Unemployment Campaign Launch Gets Boost from Blogs

Posted by: on Oct 18, 2010

Just as we at UnemployedWorkers.org are not waiting until after the elections to launch the drive to press Congress to continue the federal unemployment benefits program, leading online blogs are not waiting for the traditional media to pick up the story.  Here are some excerpts.

From Arthur Delaney at Huffington Post:

When it reconvenes in mid-November, Congress will have just two weeks to reauthorize extended unemployment benefits, a fight that took nearly two months earlier this summer. The National Employment Law Project, the foremost advocate for keeping the benefits, has already begun its lobbying effort and on Friday launched a new website.

Federally-funded extended benefits for the long-term jobless will expire at the end of November. To fight the recession, Congress gave the unemployed an additional 73 weeks of federally-funded benefits on top of the 26 weeks provided by states. Nearly half of the 15 million unemployed have been out of work for longer than six months.

The extra weeks have needed reauthorization three times this year, and each time Congress has been unable to reauthorize them on time. The longest lapse occurred this summer -- 2.5 million people missed checks as the Senate deadlocked for 50 days.

From Meteor Blades at Daily Kos:

Yes, we're headed down that road again. Of the more than 9 million Americans surviving on unemployment benefit checks these days, 5 million depend on federal extensions of those benefits because they've been out of work for so long. But the extensions passed in July - for the third time - are set to expire Nov. 30. And Congress only has from Nov. 15 when members return from the campaign recess until Nov. 19 when they go on Thanksgiving recess to do something about it.

If it takes anywhere near as long to get the votes to pass the extensions as it did last time - 50 days - a million workers could be cut off from this meager but crucial life-line between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Still more come the new year. That's why the UnemployedWorkers.org is gearing up now to prepare the way for that fight. A project of the National Employment Law Project, it is urging everyone to sign its petition to Congress on benefit extensions, pass the word to friends and political allies and offer feedback on its newly retooled web site.

If you've been out of touch for a while and are unfamiliar with the debate over benefit extensions, Unemployed Workers has produced a new video [view video here]. Thrill to Sen. Orrin Hatch saying, "You know, we should not be giving cash to people who, who basically are just going to go and blow it on drugs."

Ultimately, unemployment insurance needs to be reengineered so that in times of need, out-of-work people aren't subject to Congressional whim and temporary extensions of this lifeline. But right now we've got a rematch on extensions coming our way Please sign the petition.

From Annie Lowrey at The Washington Independent:

Over the past year, Democrats in Congress have fought three times to reauthorize federally extended unemployment benefits, which provide up to 99 weeks of unemployment insurance to millions of jobless workers. Each time, Republicans have put up resistance, arguing that Democrats need to pay for the benefits by cutting spending elsewhere, rather than adding to the deficit. Each time, that has led to a standoff. This summer, more than two million Americans lost their expected unemployment benefits as the two parties bickered.

Now, it needs to happen again. Federally extended benefits start to lapse at the end of November. The unemployment rate has not declined — indeed, it has remained at or above 9.4 percent for the last 17 months, and nearly 15 million Americans are unemployed — and economists and labor experts are urging Congress to reauthorize the benefits.

In response, the National Employment Law Project is going on the offensive, relaunching its website unemployedworkers.org and calling attention to the issue.

From Laura Clawson at Working America's Main Street blog, who also posted our new video and wrote:

Check out the new unemployedworkers.org site from our friends at the National Employment Law Project (including, now, one name that’s very familiar to readers of this blog: Mitchell Hirsch). It has tons of information and regular updates on the battle to continue federal unemployment benefits—a battle we’ve fought too many times already.

Stop by, take action, follow them on Twitter.

From Seth Freed Wessler at ColorLines:

Advocates for jobless people aren’t waiting around until Congress returns to make demands. The National Employment Law Project, which has led the national push to secure extended benefits for the past year of the economic downturn, has launched a new campaign and petition at unemployedworkers.org. Along with a number of other groups, including the American 99ers Union, named for people who’ve been jobless longer than 99 weeks, they’re calling for another benefits extension.

According to NELP, the expanded federal unemployment insurance programs, combined with state benefits, kept an estimated 3.3 million Americans out of poverty last year alone.

Unemployment has remained consistently between 9 and 10 percent, much higher for blacks and Latinos—currently, 16.1 and 12.4 percent respectively. Single mothers are also significantly more likely to be out of a job. And people of color are more likely to be unemployed for long periods of time, which means that if Congress fails to extend benefits, it’ll be communities of color hit the hardest.