760,000 Jobless denied aid — and counting -(need for 13 week UE extention)

[papau]

NON-COPYRIGHT PRESS RELEASE:

http://www.cbpp.org/2-25-04ui-pr.htm

760,000 JOBLESS DENIED AID — AND COUNTING
Large Numbers of Unemployed Go Without Aid As Administration Remains Silent on Whether to Restart Federal Assistance Program

Because the federal unemployment program was not extended, by the end of February an estimated 760,000 workers will exhaust unemployment benefits and not receive federal aid.

350,000 workers exhausted their regular benefits in January and received no further federal assistance, a record for a single month.

The Administration has repeatedly refused to take a position on whether the federal unemployment program should resume.

From late December, when the federal program designed to help the long-term unemployed began phasing out, through the end of February, an estimated 760,000 jobless workers will have exhausted their regular unemployment benefits without receiving additional aid, according to new projections by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This suggests both that the job market continues to be soft and that the federal unemployment program should be restarted.

<snip>

The 760,000 figure is based on previously released data for December, just-released data for January, and a Center estimate for February. New Labor Department data for January show that about 350,000 individuals exhausted their regular unemployment benefits last month and received no further unemployment assistance. In no other month on record, with data available back to 1971, have there been so many “exhaustees." (The attached table provides state-by-state data on the number of exhaustees in January.)

<snip>

Further, if the existence of federal unemployment benefits had been the main reason the unemployed were not finding jobs, the number of workers exhausting their regular unemployment benefits should not have been exceptionally large in January, since the federal program was no longer open to these workers. In fact, exhaustions hit a record high level in January.<snip>

The report estimated that nearly two million unemployed workers will exhaust their regular benefits from January to June 2004 and go without further aid. <snip>

Source: U.S. Department of Labor.

[Care Bear]

1. Bush' jobless recovery strikes again!

Keep it up, Smirks, and you may be outta there before November! I know we're a country that doesn't 'storm the Bastille', but how far can so many be pushed?

[74dodgedart]

2. If they go off unemployment, they won't be counted as unemployed

and the unemployment numbers will look better

[leftchick]

7. Bingo!

welcome to DU 74dodgedart! :)

[area51]

3. the unemployed

Considering how hard it is to get a job in this economy, the unemployed lucky enough to get unemployment bennies need a year's extension, as opposed to a paltry 13 weeks.

[aquart]

4. Does Bush know the unemployed are allowed to vote?

He seems not to make that connection.

[Frodo]

5. Nahhh.

I think he just knows that the unemployed aren't going to vote for HIM even if he DOES give them some more benefits.

Ya gotta give the cash to people whose votes can be bought.

[bain_sidhe]

6. Send out the recruiters!

The army'll give 'em a job. Sure, it's in Iraq, but hey, what else can they do but sign up? Which is, of course, not an entirely unintended consequence of not renewing the federal program. Oh yeah, that and driving down wages for all those "manufacturing" jobs at McDonalds, and lest we forget, the burgeoning "service economy" jobs like Walmart graciously provides to serfs out of the goodness of their little (very, very little) hearts..

[Crachet2004]

8. The republicans are really weak on this issue...

and Democrats will not let it lie. The House has already passed some sort of reauthorization, so surely the Senate will. If nothing else, it will make Bush look like the Scrooge he really is when he vetos it.

You know, what sucks about this issue, is that an extension wouldn't even come out of the general fund-it already exists in a trust fund! An extension is a way of pumping money into the economy without raising the deficit!

But it would increase the "official" statistic from 5.6 to 5.8...so it would make him look bad. But in an election year, he looks EVEN worse by not passing the extension. You would think he would realize that. Probably why his administration has been "silent" on this issue-so if it starts heading south in a big way, he can back off. He did last year.

As for the employment picture, I think it will get worse before it gets better. This issue is a knife we can twist.