ex-boss's allegation, but it prevents her from becoming eligible for benefits. Louisiana employers challenge one-quarter of benefit applications, substantially more than the national average of 1 in 10.

The negative impact of the dismantling of the social wage falls hardest on Blacks and women in Louisiana as elsewhere. New Orleans has the highest proportion of Black residents, 34.8 percent, of any major metropolitan area in the United States. And Blacks make up 32 percent of Louisiana's 4.4 million residents. Census reports show that nationwide in 1998 the median income for Black men was $19,321, compared to $26,492 for all men. The median income for Black women was $13,137 and for all women $14,430.  
 
 
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