She'd Work Hard For The Money....

On Dec 28, 2013 over a million long term unemployed stopped getting their unemployment benefits. Members of Congress went home for the holidays without passing an emergency extension while these people were left wondering how they would buy food, pay rent, and keep their utilities on.

Now it is halfway through January and there still hasn't been a bill extending the benefits even getting voted on.

These benefits are for people who were working, payed into unemployment insurance while they worked and then lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Many of these long term unemployed have families. To get these payments they are required to be looking for work. These payments are not what they were making when working and are not really enough to live on. Now they are getting nothing.

This should be a no brainer that even those who would like to see other "entitlement" programs done away with should be able to support. Again, these are people who were working and want to be working.

Let's talk for a moment what this does to the person who lost their job. I can share a little about this from personal experience. After 13 years at his job my husband's employer decided to consolidate jobs and do away with some positions to save money with the economy in bad shape. He was among those who were let go. Over the past almost exactly three years since that day I have watched him look for work, get depressed, become angry and lose hope. We had to leave the city we loved (NYC) and move in with his family in MA. I watched him send out resume after resume, get very few phone interviews and even less in person interviews. The longer this went on the more he became withdrawn and worried. His inability to care for his family took a real tool on him. Had he also lost his unemployment benefits our family would not have been able to survive, the payments we did get were less than half of what he was making while working. He was lucky and found a temp job the week he ran out of benefits, but these people are still looking.

How are they going to put gas in their cars or pay for public transportation to get to and from job interviews? How will they put food on the table? How are they going to pay cell phone or landline phone bills to make sure they are able to get in touch with potential employers?

This isn't the time to play partisan politics. This is the time to do what needs to be done.
It doesn't seem like that is going to happen. There is a break coming up and nothing has reached the point of being voted on.

Neither side can agree on how to get this done and so now it is being filibustered.