Laid Off And Left Out: New Web Source Just in Time

by James Parks, Apr 7, 2008

Looks like the National Employment Law Project (NELP) has relaunched its site, Laid Off & Left Out, just in time. With the unemployment rate at 5.1 percent and first-time jobless claims at the highest level since the Hurricane Katrina aftermath in 2005, workers without jobs need help in making ends meet.

Millions will cash their last unemployment insurance (UI) checks without having found new work, leaving them and their families to fend for themselves.

First launched in the 2001 recession to provide information about the unemployment situation, Laid Off & Left Out helps jobless workers by mobilizing support for extending UI benefits. Click here to visit the site. 

After the last recession, Congress temporarily extended UI benefits by 13 weeks. But that’s not enough, and NELP is among the organizations joining us in urging Congress to extend benefits by several more weeks. 

Compared with prior recessions, more workers are unemployed today for many more weeks, so it is critical to provide the help they need when their state unemployment benefits run out after six months. In January, 1.4 million workers still were unemployed after actively looking for work for more than six months (that’s 18.3 percent of all jobless workers). The number of long-term unemployed is twice as large as it was when the last two recessions began. NELP estimates that 3 million workers will run out of state unemployment benefits this year alone.

Laid Off & Left Out hosts a forum where workers are invited to tell their stories. Workers like Casimir Marcinkowski of Sterling Heights, Mich., who was laid off last June with 30 years of experience in sales and management.  He hasn’t found a job, his health benefits ran out in January, and he is not eligible for an extension of his unemployment. Says Marcinkowski:

Maybe it is my age [59] that is creating this dilemma. The extension would surely help for now. All my life I have worked hard to make ends meet, but now with the economy the way it is, there is a real possibility of foreclosure on my home. My wife is seriously ill, (we have) no insurance (and) Medicaid benefits still pending. I am in a very humiliating situation and am trying to keep positive and confident that things will turn around soon, just as many other people in this mess. Never thought I would be here.

In a Point of View column on the AFL-CIO website, NELP Executive Director Christine Owens says:

The economy is flailing and failing the long-term unemployed. Congress should enact a federal extension of employment benefits now, and not wait until well into or after a recession, when the unemployment rate increases substantially. The unemployed want to work, but the economy is not producing enough jobs. By extending benefits now, Congress can—and should—help these workers, and the economy overall.

Click here to read Owens’s column, “Unemployment Benefits Need to Be Extended NOW.”

In February, Senate Republicans filibustered a version of the economic stimulus package that included an extension of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to jobless workers who exhaust their benefits—some 200,000 workers a month run out of UI before finding a job.

The main NELP site includes summaries of the major benefits and resources available to today’s unemployed workers, including links to government websites designed to help workers access current benefit programs. Workers also can check out the latest national and state statistics on the impact of the economy on today’s unemployed workers. 

But in the end, it all boils down to individual workers, who want to work, but find themselves without jobs and no resources. Ronica Jackson of Cambridge, Mass., told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions last month that she had only $4 to her name. An excerpt of her testimony is on the Laid Off & Left Out website. Click here to read her entire testimony.

My unemployment insurance ended the second week of February, and my rent is paid only through the end of this month. In fact, my landlord took me to court to evict me. It takes five weekly unemployment insurance checks to accumulate just enough for my monthly rent. My other bills, including utilities, have not been paid, and have either been disconnected or shut-off notices have been sent to me.

On behalf of so many Americans who share my story, who through no fault of their own are dependent on unemployment insurance, I ask that you extend unemployment so we have a chance of finding work and surviving these hard times.

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