There is growing evidence as the weeks become months for the long term unemployed; what have come to be called the 99ers, who have for no fault of their own, been unemployed for more than six months.
Some have been out of work more than a year, and some as long as three to four years. These are the forgotten Americans; neighbors of yours across every part of this nation, who have been forgotten, and who are no longer counted as a statistic, and therefore in the eyes of the federal, state, and local governments have ceased to exist, yet continue to struggle to pay their rents, keep their homes, pay their bills, stay current on the their utilities expense; for whom there is precious little or no help, because someone in their home might be working, whose yearly gross earnings (not what they take home – before they are taxed their forty percent) exceed the state mandated level required for assistance which stands at around twenty-four thousand dollars gross.
These are the people, which some claim number about 1.5 million, but whose numbers are greater than that, as more and more of the unemployed fall off the radar every week to the tune of hundreds of thousands as they exhaust all of their unemployment benefits.
Democrats have charged Republicans in the Senate with forestalling the vote on extending the availability of applying for Tiers I to IV, but the Republicans counter that they would support unemployment extensions as long as the funds would come from the stimulus money, much of which has yet to be used.
They feel that with the deficit as high as it is, it would be prudent to use the money from the unused portion of the stimulus already signed into law.
But, this is also a red herring, since there are hundreds of billions of dollars going overseas to questionable governments (like Haiti), whose people have yet to benefit from this aid, and it can be said that the two parties are cynically using the unemployed as a political football, while extending aid outside of the country.
Many ask why we continue to send tax money outside of the country while ignoring the plight of our own suffering right here at home
And why did they rush more than a trillion in two stimulus bills in days to help banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms, and others in Wall Street, when it was Main Street that needed, and still desperately needs the bailouts?
If they wanted to, as President Obama has said, "to spread the wealth around," they would have started with hurting Americans families, and instead of wasting $787 billion dollars on TARP and another almost $550 billion dollars on ARRA on the rich (Democrats and Republicans voted to pass these two, one was signed by President Bush, the other by President-elect Obama), they could have sent every American family a one million dollar check from the US Treasury.
With a population of 308 million, this would have come to only $175 million dollars, and not the obscene amounts in TARP and ARRA, which have done nothing for the average family, but has instead enriched Wall Street, and the wealthiest in our nation.
As a matter of fact, if this president and this congress really want to "spread the wealth around," they can with much ease, cut a check for $100 thousand dollars to every family in the nation, and this money would go a long way towards helping them, and would be much less than extending unemployment benefits.
Don't hold your breath, it would not add to the federal deficit what another Stimulus would, and therefore does not serve the agenda of our elected officials and the president, which appears to spend US all into oblivion.
The Republicans are no different. While they were the predominent party, they spent with the Democrats on every pet project they could. Now they're screaming about deficits, and the other side is screaming about how hard-heated the Republicans are.
It's a political game, and the unemloyed are the one's who are being used by both sides in this election year. The stimulus money within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act lays almost untouched, while the two sides debate about where they're going to get the money.
In the meantime, the longterm unemployed, who continue to look for work in a depressed economy are ignored and looked with scorn by talk show hosts and pundits in the media, as though they are at fault for the predicament they are in.
And now they haggle over the unemployed and the long term unemployed whether they should grant them additional weeks or months as these suffering fellow Americans look for work in this Depression which the media euphemistically calls "a jobless recovery," and continue to ignore the 32 million unemployed, and the more than 18 million more who are underemployed, that is those who are holding one or two part-time jobs, and the long term unemployed who number more than 1.5 million - the 99ers, who are completely ignored by the organs of the news media, and are callously disregarded by conservatives and liberals alike - one group calling them leeches, while the other paying scant attention to their plight because it might hurt the reelection prospects of their favorite politicians in an election year.
Now Congressman Jim McDermott, Democrat from the state of Washington, has petitioned President Obama to sign an Executive Order authorizing a Tier 5 Extension for the long termed unemployed. See the video here.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArxVt_bqXJ4&feature=player_embedded I recently wrote about the necessity for this Executive Order for the long term unemployed, the 99ers, who are no longer collecting, and have no job, and no source of income to pay their bills, buy food for themselves and their families, and pay their rent or mortgage anymore, and either face eviction or foreclosure.
While I respect and understand the Republicans’ claim that the long term unemployed need to find work, the reality they are not facing or choose to willfully ignore is the fact that there are five or six people applying for every job in the private sector, and depending on the market, in some cases there are as many as ten people competing for a single job, and many of these are part-time and three to four months in length. With a job market such as the one this nation currently faces, it is unfair to mischaracterize the long term unemployed as not wanting to return to work.
Only the mentally ill, or someone who is handicapped in some way would prefer a life of hardship and financial ruin to earning a living and being able to pay one’s bills and live once again a normal way of life.
They must realize this, though for many of these people who earn three hundred plus thousand dollars a year, all expenses paid, Gold Class Cadillac Health Insurance; not ObamaCare, Medicare, Medicaid, or the insurance you and I pay; their reality is quite different one than ours, especially than the unemployed, underemployed, and long term unemployed.
With regards to the unemployment benefits available. This is what is available thus far:
On March 10, 2010, the Senate passed H.R. 4213, the Tax Extenders Act of 2010, which would extend the availability of Tier IV emergency federal unemployment through the end of December 2010
The House and Senate must now work out the differences between these two versions. It does not extend the six week benefits period to the end of the year, but the availability of Tier IV for those who have exhausted their regular unemployment benefit period, and Tiers I to III
It is presumed that once you exhaust Tier IV, then you might be eligible for the federal EB Extended Benefits of thirteen to twenty weeks
But there is no extension of Tier IV, or a Tier V proposed by any elected official as yet. It doesn’t appear as if there are any plans to institute a Tier V any time soon
In fact, the US House of Representatives and the US Senate are having difficulties reconciling the bill to extend Tier IV availability at this time
Below is the breakdown of the EUIC Tiers as currently posted on the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development site at http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/ui/content/ui_benefit_extensions.html
Unemployment Benefit Extensions
Overview
EUC Tier 1
EUC Tier 2
EUC Tier 3
EUC Tier 4
EB Details
High EB
Overview
There are currently four Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefit extensions available.
Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC)
• EUC Tier 1 provides up to 20 weeks or 80% of an individual’s maximum benefit amount from their original unemployment insurance claim, whichever amount is less. The individual must have had their initial claim filed May 7, 2006 or later and exhausted their regular unemployment insurance benefits. An individual may not collect EUC benefits if they are eligible for a regular unemployment insurance claim in New Jersey, any other state or Canada. Due to the June 2, 2010 expiration date of the EUC program, May 23, 2010 is the last date a EUC Tier 1 claim may be filed. EUC Tier 1 is 100% federally funded.
• EUC Tier 2 provides up to 14 weeks or 54% of an individual’s maximum benefit amount from their original unemployment insurance claim, whichever amount is less. An individual must exhaust EUC Tier 1 benefits in order to receive EUC Tier 2 benefits. An individual must exhaust their EUC Tier 1 claim by benefit week ending May 29, 2010 (this is one week later than EUC Tier 1), in order to be eligible for EUC Tier 2 before the June 2, 2010 expiration date of the EUC program. EUC Tier 2 is 100% federally funded. Under the new federal legislation, EUC Tier 2 was expanded from 13 potential weeks of benefits to a 14 potential weeks of benefits. This additional week of benefits is not payable before November 8, 2009. The UI trigger requirement for EUC Tier 2 was removed for this extension. These benefits are now available in all states.
• EUC Tier 3 provides up to 13 weeks or 50% of an individual’s maximum benefit amount from their original unemployment insurance claim, whichever amount is less. An individual must exhaust EUC Tier 2 benefits in order to receive EUC Tier 3 benefits. An individual must exhaust their EUC Tier 2 claim by benefit week ending May 29, 2010, in order to be eligible for EUC Tier 3 before the June 2, 2010 expiration date of the EUC program. EUC Tier 3 is 100% federally funded. Under the new federal legislation, EUC Tier 3 is based on New Jersey averaging a 6.0% UI Trigger rate over a three-month period. It is not payable before November 8, 2009.
• EUC Tier 4 provides up to 6 weeks or 24% of an individual’s maximum benefit amount from their original unemployment insurance claim, whichever amount is less. An individual must exhaust their EUC Tier 3 benefits in order to receive EUC Tier 4 benefits. An individual must exhaust their EUC Tier 3 claim by benefit week ending May 29, 2010, in order to be eligible for EUC Tier 4 before the June 2, 2010 exipiration date of the EUC program. EUC Tier 4 is 100% federally funded. Under the new federal legislation, EUC Tier 4 is based on New Jersey averaging an 8.5% UI Trigger rate over a three-month period. It is not payable before November 8, 2009.
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