Looking Homelessness Dead in the Eye

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) March 17, 2010 -- While the jobs bill that recently passed the Senate is being described as including an "extension" of unemployment benefits, that is simply not the truth. What the bill does is extend some deadlines so that more people can receive some of the additional weeks of coverage provided for in a bill from last year. It does not create additional weeks of coverage for those who have already exhausted their benefits.

According to the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization, the current seasonally adjusted U-6 unemployment rate for February 2010 is 16.8%. What is U-6 you ask? U-6 is the total unemployed, plus all persons employed part time for economic reasons, plus all persons who have been seeking employment for over 12 months.

Leo Hindery, Chairman of the Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation, reports the number of real unemployed workers increased last month by 487,000 for a total of 29.7 million jobless, versus 29.3 million in January.

On March 16th, 2010, in testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, White House budget director Peter Orszag and Christina Romer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers warned “because of the severe toll the recession has taken on the labor market, the unemployment rate is likely to remain elevated for an extended period.”

The economists predict about 100,000 new jobs will be created each month, but not enough to lower unemployment, not even for the next three years! “The forecast projects that in the fourth quarter of 2011, the unemployment rate will be 8.9 percent, and that by the fourth quarter of 2012, it will be 7.9 percent,” these three officials say.

American's who are unemployed don’t have until the end of 2012. Some don’t have until the end of the week or the end of the month. They’re losing their homes, losing their car, staring at disconnect notices. Next month they might not be able to put food on the table. No matter what our elected officials may think, the long-term unemployed cannot eat a preemptive statement ‘warning’ them the road ahead won’t get much brighter.

The long-term unemployed have already been walking that dim road for two years. They have watched as the very Financial Institutions that created this crisis were given large bonuses, they have watched as Auto Companies were bailed out, while the Auto Company CEO's traveled in their private jets. They have survived months of no income because members of the Republican Party chose to play their political games and stall the passage of a bill to extend benefits for the unemployed.

The unemployed need JOBS Now! Until enough jobs are created for everyone another extension is needed, we need a Tier 5 extension that will last until the end of the year or until there are enough jobs created to lower the unemployment rate from 16.8% to a reasonable rate. Your Congressperson or Senator may truly believe that unemployment benefits should be extended past the current 99 week limit. Sadly if they perceive the political cost is going to be too high, very few are going to follow their conscience. It is time for our nation’s leaders to stop putting their political objectives ahead of the needs of the unemployed and devise a plan, a plan that is big enough to match this historic crisis.

The sad fact is those whose benefits have already expired are no longer counted as unemployed and that makes it look like there is a recovery going on. Going forward, every week hundreds of thousands will no longer be counted as unemployed not because they have found a job, only because they have no unemployment benefits left and no job prospects in sight, at that point they will truly become invisible.

What does the future hold for the long-term unemployed? The long-term unemployed are now looking homelessness dead in the eye. What can you do to help? Call and e-mail your elected officials, let them know that the American Public are armed with the accurate facts and figures, not the ones that are being spun by our Elected Officials to try to make the Democratic Party look good in the eyes of the American citizens. Make Senator Reid, Nancy Pelosi and President Obama aware of your opinion, let them know we are watching them and we are waiting for them to do the right thing for the 29.7 million jobless Americans.

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