What States and the Economy Lost When the Senate Jobs Bill Failed
Data on How Much Medicaid Aid Each State Lost
The Senate’s failure to pass its version of jobs legislation, which would have extended federal assistance to states, will force the states – which are struggling with an unprecedented drop in revenues due to the recession – to make even deeper spending cuts and raise taxes even more than otherwise in order to balance their budgets. These actions will slow the economic recovery and raise the risk of a double-dip recession as the loss of spending power ripples through the economy.
Due to the deep and long recession, states are about to begin a third consecutive year of severely depressed revenues (fiscal year 2011 begins July 1 in most states). Under the Recovery Act (ARRA) passed last year, states received additional federal funding to support their Medicaid programs. This additional support is scheduled to expire on December 31st of this year, right in the middle of state fiscal year 2011. The legislation that the Senate defeated this afternoon would have provided a 6-month extension of the additional support.
The table below shows the estimated benefits that states would have received under the 6-month extension of federal assistance in the failed jobs bill. States would have received just about $15 billion in fiscal relief in total.
| Estimated State Medicaid Savings Under a Six Month Modified Extension of | |||
| State | Jan. 2011 – June 2011 | State | Jan. 2011 – June 2011 |
| UNITED STATES | $14,981,000,000 | Missouri | $292,000,000 |
| Alabama | $133,000,000 | Montana | $38,000,000 |
| Alaska | $64,000,000 | Nebraska | $69,000,000 |
| Arizona | $351,000,000 | Nevada | $79,000,000 |
| Arkansas | $125,000,000 | New Hampshire | $54,000,000 |
| California | $1,869,000,000 | New Jersey | $399,000,000 |
| Colorado | $159,000,000 | New Mexico | $126,000,000 |
| Connecticut | $199,000,000 | New York | $2,228,000,000 |
| Delaware | $48,000,000 | North Carolina | $343,000,000 |
| District of Columbia | $54,000,000 | North Dakota | $29,000,000 |
| Florida | $784,000,000 | Ohio | $492,000,000 |
| Georgia | $228,000,000 | Oklahoma | $188,000,000 |
| Hawaii | $86,000,000 | Oregon | $156,000,000 |
| Idaho | $51,000,000 | Pennsylvania | $667,000,000 |
| Illinois | $545,000,000 | Rhode Island | $72,000,000 |
| Indiana | $227,000,000 | South Carolina | $138,000,000 |
| Iowa | $128,000,000 | South Dakota | $27,000,000 |
| Kansas | $100,000,000 | Tennessee | $240,000,000 |
| Kentucky | $155,000,000 | Texas | $858,000,000 |
| Louisiana | $375,000,000 | Utah | $57,000,000 |
| Maine | $86,000,000 | Vermont | $47,000,000 |
| Maryland | $273,000,000 | Virginia | $289,000,000 |
| Massachusetts | $506,000,000 | Washington | $338,000,000 |
| Michigan | $380,000,000 | West Virginia | $81,000,000 |
| Minnesota | $346,000,000 | Wisconsin | $229,000,000 |
| Mississippi | $151,000,000 | Wyoming | $22,000,000 |
| Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' estimates using Medicaid spending projections from February 2010 and unemployment rate projections from February 2010. Expenditures for childless adults shifting from CHIP to Medicaid also would qualify for the higher matching rate. ARRA would be modified such that the base FMAP increase would be lowered from 6.2 percentage points to 3.2 percentage points in FFY2011Q2 and 1.2 percentage points in FFY2011Q3. Figures are rounded. | |||
Note that CBPP’s estimates may differ somewhat from estimates conducted by the Congressional Budget Office (which estimates a total of $16 billion under the extension rather than $15 billion) as well as state-specific estimates generated by state officials because of differences in the methodology, or in the underlying data related to Medicaid spending and projected state unemployment rates.