Jobless Aid Restored - Now More to Be Done
Congress has finally passed a bill to restore extended federal unemployment insurance to more than 2.7 million jobless workers, continue the program for millions more, and allow those unemployed for more than 26 weeks to file for the program through the end of November.
President Obama is scheduled to sign the unemployment extension later today.
The House passed the measure this afternoon, with the Senate having approved it last night by a vote of 59 to 39. Even after their two-month filibuster was finally overcome, Senate Republicans delayed a final vote for an additional 30 hours by refusing to give back any post-cloture time. The added delay caused another 60,000 long-term jobless workers to have their benefits cut off temporarily.
Now those benefits will begin to be paid out retroactive to June 1 when the Republican-led obstruction caused them to expire.
The victory on unemployment insurance comes just one day after President Obama signed a landmark Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act which was passed by the Congress despite strenuous opposition from Wall Street’s lobbyists and conservative Republicans — the very folks whose disastrous policies caused the Great Recession and our debilitating high levels of unemployment.
The agonizing two-month struggle to pass an unemployment insurance extension exposed the Republicans as deficit frauds who want to block any measures to improve the economy and support a recovery. In their calculations, the more pain working families are in, the better the Republicans’ chances are politically.
That’s why renewed efforts are needed now to press the Congress to take up the critical measures that were put aside during the unemployment extension struggle. Congress needs to extend FMAP funds to help states pay for Medicaid and avoid mass layoffs; and it needs to provide critical state aid to help keep teachers in classrooms in the coming school year.
Tell the Congress there’s no time to waste, swift action is needed to provide this critical aid to states.
Tags: filibuster, FMAP, jobless benefits extension, jobs, state aid, teacher jobs, unemployment
Yes, but this extension is set to expire by the end of November (just after the mid-term elections complete, how convenient) and I would be very surprised if another extension will be forthcoming, even if the Dems do manager to hold onto a majority in Congress.
Everyone depending on unemployment had best be planning what they will do come December and forward as your claims expire.
Or else you will join the ever growing group of long-term unemployed and seeming unemployable who are moving their belongings into shopping carts.
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And what about the 99ers? Do they suddenly fall off the radar? This extension is insufficient.
**** Attention 99ers - Keep reporting your unemployed status after you have exhausted compensation benefits ****
The unemployment figures are declining in many states while the labor force is also declining. Unless everyone is dying, the unemployed population is growing! If this keeps up, many states won’t even qualify for the 99 weeks, much less demonstrate that swift action for reasonable work initiatives are required.
When you stop reporting your unemployed status, you get dumped into the category of those who have given up looking for work. Is that true? If not, report your status as outlined by your state agency. Otherwise, as the ranks of the unemployed grow, national and world attention will wane, leaving the number of impoverished people to continue swelling.
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I, too, am a 99er. I feel totally left out. I’m 58 years old. I was laid off when the company I worked for ran out of work contracts. Despite what right-wingers seem to think, I DID NOT lay myself off! I researched allied health programs to get new training in and, since I only had a small amount of IRA funds to pay for classes, and since my research showed that it was a good field with (then) a lot of jobs, I went through a medical transcription program at a local two-year college. Now that I’ve finished my training, almost all the transcription is now being sent to India and the Philippines. So what am I supposed to do? Relocate to those places in order to get a job???? America should be better than this!
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