99ers Join Occupy Wall Street Movement (VIDEO)
Fed up with a long jobless spell, Kian Frederick raged against economic injustice during a protest in New York City.
"We're tired of blaming the victim," Frederick said during a speech before she and three others were arrested for blocking the street. "If you're not in the richest 2 percent, you're struggling. We have to ask the question, why are corporations, major corporations, sitting on millions and billions of record profits by their own account yet they're still not hiring? We have to ask the question why our government continues to fight itself and ignore our needs."
Her speech and arrest happened last November, nearly a year before the Occupy Wall Street protests became an international sensation. Way before many of the occupiers took up the cause of the 99 percent, there were "99ers" -- the very long-term jobless. Their protests were smaller, and they got less attention. Now several 99ers and the long-term jobless, including Frederick, have joined the Occupy Wall Street cause.
There are more than 2 million Americans who've been out of work for 99 weeks or longer, according to the Census Bureau. Ninety-nine weeks is the current cutoff point for unemployment insurance in 22 states. A 99er can be either a person who's been out of work at least that long or a person who ran out of unemployment insurance, whether it lasted for 99 weeks, 86 weeks or 76 weeks (the duration varies depending on a state's laws and its unemployment rate).
But now, because of the "We are the 99 percent" slogan, Occupy protesters are being referred to as 99ers.
"We're gonna have to do a little rebranding there," Frederick told HuffPost on Thursday. The former union organizer said she's down to her last seven weeks of benefits and will consider herself a 99er if she doesn't find a job before they run out. (In New York, the limit is currently 93 weeks.)
Frederick is helping organize a working group called "Jobless Avengers" that will hold its first meeting Friday afternoon in Zuccotti Park, where the Occupy protests got started a month ago.
"Jobless Avengers seeks to give voice and visibility to the many jobless and local business owners who are silently suffering in this economy," says a flier (PDF) Frederick is currently distributing. "We will be Silent No More. As part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, we are focused on action, not policy, political or legislative debate. This working group is open to all, but a special invitation is extended to the jobless, underemployed, 99ers/UI exhaustees and local small business owners."
Frederick said she wants Congress to pass a jobs bill similar to the one proposed by President Obama, but better -- with things like job training initiatives that focus on people who have exhausted their benefits and additional weeks of benefits. She called the current cutoff points "arbitrary."
Chris Williams, a 53-year-old 99er from Harlem, said he's glad to become a part of the Occupy movement, but that he thinks 99ers should maintain a narrower focus on unemployment and jobs. He's been filming the protests and said he is attending another jobless-focused working group on Friday.
"Since they've coined the term 99 percent, we're really back in the shadows," he said.
Williams crossed the 99 week milestone last year. He said he lost his job with a corporate law firm in 2008. "It's frustrating. It's depressing," he said of becoming a 99er. "You wonder what's going to happen to you."
Normally, 26 weeks is the maximum duration of unemployment insurance, but Congress routinely creates additional weeks during recessions. If the current regimen of extended benefits is not reauthorized, nearly 2 million recipients will find themselves cut off come January, according to the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy nonprofit.
Salon.com has video of 99ers meeting the 99 percent crowd:
Arthur Delaney is the author of "A People's History of the Great Recession," HuffPost's first e-book.
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First Posted: 10/20/11 03:35 PM ET Updated: 12/20/11 05:12 AM ET