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Democrats Could Agree to Unemployment Benefit Cuts

Last year, thousands of you wrote and called your members of Congress to stop a cruel and selfish piece of legislation from passing. You won that battle, but the bill is back.

H.R. 3630, introduced by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), extends federal unemployment insurance for a full year…with many, many strings attached. The bill called for slashing UI benefits by more than half in some of the highest unemployment states, allowed mandatory drug testing, denied benefits to those without a GED or diploma and even forced applicants to pay for their own reemployment services. The National Employment Law Project (NELP) has a full analysis of this disgusting bill.

UI applicants, many of them hardworking Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, don’t deserve this kind of humiliation. Congress needs to renew unemployment benefits for the full year, as they have always done: no cuts, no tricks, and no barriers to benefits.

We were able to defeat this legislation last December, when House Republicans relented and signed a clean two-month extension of UI and the payroll tax cut. But now that the clock is once again running out, House Republicans are using these ridiculous restrictions on unemployment benefits as bait in a sick political game to extract concessions.

According to the Associated Press, this tactic seems to be working:

Democrats, however, rejected efforts by House conservatives to require beneficiaries to enroll in GED classes or permit states to require drug tests as conditions of getting unemployment.

The Democratic proposal would allow unemployed people to receive a maximum 93 weeks of benefits in states with the highest jobless rates, rather than the 99 weeks permitted now. Republicans want to cut 20 weeks from the maximum benefit, though as a practical matter, falling jobless rates mean the maximum benefit would drop to 59 weeks under their plan.

Translation: Democrats are now negotiating away six weeks’ worth of benefits to try to get stubborn Republicans to drop the drug testing and other draconian measures.

But what happens when Republicans say no to 93 weeks? Do the Democrats counter with even more cuts? Will they just keep cutting until Republicans get the cuts that that they wanted all along?

What makes this even worse is that the average duration of unemployment is higher than it has ever been since the Labor Department started recording in 1948: 39.7 weeks. That’s the average. No other recession in the last fifty years even compares. That House Republicans are doing everything they can to cut unemployment benefits now, in 2012, after extending them every time the measure came up under the previous administration, is cruel, selfish, and nakedly partisan.

More than 3.3 million unemployed workers will be cut off from their vital lifelines by June 2 if the program is not extended. Millions of working families and local businesses will suffer from the lack of revenue at a time where the economy is just starting to recover.

Once again, we need you, and your voices. Tell Congress to extend UI now: no cuts, no tricks, and no barriers to benefits.

Tags: Jobs, Michigan, unemployment benefits extension, unemployment insurance