Amy Traub

Where’s the Work?

14.5 million Americans are out of a job and actively looking for work. They'll need a lot of luck to find it: there are six of them for every job opening.

Worse yet: for hundreds of thousands of our out-of-work neighbors, the unemployment benefits are about to start running out. Those "green shoots" aren't shooting up fast enough.

I'm on record calling for additional stimulus measures to help get the economy producing the jobs we need quickly, but if that doesn't happen, the least we can do is extend unemployment benefits to the people who have been suffering the brunt of this recession the longest.

According to the National Employment Law Project's calculations, more than 500,000 Americans will exhaust all of their extended unemployment benefits by September, and an additional 1 million people will run out of benefits by the end of the year. The AFL-CIO has joined the call for an additional 10-20 weeks of benefits for workers who need them.

Congress needs to act immediately upon their return from the August recess to ensure that people searching for work in the toughest economic climate in decades aren't left without support.

Amy Traub: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 8:36 AM, Aug 25, 2009 in Congress | Economic Stimulus | Economy | Labor
Permalink | Email to Friend