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Are You Unemployed? Well, Republicans Don't Seem to Care

By Boyce Watkins, PhD on Jul 1st 2010 1:00PM
Filed under: Dr. Boyce Money, News, The Economy, Savings

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This week, Congress is set to allow unemployment benefits expire for 1.2 million Americans. Many of the unemployed not only depend on their benefits to pay the bills, but also need the funds to pay for life-saving medicine or health insurance.


The National Employment Law Project says that by mid-July, 2 million Americans could be without benefits. Before last week, those who'd lost their jobs could qualify for up to 73 extra weeks of additional federal benefits in addition to the normal 26 weeks. But Republicans are stopping this financial support, voting 57-14 to end them.

"The reality is that we have the worst job market on record going back to the Great Recession," says Maurice Emsellem, policy co-director at National Employment Law Project. "There's only one job available for every five unemployed workers."


Emsellem says that those who are unemployed are not always the ones to blame for their challenges.

"For anybody that has a thought in their head that unemployed workers are to blame for their situation, the reality is that workers are struggling hard to find work, but the jobs are just not there."

Many Americans are digging into their 401(k) retirement plans in order to pay for basic expenses, leading to an additional financial crisis set to occur once baby boomers are set to retire. While the economy seems to be engaged in a slow, steady recovery, unemployment remains in the near double digits and doesn't seem to be getting any better.

For African Americans, the situation is far worse. Black unemployment has been no less than 15 percent since the recession began. Making matters worse is the fact that white family wealth is roughly five times greater than that for black families, meaning that there is less of a financial cushion to make it through the tough times. The loss of unemployment benefits would be devastating to the black community, especially in places like Detroit, where crime is a serious threat to citizens in the city.

While the nation's poor struggle along, the wealthy are doing quite well. According to a study by Y.G. William Dumhoff, the top 20 percent of Americans control 85 percent of the nation's financial assets. What should happen is that taxes on the rich should be increased to support the plight of the working class. We need some balance in our society, and it makes no sense that people are dying because they can't afford medicine, while many of our nation's wealthy have more than they need.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce's commentary delivered to your e-mail, please click here.

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