Cleaver: Don't take away hope at Christmas; extend unemployment benefits

In his weekly EC from DC column, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-MO, urges Congress to extend unemployment benefits.

Every day I talk with people in my district who are living in fear. How will they be able to keep their job? How will they be able to find a job? How will they take care of their family? These questions go to the very heart of who we are and what we are about as a nation. A woman in the Fifth District came up to me the other day and told me she was losing hope. She and her husband, previously both employed, fell victim to the recession months ago. They both pick up work where they can and endlessly search for full-time employment. Every night they sit across from each other after the kids go to bed and try to figure out how to make ends meet. The stress, the struggle and the never-ending uncertainty are taking a toll. It is a gut-wrenching story that, sadly, we see played out over and over again in the current state of our economy.

It is certainly not 'new' news that our country continues to struggle through one of the most desperate economic periods in our history. Good news this week as the unemployment rate fell to 8.6% for the first time since March of 2009. We are headed in the right direction but we have much work to do. Our fight is not over.

We must keep moving forward. That is why I am a co-sponsor of H.R. 3346, the Emergency Unemployment Extension Act of 2011.

There are nearly 3 million people currently receiving Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC). Unemployment insurance is the government's main tool to provide financial assistance to workers who have found themselves unemployed through no fault of their own. If we do not act, these benefits will expire on December 31st. This means 2.2 million unemployed workers will lose their benefits by February. If EUC is allowed to expire it would mean no new entrants would be allowed into the program after the end of 2011 and those already in the program would only be allowed to finish their current tier of benefits. There are also more than 500,000 people receiving Extended Benefits (EB). While the EB program is permanent, it will discontinue in nearly every state because provisions allowing states access to the program are also expiring near the end of the year.

Never in our country's history has the Federal government allowed emergency extended benefits to expire when the unemployment rate is above 7.2%. A rate that is much lower than what we are living through right now.

The consequences of allowing these benefits to expire will be devastating to each person and family in the Fifth District depending on them for their very financial survival. I believe the cost will be extremely high for our nation as a whole, as well.

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that allowing these Federal unemployment benefits to expire would hurt consumer demand and could cost the economy more than a half million jobs.

Our focus must remain on creating jobs and supporting the unemployed who continue to search for work. Studies show the scarcity of jobs has left more than 4 unemployed workers for every available job. We can do better.

I know in the Fifth District good, hard-working people are struggling. They are desperately searching for work and a way to get their lives and their families back on track. These are people who want to work and simply have not been able to find a job. I believe it is important to note that the U.S. Census Bureau has found that unemployment benefits prevented 3.2 million people, including close to a million children living with an unemployed parent, from falling into poverty last year alone.

Hope is something we should never take away. People want to work. People are searching for work. We need to do everything we can to help create jobs and allow those searching for them to succeed -- not pull the safety net away when they need it most.