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Counterpoint:

By James Andrews
 

We all know one of them. Maybe we are one of them. The teacher who made it through the first round of budget cuts, only to be handed a pink slip before the school year started. The construction worker left in limbo when jobs dried up. The college graduate who was the last hired, first fired. The retail clerk who was let go when sales slipped and never picked up.

Republicans in Congress succeeded in blocking reauthorization of jobless benefits before they expired Nov. 30. Now 2,013,058 Americans on the brink of destitution stand to lose the only thing allowing them to buy groceries and pay their rent.

Financial help for the unemployed has been an accepted and,  until recently, a bipartisan strategy in fighting recessions since the 1930s. Jobless benefits keep people out of poverty, reducing government spending on food stamps and Medicaid.

Families receiving unemployment benefits have no choice but to spend them on needed goods like rent and groceries, propping up the consumer spending the economy needs.

This influx of cash keeps unemployment from getting worse. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute calculates close to 500,000 jobs depend on a benefits extension.

Are unemployment benefits discouraging the jobless from finding work, as some leaders say? Hardly. In an economy where nearly one in 10 Americans is unemployed, there just aren’t enough good jobs to go around.

It’s hard to miss the hypocrisy from leaders who say we can’t afford to maintain unemployment benefits in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, but that we should renew the huge tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush for Americans who make more than $250,000 a year.

We call on Rep. Howard Coble and Sen. Richard Burr to put working people before politics and vote to pass the jobless benefits.

The writer is president, North Carolina State AFL-CIO.