“I Just Don’t Know What To Do, Except Pray”
Unemployment Benefits Lapse Severs Lifeline for Longtime Jobless
Laura Walker, a 63-year-old paralegal, has been looking for work since January, when she was laid off from a California law firm. Until today, she could count on $450 a week in federal unemployment benefits for help.
Now, those checks will disappear, just as they will for 1.3 million other Americans whose emergency aid ran out Dec. 28.
“Not all of us have savings and a lot of us have to take care of family because of what happened in the economy,” said Walker, of Santa Clarita, who said she has applied for at least three jobs a week and shares an apartment with her unemployed son, his wife and two children. “It’s going to put my family and me out on the streets.”
The program, started during the recession, was intended to help jobless people after they exhausted state benefits, typically lasting six months. House Republicans resisted continuing the benefits without budget cuts elsewhere to cover the cost. Keeping it running another year would cost $25 billion and spur the economy enough to create about 200,000 jobs, the Congressional Budget Office estimated.
“It lacks compassion for the victims of the recession and, economically, it’s shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, which backs policies that help low-income workers. “The timing is very premature. The evidence is that people who want work can’t find it.”
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your right about bobbi!!! my husband worked his whole life. Laid off after the bp oil spill, at 54 unemployed going on 3 years. the excuse he doesn’t get a job (in my place of employment at a college) is there is always someone more qualified ???? for maintenance work???? really???? it is so frustrating for me working everyday and not having enough money to live. I am sick. had to take a 2nd job to make money while my husband sits homes that’s sick. what am I suppose to do with him??? we are going to be married 25 yrs in july. I suppose keeping me out of the house keeps me away from thinking about the problems. they want us to break up, they want families to dissolve. horrible
All I can say is a lot of people should be grateful….the maximum amount on unemployment benefits in the state of Florida is $275/week. Florida’s unemployment is a joke and the people who work there are just plain idiots. They claimed they paid me for benefits long after I got off unemployment and wanted their money back! They couldn’t even prove where the so-called monies they sent to me were ever made! Such a joke. I took a job paying a lot less than what I was making before and I hated it…I mean I really hated it, but it paid the bills and kept me afloat until the economy started to turn around. Now I have two jobs but at least I like what I’m doing. My part time job money goes right into savings—-just in case things fall apart again. You cannot depend on ANYONE to take care of you, even the government. They only take care of the illegals not the hard-working citizens. But that’s another story……