As we head into Thanksgiving and the start of the holiday shopping season, nearly 2 million unemployed Americans have to worry that their unemployment benefits will stop at the end of the month, with the federal unemployment insurance program set to expire on November 30.
It's not just the 2 million jobless Americans that will lose their unemployment benefits in December who will suffer if those benefits are cut off.
The grocery stores, retailers and small businesses where the benefits get spent will also take a hit, at a time when many of these stores are still struggling to recover from the Great Recession. The timing couldn't be worse. There just aren't enough jobs right now. In fact, there are five unemployed Americans for every job opening in the country.
In every major recession since the 1950's, Congress has enacted a temporary program providing additional weeks of federally-funded unemployment insurance benefits after state-provided unemployment insurance is exhausted. In the past, Congress has always continued providing those federal unemployment benefits until the economy was strong enough to drive down the unemployment rate.
The unemployment rate now stands at 9.6 percent. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that failing to maintain benefits would result in more than one million additional jobs lost over the next year. With 14.8 million Americans unemployed, we simply cannot afford that.
What's more, Congress has never ended federal unemployment benefits with the unemployment rate above 7.4 percent.
Congress's efforts this fall to pass legislation to maintain unemployment benefits are not encouraging. While Senators Casey and Reed are pushing for a one-year renewal of benefits -- recognizing that it will take time for the economy to pick up -- the prospects for preserving those benefits for even three months dimmed last week when, due to a lack of Republican support, the House failed to pass a bill that would have continued the program though February.
Time and time again, the overwhelming majority of Republicans have voted against providing unemployment benefits to workers who need support as they try to find their next job. The election didn't seem to change anything on that front, with only 21 of 179 House Republicans voting last week to continue unemployment benefits.
Republicans often cite the deficit as the reason to end the unemployment benefits program. But the president of the Concord Coalition, an organization whose very mission is to eliminate the deficit, says, "As a deficit hawk, I wouldn't worry about extending unemployment benefits."
And most economists, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, have said that cutting a short-term program that helps to strengthen a sluggish economy isn't the right place to look for budget savings.
As we gather for Thanksgiving, we can be thankful that our economy is doing better than it was a year ago. However, for far too many American families, jobs are still hard to come by.
The truth is that we can support both the families and businesses that depend on their purchasing power by maintaining unemployment benefits for those Americans still reeling from the Great Recession. When Congress returns after Thanksgiving, this must be a priority.
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney is the chair of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, which just released a report on the impact of unemployment benefits on the economy.
What you now hear from the GOP and the bagger posters here is the "NEW" America. This is the ultimate and the only possible evolution of a country that is willing to be defined by an economic system. This is what capitalism looks like when it takes over a country and a people, throwing off all "values" as extraneous weight. They say that everything has a purpose, even if it's only to serve as a warning to others. Our present condition, and surely what is yet to come for our fellow citizens who have done nothing wrong, is that warning.
Those who are actually responsible for this unenviable position for so many of our citizens are looking over their handiwork from their penthouses, or escaping the vision on their yachts, but none are suffering any of the consequences of their actions as the holidays approach. They are above such menial reproach. Welcome to New America.
In every major recession since the 1950's, Congress has enacted a temporary program providing additional weeks of federally-funded unemployment insurance benefits after state-provided unemployment insurance is exhausted.
That would include your favorite Prez - Reagan- during his big long deep recession - where they had the great advantage of being able to help stimulate growth by bringing the sky high interest rates down.
And maybe you skipped the part about how killing the UEI program now would kill maybe a million other jobs. Maloney is right on the facts and right on the policy. The gal's got grit. I like her.
This is the reason we're in so deep right now. "Just spend it...Just spend it, just spend it."
..................(shaking head)..................
And in any business SOMEBODY will be at the bottom 10%, Its statistically inevitable.
Failing to extend UI to people who are legitimately seeking work is heartless, as well as foolish.
Each individual is likely multiplied at risk by other family members. These people, our fellow citizens, will become dependent upon the welfare programs of the states. The states are already at risk due to fiscal problems. Why exacerbate that situation? It is bad policy at a time when the nation as a whole is facing such a destructive waste of human capital.
Get a cohesive message and stick together for Christ sakes.....and start up a third leg of progressive voices.. The DNC pr stinks...bring back Howard Dean...
We also can't forget that people are still being laid off in droves. My husband was working last year, for the same steady company that he had worked at for over a decade. This year, he is unemployed, the victim of a change in management.
Jobs are few and far between, as anybody who has been out of work can attest to, We still desperately need UI extensions. And I believe that UI extensions in previous administrations have been funded by "emergency" funds... There hasn't been a push to cut something elsewhere.
That is so UNIMPORTANT to us that are looking for a job and trying to survive. Both my husband and I lost our career jobs. Both my husband and I cannot find a new job that even compares to the old job. Even if we worked 24 hours EACH at minimum wage we would still LOSE everything.
We've lost our home, our car, our credit, our savings....we've lost so much. We are both college graduates, over 50 and have been looking for jobs for 2 years. We are over qualified or something.......but we aren't getting hired. The unemployment money feeds us, keeps us warm in the winter and allows us to keep our dogs.
Without unemployment extensions......we have NO hope.
WE do not qualify for food stamps or welfare because we have over $100.00 in the bank. YOU cannot get help until.......your house payments are not made, your water is shut off, you have no electricity, you have no heat..........we never thought we'd be in this situation........we shouldn't be in this situation. We did NOTHING wrong! It's so unfair it makes me sick!
WE need unemployment extensions or we have NO MONEY coming in. WHAT are we supposed to do?
ma'm your on your own... click into survival mode....and go get yours......cause when the conservativbe are running things....they are so busy defunding the govt they wont think twice about you......
The US manufacturing companies are hamstrung with health care payroll tax costs, unemployment payroll tax costs, social security and medicare payroll tax costs, environmental manufacturing costs, fringe (holiday & vacation) benefit payroll costs, OSHA compliance payroll costs, labor work rules and other anti-business laws and attitudes that make manufacturing products in the USA cost many times more expensive than the same product manufactured in in most foreign countries!
Are US jobs are gone forever?
In that case who cares?
The purchasing value of the US dollar might become a fraction of a penny when Industrial Foreigners stop loaning the US government money, and then your weekly paycheck might not buy one loaf of bread!
We are destroying the value of the US dollar with US government deficit spending!
Those "Free Trade" laws did away with our import taxes on foreign made products that allowed, caused, and economically required that our factories to fire their US employees and then to take advantage of lower labor and lower environmental manufacturing costs in foreign countries in order to meet the US consumer demand for the lowest prices.
I believe that President Obama should lead the US congress to create new legislation that will repeal all of the "Free Trade" laws, and other anti-business laws that were created during the past 40 years by almost all of the elected Democratic and Republican members of the US congress and then approved and administered by every past president during the last 40 years.
Only repeal of the "Free Trade" laws and other anti-business laws that caused US businesses to move their US factories and the associated jobs for US citizens overseas and lay off all of the US employees and take advantage of lower labor and environmental costs available in foreign countries will bring those jobs back to the USA, if it is not too late.
Any more questions?
I do have a question
Can you overcome (outspend) the Foreign manufacturer's lobbyiests who probably spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on wine, food, women, song, vacations, cash, sexual services, corporate jobs for the (unemployable) children/wives/girlfriends of the congressmen and their aids who actually control the members of congress, and campaign contributions to entice (bribe) each of our US congressmen for the past 40 years to create all of these various "FREE TRADE LEGISLATION" and treaties that allowed, caused, and economically required our businesses to take advantage of the lower labor costs, lower payroll tax costs, lower business taxes, and lower environmental costs available in various foreign countries?
This "Free Trade Legislation" was not in the interest of the citizens of the USA, so why did our elected congressmen create this "Free Trade Legislation"?
Were our elected congressmen ignorant, stupid, dishonest, or some combination of these traits.
WHERE ARE THE JOBS?
This is not good at all, not good at all.