Help the Jobless
Unemployment benefits expire Saturday for 1.3 million Americans (including 600 Vermonters) who have been out of work for longer than 26 weeks. Unless Congress acts when it reconvenes in January, the same fate awaits an additional 1.9 million people nationwide (including 2,300 Vermonters) during the first half of 2014. Sen. Bernie Sanders has co-sponsored legislation to extend unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. Cutting benefits not only hurts the unemployed, it hurts the overall economy, Sen. Sanders said during an interview Friday with Alex Witt on MSNBC.
While the overall jobless rate has declined, long-term unemployment remains a lingering effect of the 2008 recession. Today, there are three job applicants for every one job opening. There simply aren’t enough jobs out there for the 11 million Americans who are actively seeking work. As a result, 37 percent of all unemployed Americans have been out of work for more than six months.
Failure to extend benefits will take $25 billion out of circulation and cause the loss of more than 200,000 additional jobs next year alone, according to the conservative estimate by the Congressional Budget.
The Emergency Unemployment Compensation program was first signed into law by President George W. Bush in June 2008. At that time, the unemployment rate was 5.6 percent and the average length of unemployment was 17.1 weeks. Today, the official unemployment rate is 7 percent and the average length of unemployment is more than 36 weeks. Because the recession has continued to hurt job prospects, Congress reauthorized the extended unemployment benefits program 11 times since the recession began in 2008.
Altogether, nearly 24 million Americans (including more than 33,000 Vermonters) have received the emergency unemployment benefits since 2008. Unemployment benefits, typically $300 a week, lifted 2.5 million Americans out of poverty last year, according to the Census Bureau.
