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PostPosted: 12/28/13 5:09 pm • # 1 
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So Congress gets to go on Christmas vacation while unemployment benefits run out. How sweet. Video at the link.

http://crooksandliars.com/2013/12/what-are-unemployed-supposed-do-womans

What Are The Unemployed Supposed To Do? This Woman's Selling The Car She Needs to Work.
By Susie Madrak December 28, 2013 8:00 am

It really does seem like there are two different worlds -- one where people have decent jobs and can pay the bills, and everyone else. The latter are invisible to the former.

Now that the extended unemployment benefits have been slashed, this unemployed woman's trying to sell her car in order to make her mortgage payments. How easily is she going to find work in Los Angeles without a car? These are the kinds of choices forced on people when Democratic politicians validate austerity policies. It's now conventional wisdom that anything we do for people must be funded by shortchanging some other vulnerable group. Notice that big business subsidies and fat military contracts are never, ever seriously considered. Desperate times, desperate people -- and our politicians are far too often clueless, or indifferent:

Democrats on Capitol Hill are pushing for an extension of the program, though the constrained fiscal environment makes its reinstatement somewhat less likely, aides said. Members of the Republican leadership have indicated that they might be willing to extend the benefits, but only if Democrats offset the new spending with other cuts.

On Friday morning, President Obama called Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Senator Dean Heller, Republican of Nevada, to extend his support for their proposal to extend emergency unemployment benefits for three months.

“The president said his administration would, as it has for several weeks now, push Congress to act promptly and in bipartisan fashion to address this urgent economic priority,” said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman.

As the last payments are distributed, Democrats have initiated a campaign aimed at shaming Republicans — particularly those in leadership and in swing districts — for letting the program expire over the holiday season.

“I don’t know if our colleagues who have opposed passing the unemployment-insurance legislation know or care about the impact on families,” said Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader. “The impact is very, very strong. It hurts the dignity of a family, of a worker.”

Americans United for Change, a liberal group, is running an advertisement on cable television stations. “You know who had a Merry Christmas? The richest 1 percent, that’s who. Republicans in Congress made sure of that, protecting billions in taxpayer giveaways,” it says. “For those facing tough times? Republicans stripped 1.3 million Americans of jobless benefits — folks who want to work, but cannot find a job — kicking them to the curb during Christmas.”

Republican aides said they remained willing to negotiate. “Why didn’t they offer a plan that met the speaker’s requirements — fiscally responsible, with something to create jobs — or any plan, for that matter, before they left for the holidays?” asked Michael Steel, a spokesman for John A. Boehner of Ohio, the speaker of the House.

Some Democrats have suggested that continuing the program for three months, with the estimated $6 billion in spending offsets coming from agricultural subsidies in the farm bill.

But some conservatives have shown stauncher opposition.

“I do support unemployment benefits for the 26 weeks that they’re paid for,” said Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky on Fox News. “If you extend it beyond that, you do a disservice to these workers. When you allow people to be on unemployment insurance for 99 weeks, you’re causing them to become part of this perpetual unemployed group in our economy.”


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PostPosted: 12/28/13 8:53 pm • # 2 
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Disgusting.

Republicans oppose anything that would create jobs, then punish those who can't find jobs.


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PostPosted: 12/30/13 4:55 pm • # 3 
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Ok, I've been holding my tongue or sitting on my hands in this case and I don't mean to be jaded, but:

This woman OWNS a home? She is going to sell her car, which she needs to job hunt, in order to pay her mortgage?

Is it just me or does that sound like skewed priorities? Maybe we don't have the whole story and she has tried to sell. Maybe the real estate market where she is, is not that good. However, if neither of those apply, she could sell and either buy something cheaper or rent.
Sorry, but I just can't feel sorry for someone who owns a home when there are many others who are jobless, without a car and homeless now.


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PostPosted: 12/30/13 7:46 pm • # 4 
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No comment as we haven't the wholestory. ;)


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PostPosted: 12/30/13 10:54 pm • # 5 

Well, there were periods of time when I was unemployed. [I was laid off a couple of time, I've never been fired.] And I collected Unemployment checks. But as I recall, those unemployment checks came from the State. I don't believe I've ever received federal unemployment checks.

So I'm not really sure why everyone is so up-in-arms over this?! Who collects unemployment from the feds? I never have, and I've never known anyone who has. Has anyone on this board ever collected unemployment from the feds?!


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PostPosted: 12/31/13 12:00 am • # 6 
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SciFiGuy wrote:
Well, there were periods of time when I was unemployed. [I was laid off a couple of time, I've never been fired.] And I collected Unemployment checks. But as I recall, those unemployment checks came from the State. I don't believe I've ever received federal unemployment checks.

So I'm not really sure why everyone is so up-in-arms over this?! Who collects unemployment from the feds? I never have, and I've never known anyone who has. Has anyone on this board ever collected unemployment from the feds?!


The feds provided the extensions beyond the number of weeks that the states provided. For those who exhausted their state benefits but still couldn't find jobs, it was all they had.

Some even exhausted the extensions and just fell off the official unemployment counts.


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PostPosted: 12/31/13 7:10 am • # 7 
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I collected Unemployment once, years ago. As I understand it, the state benefit is for 26 weeks and after that the Fed "traditionally" extend that 16-20 weeks. Perhaps it wasn't as much of a controversy when the job market was better. Maybe most people didn't have to apply for the Fed benefit. I didn't. Six months was a long time to go without work once upon a time.......


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PostPosted: 12/31/13 10:01 am • # 8 
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It boggles the mind how GOP/TPers can be so craven ~ :g ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Another self-inflicted wound
12/30/13 12:30 PM—Updated 12/30/13 01:31 PM
By Steve Benen

As expected, federal emergency unemployment benefits expired over the weekend for 1.3 million jobless Americans. By the summer, another 1.9 million will be affected by the lapsed assistance. For Republicans, who celebrate the expiration, this will encourage the unemployed to work that much harder to find work – because the safety net that helped them keep their heads above water has now been removed.

Matt Yglesias, who called the situation “morally scandalous,” responds to the GOP argument by pointing to real-world evidence.

Quote:
People who’ve been out of work for a long time obviously really need some money to get by, and they’re going to lose their money. And they’re not going to make up for it by getting jobs.

One way we know they won’t is from the experience of North Carolina, which for reasons of state politics did a UI cutoff for the long-term unemployed this year. Evan Soltas summarized the results and you can read Reihan Salam on the same thing if you want more right-wing street cred, but suffice it to say there was no “jobs boom” where lazy bums suddenly got off their asses and found readily available work. It turns out that being unemployed is really humiliating and depressing, and people who’ve been unemployed for a long time are people who genuinely can’t find any jobs. Cut them off from their benefits, and they end up scrounging at soup kitchens – they just can’t get work.

It speaks to the assumptions that undergird the political positions. For Republicans, unemployed Americans are lazy and lack the proper motivation. The government could help the jobless get by with meager, temporary support, but that only creates a “dependency.” It’s better, the argument goes, to cut these people off, encourage them to fend for themselves, and push them back into the workforce by leaving them with nothing.

Indeed, that’s precisely what Republican policymakers said in North Carolina back in July, when it became the only state in the nation to cut off access to federal emergency unemployment compensation after state benefits have been exhausted.

Did the far-right theory prove true? Of course not – the jobless, unable to find work, effectively abandoned the workforce altogether.

So, if cutting these struggling Americans off doesn’t help, what would? As we discussed last week, a more concerted effort to get these folks jobs.

As for Washington, congressional Democrats are eager to renew this fight when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill next week. For his part, President Obama called Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) late last week to offer his support for their plan for a three-month extension.

Gene Sperling, the director of the National Economic Council, added that allowing UI benefits to expire, as they did on Saturday, “defies economic sense, precedent and our values.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/another-self-inflicted-wound


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PostPosted: 12/31/13 10:51 am • # 9 
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This will contribute to a weaker economy for 2014 and the foreseeable future.


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PostPosted: 12/31/13 11:33 am • # 10 
For Congress to go off on holiday without addressing the need of so many, basically (literally?) kicking them to the curb is completely barbaric....there are many ways to kill a person or group of people--genocide, gas ovens, starvation, etc. but the effect is the same--the person, people end up dead.... :drfl


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