Unemployment on the Chopping Block

by Manny Herrmann, AFL-CIO

Unemployment as we know it is on the chopping block.

So-called tea party legislators are trying to punish and humiliate people who are out of work—they’re even threatening to take away unemployment insurance from some people completely.

If you believe Congress should be focusing on jobs instead of punishing and even humiliating people who are out of work through no fault of their own, take action now.

These “tea party” politicians are pushing plans to:

• Slash federal unemployment funding by more than half in the states with the highest unemployment.

• Let states whose governments have been taken over by the tea party divert premium money away from unemployment as we know it—and use it to experiment with right-wing social engineering programs (like “workfare,” where people are forced to work for free to get unemployment benefits).

• Mandate drug testing requirements. Politicians are ready to humiliate people who are out of work—by making them urinate in a cup to get benefits they paid for and are entitled to.

• Make jobless workers pay for their re-employment services. People who are out of work through no fault of their own and have paid into the system aren’t asking for a handout—but a helping hand. Now, the radical lawmakers want to make them to pay for the privilege.

• Deny benefits to people who never got their high school diploma lose their right to benefits—they’d have unemployment insurance taken out of their paycheck—but will get nothing should they lose their job. Shame!

• Cut federal employee pensions—or freezing wages for yet another year. Federal workers have already done more than their fair share to balance the budget—while the richest 1% of Americans have been asked to do absolutely nothing.

Tell Congress to focus on jobs rather than punishing jobless workers who have already suffered enough.