1 TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS and counting for George W Bush's Wars.....but no help for unemployed.
Amazing.
Robert Lovejoy and his wife are losing sleep because they're unexpectedly losing their unemployment benefits.
"We get up earlier -- we can't sleep in because our minds are racing," said Lovejoy, who told HuffPost he'd received his final check on Wednesday, six months after losing his job as a video colorist for a production company in Philadelphia. "It's the difference between having health insurance, having an automobile and not being in default with my creditors."
The Lovejoys are among 42,800 long-term unemployed who will stop receiving benefits from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry by the end of this week, according to U.S. Labor Department data. Across the country, 323,400 will prematurely exhaust their benefits this week because Congress failed to reauthorize several domestic aid programs before they lapsed on June 1, after the House and Senate left Washington for a Memorial Day recess.
The House passed its version of the "tax extenders" bill to preserve the unemployment benefits -- along with money to help states administer Medicaid programs and extra reimbursement for doctors who see Medicare patients, among other things -- on May 28, after the Senate had already skipped town. Now senators are fighting over the cost of the package and will probably not get it done until next week. The stimulus and several subsequent bills had given the unemployed extra weeks of benefits on top of the standard 26 weeks made available by states. In some areas, laid-off workers could get 99 weeks of benefits.
People like the Lovejoys will receive any benefits they missed after the president signs the bill, whenever that happens. Until then, they'll have to make do. Even one missed check can make life difficult for people who have already gone six months on only $320 week, the average size of an unemployment check.
"I think it's terrible that families, on top of everything else, are going through an emotional roller coaster," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) when asked by HuffPost Wednesday about the people missing checks. "Up and down. What's going to happen to them? Are they going to be able to make the house payment? Are they going to be able to put food on the table?"
"I think this is outrageous," said Sen. Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, where the unemployment rate is above 12 percent. "We have never failed to extend emergency benefits while the unemployment rate in the country is above 7.4 percent. This goes back several decades, several different administrations, it was done routinely, it was done because these people need our help."
