3 Million Americans Without A Safety Net

This week America hit a distressing milestone: More than 3 million long-term unemployed workers are without benefits.

Last December, Congress failed to renew the emergency federal unemployment program, immediately cutting off 1.3 million people who had been out of work for 27 weeks or longer. Senate Republicans filibustered an attempt to retroactively extend that vital lifeline that helps American families make ends meet while they look for new employment. Later, a deal brokered in the Senate never made it to a vote in the House.

Since then, every week, an additional 72,000 people have been dropped -- the equivalent of one person every eight seconds. Today more than a third of all unemployed Americans out of work for longer than six months.

"Our government has never terminated unemployment benefits when a full 35 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for six months or more," Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) wrote in a Roll Call op-ed. "It’s cruel. Hardworking Americans desperately seeking new jobs have exhausted their savings, seen their homes foreclosed on, let bills go unpaid, and run out of money needed to just put gas in their cars to go on an interview."

Levin plans to continue to give these struggling families a voice this summer. Today he launched the first in a series of “Witness Wednesdays” to share stories of unemployed Americans who have been cut off of unemployment insurance.