Not Just Today’s Jobless Workers
The economic costs—costs not just to the people directly affected but to the entire American economy—of not renewing unemployment insurance will be dire. According to the Council of Economic Advisors,
The council’s report, which details how a failure to extend the aid would affect people on a state-by-state level, says nearly seven million Americans could lose coverage by the end of next year and that 600,000 jobs are at stake. Goolsbee contended the gross domestic product would be six-tenths of a percent point lower in December of next year if the benefits are not extended, slowing the nation’s recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression.
According to an earlier report by the National Employment Law Project, some two million workers nationally could lose benefits in December if they are not extended, an estimate the CEA also uses. The U.S. Joint Economic Committee estimates failure to extend the benefits program “would drain the economy of $80 billion in purchasing power and result in the loss of over one million jobs over the next year.”
600,000 jobs at stake and a dip in the GDP. Never mind the millions of working families who will lose a lifeline just in time for Christmas, in an economy in which there are five jobseekers for every job opening.
But Republicans in Congress are still holding those families, and those jobs, and our economy, hostage to tax cuts for millionaires and their party’s overarching desire to destroy the economy enough to ensure that President Obama won’t be reelected. It’s appalling.
Tags: unemployment, unemployment insurance
Those voting against this or resisting its coming to a vote need to be unemployed in 2012.
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The GOP was living large (or should I say larger) with the Bush Tax Cuts and don’t want to see it come to an end.Especially if it meant that the money would be going to the much needed unemployment extensions.To them,it’s like stealing.Yet they have no problem stealing from the government by the tax cuts to the wealthy.If the deficit is so high,what benefit does having less money coming in from the elite wealthy do?It is certainly not going to help the country get back on it’s feet.What would you do if you had big bills and made less money?You’re first priority wouldn’t be paying the bills,it would be survival (food,clothing,shelter).Yet the GOP would deny survival to fellow Americans so they can fatten their wallets (and partisan funding)?What’s the problem with this picture?I know,because you voted for them without really knowing what they do.
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