By the End of the Year, if nothing is done, over two million people will lose their unemployment insurance. In less than two day, 800,000 will lose their insurance. Some will be out on the street, some will lose their homes and others will have to live without food and heat.
Call Congress and tell then to do what they were hired to do: help the American people.
Congressional switchboard 1-877-762-8762
Just ask for the office of your Senator or Representative
House of Representatives
Senate
Find your Congressperson here:
http://www.votesmart.org/official_congress.php
Petition
http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=931
Don’t call on Congress to extend unemployment if you feel:
1. Unemployed people are to blame for job outsourcing and the laws passed that makes outsourcing
(link)
2. You believe that low wage/minimum wage workers make more unemployed than taking a job. It doesn’t. Unemployment only pays more to high wage workers that would have to take part time jobs at a tax cut for they have put more into the system and would get more back. Yes, for a few jobs, unemployment pays more than taking some jobs. But for the majority, it doesn’t.
3. You believe jobs are available for every unemployed person and they aren’t taking them.
4. You don’t care about Americans.
Happy Holidays.
Peace,
Tex Shelters
Tex Shelters Online 
They dont care. But you can call and complain and pretend that they do.
Hey wait everybody voted, so I wouldnt worry about it. The people have spoken.
Yes, they give us a choice of Pepsi and Coke and they call that Democracy.
Thanks Chris.
Peace,
Tex Shelters
I’ve been writing and calling.
My favorite income inequality graph. That’s us down there at the bottom. You know the flatline that is really a downward dive due to rising costs of pesky little stuff like, oh, food and shelter…
Click to access inequalitygraph.pdf
Little Sun,
People who want tax cuts for everybody don’t realize that the rich have been getting the share of our wealth for ever, and it has been getting worse the last 40 years.
Thanks.
Peace,
Tex Shelters
I comment because I’m here and it’s a responsible action, but, Tex, I don’t have any idea what I can say at this point. Even beloved sarcasm is starting to hurt me more than it hurts them. O that’s right – they never gave a shit to begin with.
Leeza,
Sarcasm only hurts if you care a little. Brewer is beyond caring.
Peace,
Tex Shelters
Tex,
The problems with unemployment insurance extend way beyond extension. Do you realize that volumes of people are being denied and delayed their regular benefits? I know several people going through this right now. States are hesitating to give benefits if they feel they may not have to or can find loopholes to deny it.
As to the extensions and people making money to stay on it, I know a lady right now who is earning a mere $105 a week and the only reason she is receiving it is because there are no jobs available that she is qualified to do. She has been searching for about 6 weeks. If not for family and friends, she would not make it. And the fact that she is living as meagerly as possible, including not using lights/heat as much as possible.
We have already seen a rise in the number of people who do not have enough food, food banks that don’t have enough to give, and cuts in state programs (where Republicans are in control) so that more and more folks are facing hardships.
I am doing my part, but unfortunately Ohio has just given control to the Republicans and they are the don’t want to hear it don’t care party. The only good thing is Senator Brown. 😛
Most people don’t realize how little they will receive in unemployment benefits, until they are unemployed. In most states, it is less than half of what one was making and is based on quarters worked–so if you had a string of short-time jobs you may get screwed out of unemployment altogether.
Nor do they realize just how byzantine the system can be. Each state has their own rules, but all seem to have glitches and obstructions that make it a wonder to me that more unemployed people don’t go postal. It is “insurance”, after all. Something all working people pay into week after week, year after year. Many people are denied their initial claims for no good reason and have to file appeals which can take weeks or months–and expenditures for transportation, phone calls, stamps, etc. that the unemployed person can ill afford.
My state has a system where you have to call in or have computer access. But there is no toll free phone, so those in rural areas (the majority of our state) may have to spend half their unemployment check just trying to call in every week. The computerized phone system is constantly breaking and the average wait time for a human is an hour–on a good day. And even if the unemployed person can get a ride into town to go to the UI office? They still don’t get to deal with a human. They are pointed to a phone where they have to go through the same ordeal as at home, but without the long-distance charges or cell phone minutes racking up.
And as with everything else, the bankers have finagled their way into it in many states. Instead of checks, many states now issue big bank ATM cards…
One of my friends who has been going through this was asking me the other day why so many people seem to think that he and others on unemployment would ever try to “scam” unemployment considering how little the benefits are and what they cost in time, energy, frustration, and resources in order to receive them. Only the truly desperate would put themselves through it all, week after week, on top of trying to find a job and trying to get the required proof that one has been trying.
Little Sun,
Thanks for the reality check. I don’t know about the state, but I know in Arizona, you have to show up in person, get a number, wait in line, often come back the next day, and then have to return once you realize you don’t have all the papers you need. We do have programs like One Stop and others that help with the process, but all in all its set up to make it hard to get benefits.
Where are the jobs? Compassion means you help people when they need it and you help people find jobs when there are jobs. There aren’t jobs. Period, and cutting unemployment out from people will only make a bad situation worse. But those in ivory towers don’t care to see.
Peace,
Tex Shelters
Tex and Little Sun, in California, for the most part, there are no more unemployment offices. At least, there are zero in Fresno, a city of 500,000. The State didn’t have the money to keep them open. Everything MUST be done online, and it’s a very complicated process. Believe it or not, not everyone owns a computer or is computer-literate enough to go through the extensive online process, plus things have a tendency to get “lost in space.”
The unemployment situation here is worse than I’ve seen in my lifetime BY FAR. I took a test for a job with the DMV a few weeks ago – everyone went through extensive screening before they were given the time and location of the test. There were over 600 people waiting in line to take that test.
The homeless population here is huge and very diverse. A secondary fall-out to the foreclosure crisis has been disastrous on working poor renters. I’ve personally known 3 families who became homeless because they were renting houses that went into foreclosure, and they were never notified of that fact (while paying their rent each month) until they were forced to move with a 3-day notice. They couldn’t afford to pay rent and deposit on a new place, if one could even be found.
Wow Carla. That’s terrible, and it’s happening all over.
The government and others (community colleges, for example) are incredibly ignorant about the lack of computer skills in the general populous among the poor and elderly. My mom would have no idea how to apply for unemployment if she had to. Neither could half of my students. Again, the system favors the better off and there is no option for the poorest people. We are becoming a three tiered society: the filthy rich (bourgeousie), the lumpen prols (the poor) and the untouchables, the ultra poor.
And thanks for the reminder that foreclosure hits the renters as well.
Peace,
Tex Shelters
Thanks for more reality Babara. We might need a people’s revolution soon.
And you are so right, unemployment extensions are only part of the problem.
Peace,
Tex Shelters
It was the night before Christmas
and all through the house, it was empty except for a mouse
The papers were hung on the front door with care
in hopes that the homeowners would soon not be there.
The bankers were snuggled all warm in there bed
while visions of satan danced in there heads.
Momma and pappas had no where to go
and lawyers and sheriffs were no help but show.
When out i the lawn there rose such a clatter
but no one was there to see what was a matter.
Straight to the window they flew like a flash
kicked in the door and broke out the glass
Chris,
Sounds like Flint, Mi and many other dead urban towns in Michigan.
Thanks.
Peace,
Tex Shelters