The US Congress and the unemployed

[Hannah Bell]

The US Congress resumes its lame-duck session Monday with only one day remaining to take action before unemployment benefits begin expiring for two million jobless workers. It is more and more likely that nothing will be done, while congressmen and senators focus instead on negotiations about extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Federal extended unemployment benefits are set to expire November 30, when the latest temporary extension adopted by Congress earlier this year runs out. More than 800,000 workers currently receiving extended benefits will lose them immediately because their states automatically cut off extended benefits when full federal funding expires. Another 400,000 workers will exhaust their regular 26-week state benefits in December and will not have access to the federal plan. And a further 815,000 workers will lose extended federal benefits in the course of the month, based on other provisions in their state plans.

In every recession since the end of World War II, Congress has retained extended unemployment benefits at least until the jobless rate fell below 7.2 percent. Today that rate is 9.6 percent, and real unemployment is much higher. As so many of the jobless know already, there are simply no jobs available in many areas. The staggering official statistic is that there are nearly six jobless workers for every unfilled job.

The group found that 410,000 jobless workers would face a cutoff in California alone, followed by New York, with 160,000 losing benefits; Pennsylvania, 133,000; Texas, 128,000; Illinois 128,000; Florida, 108,000; Michigan, 92,000; Georgia, 90,000; and Ohio, 89,000.

It might be thought that the plight of two million workers on the verge of destitution—with millions more in their immediate families, including many children—would be a major topic of public concern. But the American political establishment is virtually ignoring the issue.

In his Saturday radio and Internet speech, President Barack Obama said nothing about the impending expiration of benefits for the jobless...

According to a recent poll, 73 percent of voters want Congress to keep the program for the jobless in place until the recession is over, agreeing overwhelmingly with the proposition that “it is too early to start cutting back benefits for workers who lost their jobs...."


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/pers-n29.shtml