Laid Off And Left Out: New Web Source Just in Time

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/04/07/laid-off-and-left-out-new-web-source-just-in-time/

by James Parks, Apr 7, 2008

Looks like the National Employment Law Project (NELP) has relaunched its site, Laid Off & Left Out, just in time. With the unemployment rate at 5.1 percent and first-time jobless claims at the highest level since the Hurricane Katrina aftermath in 2005, workers without jobs need help in making ends meet.

Millions will cash their last unemployment insurance (UI) checks without having found new work, leaving them and their families to fend for themselves.



First launched in the 2001 recession to provide information about the unemployment situation, Laid Off & Left Out helps jobless workers by mobilizing support for extending UI benefits. Click here to visit the site.

After the last recession, Congress temporarily extended UI benefits by 13 weeks. But that’s not enough, and NELP is among the organizations joining us in urging Congress to extend benefits by several more weeks.

Compared with prior recessions, more workers are unemployed today for many more weeks, so it is critical to provide the help they need when their state unemployment benefits run out after six months. In January, 1.4 million workers still were unemployed after actively looking for work for more than six months (that’s 18.3 percent of all jobless workers). The number of long-term unemployed is twice as large as it was when the last two recessions began. NELP estimates that 3 million workers will run out of state unemployment benefits this year alone.

Laid Off & Left Out hosts a forum where workers are invited to tell their stories. Workers like Casimir Marcinkowski of Sterling Heights, Mich., who was laid off last June with 30 years of experience in sales and management. He hasn’t found a job, his health benefits ran out in January, and he is not eligible for an extension of his unemployment. Says Marcinkowski:

Maybe it is my age <59> that is creating this dilemma. The extension would surely help for now. All my life I have worked hard to make ends meet, but now with the economy the way it is, there is a real possibility of foreclosure on my home. My wife is seriously ill, (we have) no insurance (and) Medicaid benefits still pending. I am in a very humiliating situation and am trying to keep positive and confident that things will turn around soon, just as many other people in this mess. Never thought I would be here.

FULL story at link.

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. I was frankly a bit shocked that UI wasn't extended this time

It's almost routine. But it demonstrates political power - or the dearth of it.