CWA: Congress Must Extend Long-Term Jobless Benefits

Some Republican members of Congress are playing hardball with the emergency unemployment benefits of 5 million jobless Americans, looking to force through a tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans in exchange for not letting the benefits run out.

If the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act isn’t renewed by Nov. 30, 800,000 people will immediately stop receiving those benefits, which average just $290 a week. Another 1.2 million will lose them by Christmas and 3 million more will lose them in early 2011.

But some members of Congress think it's more important to give the wealthy a big tax cut. Extending those tax cuts will add another $700 billion to the deficit, but no Republicans are talking about offsetting those funds. Instead, some want to tie the tax cut for the wealthy to the extension of jobless benefits.

Long-term unemployment is a crisis in our country, with 6.2 million workers jobless for six months or more.

Now isn't the time to play games with unemployed workers. Call your senators and representatives at 202-224-3121 and tell them to extend unemployment benefits.