Wednesday, March, 5th, 2014, 10:23 am
2 million and counting. That’s the number of people who’ve been
kicked off their unemployment benefits after Republicans deliberately
let the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program expire, according to
a new analysis from Ways and Means Committee Democrats.
“The estimate includes the number of people in each state who have
lost coverage since the program’s Dec. 28 expiration. Every week, 72,000
people, on average, are losing their unemployment benefits nationwide
without an extension of the program.”
If this isn’t happening to you or someone you know, you might not
realize that these are real people. People who want to work and are
looking for work, and have been kicked to the gutter by Republican
values. Here’s a state by state breakdown of these real people, provided
by the Ways and Means Committee Democrats.
State: Estimated Number of People Losing UI Thru March 8
AK: 8,608
AL: 19,267
AR: 15,838
AZ: 25,754
CA: 339,101
CO: 31,468
CT: 35,035
DC: 7,215
DE: 5,446
FL: 109,654
GA: 76,362
HI: 4,131
IA: 11,300
ID: 6,831
IL: 116,136
IN: 28,969
KS: 10,746
KY: 24,769
LA: 12,601
MA: 79,777
MD: 33,862
ME: 6,723
MI: 76,580
MN: 22,269
MO: 34,944
MS: 18,092
MT:4,991
NC*: NA
ND: 2,377
NE: 4,392
NH: 2,504
NJ: 124,569
NM: 9,731
NV: 26,023
NY: 178,177
OH: 57,869
OK: 10,638
OR: 31,221
PA: 109,061
PR: 39,777
RI: 8,323
SC: 22,785
SD: 508
TN: 31,423
TX: 105,409
UT: 6,231
VA: 21,969
VI: 1,762
VT: 1,485
WA: 38,876
WI: 39,777
WV: 10,731
WY: 2,023
Total:
2,054,110
*North Carolina was ineligible for the federal unemployment insurance
But if that’s not enough reason to care, perhaps knowing that
Republicans refusing to renew long term emergency unemployment benefits
will cost us all
240,000 jobs this year will increase the stakes.
This is the Republican economy —
nothing for the people, everything for the corporations. Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) even tried to use unemployment
benefits to kill Obamacare, so if Democrats will stab Americans in the
back and kill another program that is
helping people and has boosted both personal income and spending, Republicans would consider not filibustering emergency help.
On February 6th of this year, McConnell led his Senate Republicans
into no votes on yet another thing that used to have bipartisan support
during economic hardship — the extension of long term benefits for the
unemployed. This was bipartisan because not only did it help the people
directly, but it helps the economy as well.
Republican Senators blocked a three month extension on benefits for the long term unemployed.
“Democrats were united in support of restoring unemployment benefits,
but only one Republican, Dean Heller of Nevada voted to extend the
benefits.”
It goes without saying that House Republicans have blocked the effort
numerous times. If you see a program that might help the economy and
does for sure help people, you can just forget it even being put up for a
vote in this House. And the Senate will operate just like the House if
Republicans win the majority, as we can see from the Republican Senate
Minority Leader’s votes.
Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) laid out
the cost of one Republican vote, “A financial crisis is confronting more
and more families every day that Republicans fail to support an
extension of this vital program. One Republican vote in the Senate is
all that stands in the way of two million people and their families
coming one critical step closer to seeing their financial lifeline
restored as they look for work.”
Republicans Have Thrown 2 Million People Off of Unemployment Benefits Since Dec 28 was written by Sarah Jones for PoliticusUSA.
© PoliticusUSA, Wed, Mar 5th, 2014 — All Rights Reserved
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