The Senate is expected to vote today on a bill to
extend Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits to the long-term unemployed. They need 60 votes!
Write to your Members of Congress today.
Now is not the time to leave unemployed workers without help.
What is UI?
Unemployment insurance is a federal-state program
that provides a financial safety net to those who have lost their
jobs. Unemployment insurance is the first economic line of defense against
the reality of unemployment and is intended to keep people clothed, fed, and
housed while they seek new employment.
The Issue:
On January 1, 2014, the special extension of UI
for the long-term unemployed expired. This left more than 1.6 million
unemployed workers and their families without benefits. The long-term unemployed are people who have
been without a job for more than six months.
They qualified for their state programs, exhausted those benefits, and
now the federal extension is all they have left.
Though the unemployment rate is coming down, the
measures of long-term unemployment are not improving: [i]
· 38% of
the unemployed are long-term unemployed
· the
average duration of unemployment for all unemployed workers is 37.1 weeks, over
11 weeks longer than the maximum state benefit
· 3.9
million workers are long-term unemployed
The unfortunate truth is that the job market is
not improving much. Most of the gains in the employment rate over the last year
are due to discouraged workers leaving the work force (no longer looking for a
job, and therefore, no longer counted as unemployed). People giving up on ever finding
a job is NOT the way we want to see the unemployment rate come down. We should be making sure that those who want
to work are able to find good jobs that allow them to support themselves and
their families.
What does the Church say about work and
unemployment?
In 2012, the 220th General Assembly
spoke on the fundamental nature of our economic system and the way it reflects
our values. The Assembly wrote:
“We reject, as incompatible with Christian
vocation, any economic system that tolerates the marginalization or
exploitation of any of its members through unemployment and underemployment,
insufficient wages, or extreme inequality in access to social goods.”
The statement goes on to urge several policy
proposals that would address the wide and varied root causes of economic
injustice in the U.S. On the subject of
the safety net, it called for
“a stronger social safety net for poor and
low-income families, through measures such as adjustment of Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families and related income support programs to extend
time limits or reactivate expired eligibility in times of high unemployment,
and protection of Food Stamps, WIC, SSI, Medicaid, and other programs for the
most vulnerable, from across-the-board budget cuts.”[ii]
As Reformed Christians, we believe in the value
and dignity of work. We believe God
calls us into vocation, which is a “lifelong response to God in all aspects of
one’s life. Work, paid and unpaid, is an
integral part of the believer’s response to God’s call.”[iii] But
when God’s children have no opportunity to work we have an even greater
responsibility to one another.
As the Assembly wrote in 1995, “All conditions of
paid employment, including compensation and working conditions, should sustain
and nurture the dignity of individuals, the well-being of households and
families, the social cohesiveness of communities, and the integrity of the
global environment.”
Learn
more about Unemployment Insurance from the United States Department of Labor.
[i] Tackling the Long-term Unemployment Crisis:
What the President, Congress, and Business Leaders Should Do; National
Unemployment Law Project (NELP); January 2014. http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2014/Issue-Brief-Tackling-Long-Term-Unemployment-Crisis.pdf
[ii] World of Hurt, Word of Life: Renewing God’s
Commuion in the Work of Economic Reconstruction; 220th General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2012, http://www.pcusa.org/resource/world-hurt-word-life-renewing-gods-communion-work/
[iii] Principles of Vocation
and Work; Minutes, 207th General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.), 1995, pp.426-427.
