Just as rates for the state’s unemployment insurance began falling dramatically this year, Maine received an added $32.5 million boost to its unemployment fund through a federal benefits program. The doubly good news means that Maine finally can afford to help out its fastest growing segment of workers and the group most likely to be laid off: the part-time work force.

Employers of part-time workers already pay the unemployment tax, but since the system was founded in 1939, no one seeking part-time work has qualified for benefits, no matter how many decades he or she had worked or how many thousands of dollars an employer had paid into the fund. Just as 21 other states have done to one degree or another, Maine should review its policy and find a way to bring the program into the 21st century and bring part-time workers – whom Maine employers find so desirable – into the program. LD 1258, currently tabled in the House, would extend unemployment to this important economic segment, holding part-time workers to the same standards as those seeking full-time work.

This is the ideal time to add such a benefit because enough money is available through the surplus in the federal extended benefits program, no state match is required and employer rates are falling by 30 or 40 percent now that the state system has once again become solvent. Covering part-time workers would cost Maine $5 million or $6 million a year, meaning no additional cost for six or seven years or longer if federal surpluses remain, and then a minimal increased demand on the $400 million fund. Whether or not Maine offers this benefit, its unemployment insurance is headed for the lowest or second-lowest rate schedule. The part-time benefit still would mean that employers would pay less than they did during much of the 1990s and far less than their contributions during the last couple of years.

The part-time workforce has increased by more than 50 percent since the days of Dad going to work and Mom staying home. More than 100,000 Maine workers are part-time, 70 percent of them women, and, if they lose their jobs, their inability as part-time workers to qualify for unemployment forces many into welfare, a pricier system with its own set of problems. This is not only shortsighted, but also unjust. GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, writing last year to urge the use of unemployment coverage as economic stimulus, got it right when they said, “unemployment is both stimulus and safety net. During these difficult times, a strong package of temporary assistance to the unemployed can help revitalize the economy and extend compassionate assistance to Americans in need.”

Maine has plenty of those Americans in need, it has federal money to take the sting out of paying, it definitely could use some economic stimulus and it has LD 1258, which addresses all of these problems. Through their employers, part-timers have been contributing to the unemployment system in Maine for 63 years without seeing a penny in return. Now is an excellent time to end this unfairness.