Unemployed Americans Increasingly Frustrated With Congressional Inaction

[applegrove]

Unemployed Americans Increasingly Frustrated With Congressional Inaction

by Sam Stein and Arthur Delaney at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/12/unemployment-benefits_n_4769558.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

"SNIP...................................

The economic ripple effects of the lapse in unemployment insurance are already being felt. Across the country, people who counted on the federal government to keep them afloat until the next job materialized are cutting back on things like utilities and food. A depressing sense that this is the new normal has begun to set in.

A registered Republican who says he votes "libertarian," Holton has found the experience "maddening." After being laid off in June 2013, Holton, who lives in Mason, Ohio, exhausted his six months' worth of state unemployment benefits, and only received a few weeks of federal insurance before it expired on Dec. 28.

Holton is taking classes to become a network administrator, and he got some part-time work doing housing maintenance. But he's only making $240 a week, significantly less than the $385 he would have received weekly in unemployment benefits. Recently, he has begun contemplating a move to China, convinced that he would be better off there teaching English to foreigners.

"I just want someone to have a freaking heart," he said, referring to members of Congress. "They are going home to a house where all the utilities are paid for, and we are here struggling."




...................................SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. The GOP thought they could cow people by making them economically insecure.

Looks like they were wrong.

[democratisphere]

2. And to make matters worse, the government does even count the total number of Americans...

that are unemployed. It's like THOSE Americans don't even exist at all. How convenient is that, specially in a midterm election year.


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[840high]

3. ....^

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. When Holton indicated this ...

A registered Republican who says he votes "libertarian," Holton has found the experience "maddening."

The interview should have stopped talking to him ... Holton (and voters like him) are a big part of the problem. He is a republican that votes libertarian and wonders why the U/C extension failed. Here's a hint Holton ... neither of you preferred political parties supports the/a social safety net.

[rhett o rick]

5. Well hold on to your hats. When I asked my Demo Senators about the TPP, the best they

could offer is that the taxpayers will fund retraining for those that loses their jobs. Training people for jobs that dont exist. Thanks Democrats in Congress, not.