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Republicans to Unemployed: ‘Get a Job!’
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As part of Republican obstruction-at-any-cost election year strategy, Senate Republicans last week once again blocked an extension of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for long-term jobless workers. The UI extension is part of the jobs bill that could help put the unemployed back to work.
Some Republicans even said it’s time for ”tough love” to motivate the long-term jobless.
Granted, they are far removed from the day-to-day economic reality of America’s workers. So here’s a reminder: Today, in the United States, there are five unemployed workers for every job opening, an unemployment rate near 10 percent, at least 15 million people out of work and 6.8 million people out of work for 27 weeks or more. Getting a job is not like going down to the corner for a quart of milk.
Heck, when you still get your taxpayer-funded, congressional paycheck every week ($3,346.15) for not doing very much work, it can certainly alter your view of the economy—even to the point where some Republican politicos actually claim the not quite $300 a week average unemployment check is a “disincentive” for the unemployed to get out of the door and look for work.
Maybe senators think that when the men and women who have been out of work since at least before Thanksgiving (and millions for more than one year) get that bountiful UI check, they sit around the kitchen table and make big plans to spend that dough.
Hey, hon got my check. This sure beats working. What do you say we go to Palm Springs this weekend? We can fly the kids to your mom’s and board the dogs at that new spa kennel.
No, senator, the response to a couple hundred bucks a week goes more like this:
Maybe we should think about gassing up the car so we can go down to the food bank and set something aside for your blood pressure medicine. Oh, and there’s that foreclosure notice we need to deal with.
Each time Senate Democratic leaders have brought up a UI extension this year, Republicans have delayed and blocked the bill. With the extended UI program set to expire at the end of May, the House passed its jobs bill with a UI extension just before Memorial Day but the Senate left town for vacation and didn’t act on the bill. As a result, some 1 million workers who have been out of work for more than a year—remember, one job opening for every five unemployed workers—have no UI.
Along with the incredibly insensitive and out-of-touch “tough love theory,” some lawmakers are hiding behind deficit hysteria, even though three-quarters of voters say extending unemployment insurance is more important than reducing the deficit.
Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and op-ed columnist for The New York Times, blows out of the water the deficit doomsday panic that has lawmakers screaming, “We can’t spend any money now or the deficit will eat us alive.” Here’s his simple axiom:
Spend now, while the economy remains depressed; save later, once it has recovered. How hard is that to understand?
Right now, we have a severely depressed economy—and that depressed economy is inflicting long-run damage. Every year that goes by with extremely high unemployment increases the chance that many of the long-term unemployed will never come back to the workforce and become a permanent underclass.
Penny-pinching at a time like this isn’t just cruel; it endangers the nation’s future. And it doesn’t even do much to reduce our future debt burden, because stinting on spending now threatens the economic recovery, and with it the hope for rising revenues.
Along with the UI extension, the jobs bill also includes money to help cash-strapped states to create and save jobs. Today, AFSCME and Americans United for Change launched an ad campaign aimed at Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, whose votes could break the 60-vote threshold the bill needs before final passage. Says AFSCME President Gerald McEntee:
It’s very simple—more jobs now mean less debt later. If Sens. Snowe and Collins are truly concerned about the deficit, then they need to vote for this jobs bill—especially as unemployment hovers near 10 percent, and 900,000 more workers face the threat of layoffs.
During his weekly address Saturday, President Obama said Republican filibuster tactics “won’t even allow this legislation to come up for a vote.”
And if this obstruction continues, unemployed Americans will see their benefits stop. Teachers and firefighters will lose their jobs.
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21 Comments
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I am one of those long term unemployed. I have been out of work since I was laid off in November 2008. I have filled out hundreds of applications and sent hundreds of resumes everywhere. Still no job not even an interview since August of 2009. My husband was unemployed for a year from April 2009-April 2010. So we were both out of work and suffering. Luckily he found a job. But it pays less than his previous job of 27 years and it also has no benefits. So we have less.
I am 53 years old and worked at my last job for 11 years only to be laid off. I want to work, I need to work. Unemployment is a help but it is less than 1/2 of what I made working. These Republicans and some “Republicrats” who think that we want to sit on our butts are full of it. I have a mortgage, car payments, credit card debt, utility bills and I have to eat and wear clothes. You can not do this on UI benefits. But without them I will lose everything I have worked my whole life to EARN!
I urge everyone in the country to vote and vote out all those in office who vote to deny us laid off workers help in these trying times. Let them learn to live on UI benefits. It is time Americans learn that those people we put in office are living on government welfare paid to elected officials. It is our money that pays them to not help us. It is our money that we should take away from them. Let them feel the pain and anguish of being unemployed.
I cry everyday because I haven’t a meaningful job. I also have great fear for my future. This is not the USA I was taught about in school as a child that is for sure.
Republicans are cruel and heartless people. Shame on them. How can they go to church or synagogue with a clear conscience. I am appalled by their heartlessness.
The time for organized labor is NOW. This a golden opportunity for real “leadership.” There are tens of millions of legitimately scared, angry, motivated citizens ready to be focused and led. I implore the AFL-CIO to stretch beyond their usual comfort zone and make the most of this opportunity for real change that will benefit all.
Sincerely,
Jon O. Hallstein
Trumka and Gerrard are awfully silent on this latest version of the corporate subsidy,oops,this jobs bill.It should be called:
THE TAX CUTS FOR TAX EVADERS BILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see this blog is repeating the same propaganda when it comes to the labor statistics.
Heres the real stuff:22% unemployed
Millions have lost benefits since March 2010 and how they are surviving is anyones guess.
8-10 applicants for every available job.
20 trillion dollars of household wealth shifted to the richest individuals in the world.
Union jobs sector is in a major depression.
Union Dues keep rising every quarter.
Nothing but fuckin lies from our Union Leaders.
The continued position of stooge for Unions in the Democratic Party.
A Party for them and a NIGHTMARE for us!!!!!!!!!!!!!
k2kelly you and I elect those leaders we can unelect them. There are ways if you don’t just bitch. Union constitutions can be changed to give unemployed voting rights. Why are you taking out your anger on the folks working for you anyway?
Oh I think I see you think the GOP will quit playing and let you into the car with the fat cats instead of leaving you in the parking lot again WRONG SO WRONG!
Unemployment reality check-
We would need to increase jobs @ 250,000 per month for 12 months to achieve a 1% decrease in unemployment. With all our manufacturing jobs sent overseas and Wall Street and the big Banks consumed by greed with no concern for the midddle class in our country I despair of the future and I used to be an optimist
I hate the GOPigs with a passion you could never understand. I speak out of anger only because we seem to have to beat the same dead horse time after time and get no-where.Just like in every society,there are the few that accept bribes to sellout their friends,countrymen and in this case their membership.I want our well paid and employed leaders to start making DEMANDS and giving ultimatums to this Conservative Democrat Party!!!TODAY!!!!!!!!!!
I am a Republican. I am also a member of the Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA and a retired family owned businessman. Yes unemployment sucks! Yes many families, including my own, are out looking for work. Yes our government seems not to care BUT we are a nation of MUTTS. We survive everything because we fight for everything. Stop bitching and start fighting! Don’t vote against, VOTE FOR!!!
Think a minute, people. Not everyone can work, and we don’t have/never had a full-employment economy. Certain people (such as single parents, who might miss work because of a child’s illness, problems with child care, etc.) are at the bottom, least likely to be hired.With the 1996 welfare “reform,” this country decided that this was acceptable. There are winners and losers.
We collectively agreed that there is NO good excuse for failing to be employed, and that providing aid was a solid disincentive to trying hard enough to find work. Now that we’re the ones who are suffering, can we suddenly change our minds? No. We’re going to have to start wrapping our minds around a certain fact of life:
We — American workers, whether employed or not — are all in this together. We need to work together, too, to reverse all those policies that have made American workers so dispensable by giving corporations unprecedented power, virtual carte blanche.
Hold rallies in the largest cities in the United States with the names of legislatures held high that are obstucting this bill. If we raise enough noise the news will take notice! This is website is the only place I hear of this bill.. If we organized and held rallies believe me WE WILL GET NOTICED!
Kevin – I WENT TO THE HEALTH CARE RALLIES WITH PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. I live outside our nations capitol and I can tell you the national News Media does not cover these stories and the elected officials ignore us. We must vote them out and start over but I believe we need a viable 3rd party to really shake things up and until they are included in the Primaries they don’t stand a chance
Voting and Elections does not and cannot remove the SYSTEM of Corruption and Theft that these Corporatists exist in!!!
We no longer are are about being liberal or conservative, we are now suffering from corporatism. The longer folks are without a pay check, the more likely they’ll take any pay no matter how small. The folks that are still working will be threatened by their corporatist bosses with losing their jobs if they don’t take less. The ugly downward spiral continues, they won’t be happy until we are like a third world country. Folks, I hate to say it, but we are all that stands in their way, so expect the attacks on unions to increase.
Republicans will never care about the unemployed after all republicans don’t even care about the working man in general, they try to screw him every chance they get , get use to it or get them out of office that’s your only two choices.
Hey Griff! Is that you “Buzz” Bobby? It’s Richie Rt. 19!
Remember The republican Party is the NO PARTY
Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition
Produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
****************************
Selections from Building Bridges Live Coverage
OF MASS RALLY OF NYC PUBLIC WORKERS
AGAINST THE CUTS!
With
. Michael Mulgrew, Pres., United Federation of Teachers
. Judy Wessler, Dir., Commission on the Public’s Health System
. John Samuelsen, Pres. , Transport Workers Union, Local 100
. Ed Ott, Distinguished Lecturer, Murphy Inst.of Workers Studies,
CUNY; former Executive Director, NYC Central Labor Council
. David Jones, Pres. & CEO of the Community Service Society
A coalition of municipal labor unions, turned out tens of thousands of workers and community activits to protest job losses and service cuts that will permanently alter the lives of NYC workers and residents. Mayor Bloomberg is sharpening his carving knife and on the chopping
block are thousands of civil service jobs: educators, transit workers,
public health, social service workers, and library workers. The loss of
these jobs mean reduced transit services, education, healthcare, fire services, and the myriad services provided by public sector workers. And, as the city hemorrhages public sector jobs and services, it aggressively advances the privatization of public sector jobs and the services they provide. It’s an all out attack on public sector unions and the workers, and benefits those unions fought for. So in the fight for its life, public workers and their unions say hell no to pro-corporate policies that serve the wealthy at the expense of the majority of New Yorkers.
*************************
To Download or listen to this 27:58 minute program
go to our website
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Let there be no doubt that if this bill had reached the House the “Blue Dog Democrats” led by Co-Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin D-SD would have voted NO. This is the problem with the “big tent” pitched by the Dems, they are like a rudderless ship, w/ no ideology except to win elections. And this naivety is the greatest failure of the leadership of Organized Labor. We are 100 years overdue for a legitimate US Labor Party. Let us begin.
I have been unemployed since December. I’m 61 years old and employers won’t even look at me because I’m too old. I know that I’ll never work again at any kind of a job above minimum wage. So, I’ll do my bit for the economy, since I’m a deadbeat sponging off my unemployment…I’ll just declare bankruptcy and walk away from my credit card debt and my mortgage. The bank can have my house and the credit card issuers can take my 700+ credit score that I had before I got laid off and just say ‘oops’.
I have been unemployed since Jan. 2009. I am also 61 years old. I have never been in a union but watched how the union helped my dad. He was in the IAM for his entire working life. His union allowed him to retire and live comforable. When my non-union job went, he was the only one in our family that helped me. I feel lucky about that, but sad that after working for over 40 years myself as a Mechanical Designer I am left bankrupt and angry about the way the republicans have screwed up my life and our country. How can people not see the damage they have caused. I agree we do need a workers party. Maybe they could at lease back the democrats when they are trying to help the working people.
I have been laid off since the middle of december. I received exactly 26 weeks of unemployment, and when I found out i exhausted my monies,and learned that I would get paid only if the extension was signed by the senate, I was quite concerned to say the least. When I read the news it was filibustered by the republican senate, I was devastated. For the first time in my adult life I have no income. I am a single parent of a college sophomore, have meds that I need to be filled, with no inurance in the near future, because that cost is 175 a month. I don’t know where to start cutting. Gas for a car is a killer. I paid off my credit card debt, but will have no money for rent. My parents are older, and they struggle monthly just to pay their bills. I can’t become a burden to them. I have put in for job after job, through many employment sites such as monster. Seems that every company hires through agencies, and to go that avenue created lot of headaches for friends who gave it a try. Filing for UC became very difficult.. I don’t know where to turn, or go. The two senators from Maine, who have voted with sympathy in the past, have just possibly voted me penniless, with bills that I cannot pay. While on UC, I saved as much as I could, which is hardly nothing at the end of the month. How many people can support the economy now? How many will be able to buy a birthday present for their kids, a dinner out, or look for a job on an empty gas tank. My car insurance will be paid up to september, what’s an ex teamster supposed to do? Tell your friends and family to boycott the state of Maine, VACATION LAND AS THEY CALL IT. Let the senators from there see more businesses close when nobody comes..Let them explain the trickle down theory…