Witness Wednesday Protests Launched In Washington To Highlight Tragedy of Longterm Unemployed
June 11, 2014 in Blogs
By Mara Kardas-Nelson, AlterNet
In the sweltering mid-day Washington, DC heat yesterday, a small group of members of Congress and community leaders gathered outside of the capitol building.
Solemnly, as if at a funeral, they read a handful of stories written by a few of the more than 3 million Americans who are longterm unemployed (a category defined as being unemployed for six months or more and still looking for work). Since December 2013, when Congress let emergency unemployment compensation, or EUC, expire—a program that offers minimal financial support to the longterm unemployed—they have been without the help they need to get back on their feet.
The somber tone of Wednesday's event was appropriate: for many of these 3 million Americans, the demise of EUC was a death knell for their dreams and their normal lives. Story after story recounted jobs unexpectedly lost, cars sold, house payments missed, and education foregone in an attempt to keep things afloat.
“My significant other of 12 years also worked for the same company and also lost his job. He has cancer,” one story went. “Neither of us can find a job. We have no money left, no money for medications, and for the first time in our lives, we don't have enough to pay our rent this month…We have lost everything.”
“I spend 10 hours a day applying for jobs and countless interviews, always coming in second to the competition,” went another. “We are now faced with taking money from our children's college fund and our pension/IRA.”
“I am a single father of two small children, a boy who is 5 and a little girl who is 3,” went another. “I am 33 years old and have worked since I was 15 years old paying my taxes and never asking for a handout, but now I truly need one.”
Yesterday's event was the kick-off of a series of readings that will take place throughout the summer to put pressure on Congress to reinstate EUC. Called Witness Wednesdays and organized by a coalition of national …read more
Source: ALTERNET
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