URGENT, Action Needed!*********Call To EXTEND UNEMPLOYMENT Benefits! ***********

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The U.S. House will vote this week on a bill to extend unemployment insurance for people who've exhausted their state jobless benefits.

Please call your representative to tell him/her to vote YES.

Toll-free number: 888-460-0813 (connects to Capitol switchboard: ask to speak to your Rep's office.)

You might not feel like calling. But this is a critical vote, and if you won't speak up for the unemployed, who will? The President has threatened to veto more weeks of unemployment benefits. But many Members of Congress are more in touch with the hardships people are experiencing than the President. There is bipartisan support for more help for people who are out of work. We need a strong vote to signal that a veto can be overridden, and we're not there yet. Your call can make the difference.

The message is simple. Tell your rep:
I urge you to vote for H.R. 5749, the Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act. By next March, more than 4 million people will have exhausted their state unemployment benefits - ______ in our state*. The $290 in average weekly unemployment benefits isn't much, but it might keep people from going without food or being evicted. Please stand with workers who've been hurt by a bad economy, and vote for H.R. 5749.

*link to a list showing how many people will have exhausted their unemployment benefits by March 2009 by state: http://www.unemployedworkers.org/docUploads/ExtensionEstimates.pdf

We think the House vote will take place on Thursday, June 12, probably in the morning. So your calls are needed on Wednesday, June 11. We'll let you know if there's a delay.

Six reasons why you should call:

Some people say our current unemployment rate is too low to warrant an extension. There are over 200,000 more long-term jobless now than when President Bush signed the last unemployment insurance extension in 2002. And more of the unemployed are running out of benefits because they can't find work. This past April, 37 percent of UI beneficiaries exhausted their state help - at the start of every recession since 1973, the proportion exhausting benefits has never been more than 33 percent.
Nearly 1.6 million people have been out of work longer than the maximum weeks covered by state jobless benefits, up from 1.1 million a year ago. The numbers are growing because the jobs aren't there - the nation has lost 324,000 jobs since last January.
Unemployment just took the highest one-month jump in 22 years. Rising from 5 percent to 5.5 percent is a big deal. We should enact the extension now.
Some in Congress and in the Bush Administration oppose more weeks of benefits because they say it will discourage people from taking jobs. This is nothing less than an insult to people out of work. Right now, there are not enough jobs to go around. There's been some research on this, with mixed results. Some studies found that other factors, like the state of the economy, had more bearing on length of unemployment. But one study found that when extended benefits are available, people stayed out of work about another two weeks. That was good news, because they used the time to find a better job (pay and benefits) than the folks who had to get back to work sooner. H.R. 5749 extends benefits a maximum of 13 additional weeks (or 26 weeks in states with unemployment higher than 6%) - most people don't stay out of work nearly that long.
Times are tough enough without losing jobless benefits. Families are being hit by soaring gas, food and medicine prices, and their mortgage or rent is rising. Without even the minimal income UI benefits provide, the risks to family stability, health, and safety are dangerously big.
Instead of making hardships far worse for the unemployed, extending benefits will help the economy recover. Economists say that for every dollar spent on unemployment benefits, $1.73 is generated in economic stimulus.

Want to know more? Good sources:
House Committee on Ways and Means briefing materials: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/110/charts.pdf
National Employment Law Project testimony: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/110/emsellem.pdf
Economic Policy Institute Jobs Picture: http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_jobspict_20080606

And don't forget to sign a get well card to Senator Kennedy - and thanks if you already have. (See the card: http://www.chn.org/pdf/2008/cardSenatorKennedy.pdf) Deadline for signing: Thursday, June 12.

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director
Coalition on Human Needs