Millions of hardworking Americans—nearly 2 million in January alone, and over 6 million in 2012—will be cut off from the emergency lifeline of federal unemployment insurance, unless Congress acts to renew the program before it expires December 31st.
Our country is facing the worst economic crisis of a generation. Big corporations shipped jobs overseas and Wall Street speculators took more and more of our wealth, getting rich quickly at the expense of workers and families. The only way to turn this crisis around is to create good jobs–one where workers have collective bargaining rights, employment security, and wages and benefits that allow their families to enjoy a decent standard of living and earn a fair share of the wealth produced by their labor.
If Wall Street and the country’s private sector cannot create good jobs, and if Congress cannot fund good jobs in the public sector, then the least they can do is to extend unemployment benefits until the economy recovers. In the past three years, federal unemployment insurance has helped more than 17 million Americans while
Statistics released today by the US Department of Labor show the nation’s unemployment rate “little changed” at 9%. Atlanta’s high unemployment rate (10.3% in September) has remained static for a year, and Georgia’s has exceeded the national rate for 50 months in a row. A recent report back the Department of Census found that Atlanta had the greatest gap between rich and poor of any major city. The Congressional Budget Office reports that between 1979-2007, the super-rich–those in the top 1% of wage earners–saw their after-tax incomes nearly quadruple while those in the bottom 20% saw their wages remain relatively flat during that nearly 30-year period.
“This is the real crisis our country and our city are facing,” said Charmaine Davis, organizing director and co-chair of Atlanta Jobs with Justice. “We are indebted to the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Atlanta movements for raising public awareness of the shocking inequality in our society, greater than at any time since 1928, and the unemployment crisis that is robbing families of their homes, livelihoods and hope for the future.”
“There’s an old Wall Street saying that ‘if you aren’t at the table, you’re on the menu’,” said Occupy Atlanta
There are still over 15 million unemployed Americans, nearly 6 job-seekers for each opening, and about 100,000 workers entering the job market each month. Public services and education are being wiped out. Corporate greed and Wall Street recklessness put the squeeze on working people and have created the worst economic crisis in a generation. Big corporations shipped jobs overseas and Wall Street speculators took more and more of our wealth, getting rich quickly at the expense of workers and families.
But this is not news.
What has developed is the upsurge of workers, youth, and the communities we all live in to Occupy Wall Street, and to be in solidarity with these actions around the country. This momentum came just in time, as workers around the country have begun to fight back in bigger and more coordinated ways—understanding that the fight is over who has control over what happens in our workplaces and our communities — working people or Wall Street corporations.
Last winter in Wisconsin and in nearly every state, we saw a breathtaking show of militant resistance to attacks on
Our communities are devastated by foreclosures and unemployment. Corporate-funded politicians are gutting services and attacking worker rights, claiming our state and national governments are broke – while Wall Street and corporate CEOs are getting record bonuses and sitting on record cash reserves (and often paying little or nothing in taxes). Despite massive fraud and reckless greed that wrecked our economy, throwing millions of Americans out of work and out of their homes, not a single Wall Street “bankster” has gone to jail.
The fight back is growing!
Yesterday, National Nurses United (NNU) led a National Day of Action in more than 60 cities, supported by Jobs with Justice coalitions and other allies, demanding a Financial Speculation Tax (FST) which could pay for millions of good jobs, making Wall Street speculators pay for some of the damage they caused and restraining some of the more dangerous speculative trading. One part of breaking the grip of Wall Street,
To read mainstream media’s celebration of official unemployment rate dropping from 8.9% to 8.8%, you wouldn’t know that the jobs deficit remains dire for millions of Americans (not coincidentally, corporate profits are going through the roof).
Let’s look through the hoopla:
Even if the number of jobs available continues to increase at the March pace of 215,000 per month, it will take at least six years to return to the pre-recession rate of joblessness – and many of those new jobs will pay far less than the jobs that were eliminated.
Long-term unemployment is still a major problem, with almost half of all unemployed having been out of work for more than 27 weeks, and record numbers have exhausted all unemployment benefits.
Official unemployment statistics dramatically undercount the jobless numbers. For example the 2.4 million persons that have been looking for work, but not actively in the past 4 weeks, are not counted as unemployed.
In the face of the controversy that has quickly swelled around Walmart’s plans to open its first ever stores in New York City, the Bentonville Behemoth has tried to sell New Yorkers on the promise that the company will solve the city’s most pressing social ills in ways that New Yorkers themselves could never dream of doing.
Citing plans to open megastores selling cheap produce in some of the city’s most underserved neighborhoods, the company would have us believe that it will eradicate poverty, unemployment, and solve the food desert problem to boot. We are in a jam, the story goes, but just trust Walmart, and they’ll swoop in and make all of our problems go away.
The very notion is as insulting as it is untrue.
With our city struggling with persistent unemployment and 3 million New Yorkers lacking access to fresh produce in their neighborhoods, the jobs problem and food desert problem are unquestionably real. But asking Walmart to fix those problems is like asking a fox to fix a henhouse.
Across the country, we’ve seen that when Walmart sets up shop in poor neighborhoods, they do more
Gee … if everybody just gives up looking, we could cut the unemployment rate to zero.
The official unemployment rate dropped to 9.4% — primarily because 260,000 workers gave up looking and are no longer counted. Many pundits are spinning the jobs report as positive signs of recovery. Conservatives, of course, will argue against government action to create jobs, reminding us more than a little of Herbert Hoover promising that “prosperity is just around the corner.”
Back in the real world, community, faith-based, student and labor groups continue to push for Full and Fair Employment, recognizing that there is no such thing as a “jobless recovery,” no matter how happy CEOs are about corporate reserve cash, or that bank bonuses are bigger than ever.
In Illinois (here, here), Portland, and elsewhere, coalitions took action in response to the new jobless report to point out that the growth of 103,000 jobs was not even enough to tread water, much less create the 11 million jobs needed to return to pre-recession unemployment.
Earlier this month, Congress passed a deal to re-extend unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed for more than a year. Finally, a small break for working families! With money from unemployment insurance, millions of non-working Americans will be able to heat their homes, pay their bills, and buy food. It’s not much, but it’s everything.
Throughout 2010, JwJ has been educating communities on how unemployment insurance is a vital stop-gap measure during the worst jobs deficit in recent history. It’s been an ongoing fight. Through organizing hundreds of public actions, delegations to elected officials, community forums, and online action alerts, we helped working communities save their lifeline multiple times.
The extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed didn’t come without a big favor for big business. What was exchanged in return for this small token for working families? Billions of dollars in tax breaks for the country’s wealthiest–money that could be used to create jobs or cover unemployment insurance for the jobless. Instead, it will sit in someone’s growing bank account, while workers continue to struggle.
The Central Florida Jobs with Justice Disappointed Citizens Chorus paid a visit to Senator Bill Nelson’s (FL-D) Orlando office to express their disappointment in not hearing his position on extending the tax cuts. Organizations have been trying to meet with the Senator’s people for weeks now without any luck, so they decided to come in with a more festive tone and demand some clarity on the Senator’s position during the lame duck session. After hearing the carols with lyrics like, “On the first day of Christmas, Congress gave to me, a job that went overseas” and “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, The unemployed need extensions, help us right away – HEY!” the Senator’s staff agreed to a meeting right away!
The Senator’s staff heard from a 99er who has exhausted her unemployment and has no income coming in. She mentioned that she didn’t want tax cuts or unemployment, instead she wanted a job.
The Caroling came at an urgent time when Florida’s unemployment remains stagnant at 11.4%, yet elected leaders are spending
Congress allowed extended unemployment benefits to run out last week. Today, more than one million unemployed have lost their benefits, and without an extension, that number will swell to 3 million by the end of January.
On Saturday, the Senate rejected a plan to extend unemployment benefits and to extend the tax cuts to families making less than $250,000 passed under George W. Bush. Yesterday, GOP leaders said they were in talks to cut a deal that would extend tax cuts people who make over $250,000 per year and that in exchange they “would probably agree to extend jobless aid for the long-term unemployed.
The GOP says they don’t want to extend jobless benefits because doing so could add $35 billion to the federal deficit, yet they’ll consider extending benefits if Democrats agree to add $700 billion to the deficit by extending the Bush tax cuts to the country’s wealthiest 2%.
If you’re having trouble following the logic here, it’s because this debate isn’t really about the budget deficit. The GOP wants more money to go to the country’s wealthiest people, and they don’t care who they have to hurt to get it.
Tell Your Members of Congress: Renew Unemployment Insurance for 2012
