“Unemployment has been hard on our family, as it is for everyone. Unemployment Insurance benefits have kept us going. ”

Our Voices, Our Stories

Richard Crowe of Wintersville, Ohio, worked for the same steel company for 34 years, before being laid off in May of 2012 when his plant was sold to a scrapping firm.  Now he's facing the loss of federal unemployment insurance at the end of December if Congress fails to renew the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program for  2013.

“I’ve worked my whole adult life, helped support my family and put my son through college.  Unemployment insurance, and especially the federal benefits extension I’ve been receiving, help us pay our most critical bills.  If we’re cut off at the end of December, we won’t be able to maintain our fuel, heat and utilities, not to mention the payments on the college loans for our son that we still owe.  And if we can’t pay that, we could lose our home.”

“I’m engaged in an active job search literally seven days a week, looking and applying for jobs both in my area and out of the area as well.  It is very tough, though, especially I think for older workers.  It sometimes seems like all my years of experience just don’t matter.”

“Renewing federal unemployment insurance should be a no-brainer for Congress.  It would be downright cruel for them to allow so many folks like me to just be cut off while we’re still looking for work.”

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