Highway Trust Fund Temporarily Saved, Unemployed Still Waiting on EUC

The House of Representatives has voted to approve a temporary extension of the National Highway Trust fund until May 2015 – the legislation will save hundreds of thousands of construction jobs, which would have been lost without the patch.

While the House protected hundreds of thousands of jobs in construction, advocates for the renewal of Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) were distressed by how the bill was paid for. The highway extension bill uses funding from pension smoothing* and customs fees – the same sources that had been included in bipartisan legislation to extend unemployment benefits.

The funding, which could have supported more than 3 million Americans who have been searching for work for more than six months, was instead used in a last-ditch effort to prevent an additional 700,000 Americans from becoming unemployed, as a result of the National Highway Trust Fund's expiration.

Infrastructure spending – like investments in education, food security, and programs for the unemployed – has been choked in recent years due to concerns about the national debt and balancing the budget. The Center for Effective Government has played an active role in discussing the potential for various types of spending to stimulate the economy and ensure that Americans are able to find more steady employment. For example, investing in education has the potential to put more teachers to work, as well as improve children’s education. Similarly, investing in badly needed infrastructure has the benefit of employing engineers while also fixing potholes, bridges, and dams.

Crisis budgeting in recent years has discouraged longer-term investments and put off maintenance on the infrastructure that makes this nation a first-class place to do business.

Some pundits have painted a choice: members of Congress can support using this money to pay for unemployment insurance or use it to save the National Highway Trust Fund. A better question is perhaps: In a nation as mighty and wealthy as the United States, why do we pretend that we have to choose between the two? Why can't we do both? Budgeting should not be a question of "either or"; it is a creative process, where solutions to problems are addressed in order to reflect the nation's needs and priorities.

Americans are badly in need of jobs, as there are simply not enough to go around. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has emphasized this remaining “slack” in the economy and labor market repeatedly. These jobs should be created as soon as possible. At the same time, the clock is running out for the more than 3.4 million Americans who would benefit from extended unemployment insurance. The needs of the unemployed, especially the long-term unemployed, should also be addressed with an urgency reflecting the utter devastation facing these families.

* “Pension smoothing” refers to a temporary lowering of mandatory pension contributions by corporations, which results in lower pension-related tax deductions and an increase in the taxes a corporation must pay. Pension smoothing can potentially contribute to retirement insecurity in the long-run while increasing tax revenue in the short term.

 

For additional reading on unemployment insurance:

Six Months after Emergency Unemployment Benefits Expired, 2.8 Million Americans Left BehindThe Fine Print blog, May 21, 2014

Witness Wednesdays: Stories of the Long-Term Unemployed to Be Read on Capitol HillThe Fine Print blog, June 10, 2014

Bipartisan Unemployment Benefits Bills in Both HousesThe Fine Print blog, July 2, 2014

Unemployment Benefits Keep Families in their HomesThe Fine Print blog, August 8, 2014

 

To share your story, learn how to take action, and read more about the Witness Wednesday: Voices of the Unemployed events, click the logo below:

Editor's note: This post has been updated since its original publication date.

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Someone, PLEASE HELP US!!! I, for one, am going to be dead soon, very soon. This should be unimaginable. But, it's not. It's a hellish reality. Look for my obituary: "Woman who worked no less than 2 jobs at the same time her entire adult life, who devoted her heart and soul to working in human services trying to help heal the world, got laid off due to budget cuts, and could not find another job despite over 600 job applications, because of various forms of discrimination, and was left penniless and thrown away like garbage, completes suicide (not commits, it's NOT a crime) because the devil incarnate Speaker John Boehner refused to allow a vote on restoring emergency unemployment benefits, which IS a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY." But no one will care that I'm dead anyway. Because they didn't care enough when I was alive to try to save me, or the 3 1/2 million other HUMAN BEINGS suffering at the hands of evil: John Boehner and the GOP.
PLEASE DO NOT KILL YOUR SELF!!! THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT!!! THEY ARE GARBAGE AND ARE NOT WORTHY OF YOU KILLING YOURSELF!!! DO NOT GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT!!!! I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL, BUT I FEEL IT TOO AND I WON'T GIVE THEM BUMS THE SATISFACTION!!! REMEMBER YOU ARE NOT ALONE BY A LONG SHOT!!! THERE ARE 92 MILLION OUT OF THE WORK FORCE!!! AND MILLIONS MORE TO FOLLOW!!! EVERY WEEK THOUSANDS OF UNEMPLOYED EXHAUST OR RUN OUT OF REGULAR OR EXTENDED BENEFITS!!! WE ARE GROWING STRONGER AND NOT BY CHOICE NEITHER!!! WE MUST REVOLT AT D.C. SOON AND REVOLT AT THE VOTING BOOTH!!!! SO IF EVERYONE THAT CAN VOTE VOTES IN NOVEMBER TO SEND ALL THESE LIVING ON OUR DIME WHILE WE STARVE LEECHES OUT THE DOOR WE CAN SEND A HORRIFIC AND HUMBLING MESSAGE THAT WE WILL NOT TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!!! THAT WE NOW MEAN BUSINESS ON OUR TERMS FOR ONCE!!!! THEY ARE NOT SPECIAL, THEY BLEED RED LIKE WE DO!!!! THEY ARE TRAITORS AND TREACHEROUS SELF SERVING SNAKES!!! DO NOT GIVE THEM WANT THEY WANT!!!, GIVE THEM THE BOOT OUT IN NOVEMBER!!!! STAY CALM AND THERE IS HELP OUT THERE TO KEEP YOU BARELY ABOVE WATER, BUT'S IT'S HELP 'TILL WE ALL GET A JOB AND MOVE ON WITH OUR LIVES AS WE SEE FIT!!!! FIRE THE SCUM AND CLEAN HOUSE IN NOVEMBER AND DENY THEM OF THEIR TURKEY AND GRAVY FOR ONCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! REVOLT! REVOLT! REVOLT!
I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU FEEL. I RESIGNED FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AFTER FAILING A PIP (PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT PLAN). I HAD THE OPTION TO RESIGN OR GET FIRED. I RESIGNED. I LISTEN TO PEOPLE SAY YOU CAN NEVER GET FIRED FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. I AM A POSTER CHILD FOR GETTING FIRED FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. IT HAS BEEN OVER 1 YEAR AND I HAVE HAD 4 JOB OFFERS JUST TO HAVE THEM RESCINDED. YOU CAN ONLY CRY SO MUCH. AND TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY, I JUST HAPPENED TO GO ON FACEBOOK AND SEE ALL OF MY FAMILY FRIENDS ETC...HAVING THE TIMES OF THEIR LIVES. NO BODY CARES ABOUT HOW I FEEL...JUST ME.. I HAVE DREAMS ABOUT GOING BACK TO MY LAST PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT AND I AM SITTING IN MY 2ND GRADE DESK. THERE ARE SO MANY EMOTIONS AND HURT FEELINGS. I AM 53 AND HAVE WORKED ALL OF MY LIFE. THIS SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED TO ME, BUT IT DID. I AM GOING TO BE SUCCESSFUL THOUGH. I HAVE AN E-BAY STORE AND GOING TO MAKE IT WORK. IF .ANYONE WANTS TO TALK TO ME ABOUT THE STRUGGLES, I HAVE AN EAR AND CAN MAYBE GIVE SOME BENEFICIAL FEEDBACK. MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS kristiemiller772@google.com. PLEASE HANG IN THERE!!!!!
too many people not enough jobs!!!!
147 million on entitlements, 92 million out of the work force, only 86 million working! the math doesn't add up!!! we are going down like the titanic soon!!! get ready for the turbulence ahead!!! and thanks to nafta,cafta,illegals and legals, outsourcing, companies going overseas,computers, robots, all jobs leaving the country,overpopulation! too many people, not enough jobs!! how will there ever be enough jobs for who ever wants one? NEVER!!!!!!!!
I am a victim as well. In November we need tg get that mother&&&### John out of office
TERROR IN THE GOV ON NOT PASS EUC
If anyone is thinking about suicide as a solution to the EUC crisis, pleas call the National Suicide Prevention line: 1-800-273-8255
I sincerely believe and i will accept that our own lying corrupt government is out to starve us, de-house us,de-car us! I believe now that our own traitor government is trying to kill us all! Genocide maybe? look around you where you live. Take a good look, and i mean a good look!, you see homelessness everywhere in this country!! It's in every state of the union now and thousands if not hundreds of thousands of homeless people, families, old, young, kids, teenagers etc.....! If that's what we all want here now, a third world country scenario!, then it is definitely time to over throw this sick, greedy, selfish, self centered, corrupt, traitor government now!! Crime is going up not down!!! people will survive by doing what they could not even fathom of doing when they were part of the american dream and doing great pre 9/11/01!!!! So I heed the warning to anyone that is doing just fine now, and say this," When your job goes away, what are you gonna do when homelessness comes for you!!?" Your job is not safe any more, so get ready and don't be fooled! The unemployment BOOGEYMAN is coming to get you!!!!
no more free money for the leeches, time to move on with your lives, because the free money is done