The numbers: - 9.5% unemployment rate
- 14.6 million unemployed - nearly half, 6.8 million of the 14.6, have been unemployed for longer than 6 months - An additional 2.6 million people are unemployed (total of 17.2 million!) and want to work but were not counted in the statistics because they've given up looking for work - An additional unknown number of older unemployed have taken early Social Security retirement or Social Security disability(Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2 release)
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
- Contact your Senators and tell them that the unemployment benefits IS a top priority. Senators return from fiddling while Rome burns Monday.
- Contact your progressive organizations (MoveOn, Organizing for America, the Democratic Party, etc.) and encourage them to organize and act on jobs, unemployment, and Great Recession issues.
- Contact your unemployed former colleague and invite him/her over to your house for a meal or coffee. He or she may not have the $ to join you for coffee at a restaurant but surely misses the day-to-day contact with fellow colleagues. Provide a listening ear, but don't ask "how's the job search going" -- if it's going well, he/she won't need any prompting to mention.
4) Sign the petition to Congress at http://uspoverty.change.org/ and also take the time to read the article on suicide and unemployment.
- If you are a manager of people, consider and talk with your employees about options such as reduced work schedules and paycuts rather than cutting employees.
Unemployment Benefits Update:
Due to inaction in the Senate on the extension of unemployment benefits, those unemployed for 6 months or more (but less than 99 months) are no longer receiving benefits. That's 2,021,000 have lost benefits as of July 9 -- and the number increases by 53,500 people each day.
From Michael Thornton of Examiner.com:
Each day, according to ...the House Ways and Means Committee, about 53,500 [additional] people lose their unemployment insurance benefits because Congress couldn’t come up with a unemployment extension bill that met the deficit qualifications of Democrat Senator Ben Nelson and 39 Republicans. That’s over 350,000 people each week losing what could be their only line of financial support for rent, utilities, transportation, food and healthcare for themselves and their children. There are an average of 2.6 individuals per American household, which means that [an additional] 139,100 people each day are directly affected by the inability of Congress to pass vital unemployment legislation.
... And that number doesn’t even include the 99ers – those that have exhausted their maximum allowed unemployment benefits. . . .[T]he numbers that I have seen are anywhere from 2 to 4 million.
Democratic/Progressive Action/Inaction:
Unemployment has been largely pushed to the sidelines and ignored in the media and even among Democrats and other Progressives.
For example, MoveOn has had one recent mass fax of the Senate to stress the need to pass the extension of benefits, the Cobra supplement, and job stimulus, but is more frequently and recently more vocal on "stopping corruption." (Commentary from your sponsor: Boy, that's taking a risk and really going to the barricades -- have you ever seen anyone say, "Give me corruption or give me death.")
In his blog "Why The Idiocy About Unemployment?", Les Leopold addresses those, both left and right, who think that extended unemployment benefits causes unemployment by encouraging us to sit at home and let jobs go begging:
What jobs? We're down 8 million since the start of the Great Recession. We aren't even creating enough new jobs to keep up with population growth. So what jobs are the unemployed not taking?
Every child knows how to play musical chairs. When you take away 8 million chairs, a lot of people are forced to scrounge around looking for seats that aren't there. Providing nourishment for the chairless is not the cause of the disappearing chairs. It's just the decent thing to do.
Why is this so difficult to grasp? And why are so many people angry at the long-term unemployed and not at the bankers who actually created this mess?
Economist Dean Baker suggests that the Republicans are trying to keep unemployment as high as possible right now because they think that high jobless numbers will spell disaster for the Democrats in November. And if we give the unemployed extended benefits, that money will act as a stimulus, generating more jobs. Well, we can't have that! It's better for the Republicans if the economy stays in the ditch.
But what about Obama and the Democrats? Why aren't they at the barricades, fighting for the unemployed? They could be flooding the talk shows with a raucous defense of the jobless. They could be putting ads up all over the country, explaining why the long-term unemployed deserve our support. They ought to be ridiculing any politician or pundit who argues against jobless benefits. Where the hell is their outrage? [Emphasis added]
Instead, even as the unemployment crisis continues, the Democrats are pushing austerity and deficit reduction--the financial industry's pet issue.
I encourage all to read the rest of his blog article. As a side note, I went trolling the Democratic Senators' websites to see who was on the barricades with us...who mentioned jobs, economic recovery, and/or unemployment benefits on the front page of their websites. And sadly, it was a dismal and bleak finding -- while many democratic Senators are using their sites to laud and propogate their work/views on financial reform, energy, the environment (oil spill), and even DADT repeal -- many ignore or barely mention the issues of unemployment and jobs.
Good Actor Awards (Democratic Senators):
In spirit of who is sorta on the barricades with us, today's Good Actor Awards go to Senators who are fighting for creating jobs and providing a hand up to us while we're looking:
Senator Sherrod Brown (OH) Senator Debbie Stabenow (MI)
Bad Actor Awards (Democratic Senators):
Senator Ben Nelson, who is a DINOsaur voting with the Rep against benefits and fails to realize when the country falters, so to does his state eventually.
Senator Harry Reid for his extraordinarily inept work on passing the extension and for allowing his fellow Senators to go home for vacation while millions of Americans didn't have a dime to spend on July 4th food.
Tales from The Unemployed Battlefield:
Among the many depressing, soul-and-psyche killing aspects of life as a second class unemployed person, there have been a few lessons that haven't hurt to learn including that Microsoft has become a type of Santa Claus to me. You see, Microsoft through its Club Bing allows you to earn points by playing games... and the points can be exchanged for rewards. Over the past year, my points on Club Bing have become my main source for presents...and though you can't hide its source since Microsoft logos up most of its rewards -- at least the kid got a electronic banking Monopoly game for her birthday and Dad got the Indiana Jones dvds for Father's Day.
Interruption for a message from your sponsor GennieX: The economy and the unemployed are, in my opinion and hopefully yours, worthy of continued and increased attention on Daily Kos and in the progressive community. I'm attempting to create a daily mothership, that I hope will get someday/time on the most rec list, with the most recent numbers, updates on legislative action/inaction, and tales from the unemployed themselves. I hope others will join in adding their stories and posting the mothership. I will try to post the diary each day even if it never gets on the most rec list: Unemployment has repeatedly been an experience in banging my head against brick walls -- another ego bruise shouldn't hurt too much!