Representative Jim McDermott (D-Wash) has offered a bill that would extend unemployment benefits for an additional 13 weeks. This bill would be offered to states whose unemployment rate has reached at least 8.5 percent or more and whose benefits are due to run out at the end of September.
In an
article released in Yahoo News, McDermott states, “People from North Carolina to California have been calling my office to tell me they still cannot find work a year or more after becoming unemployed, and they need some additional help to keep their heads above water.” The article also went on to note that of some 5 million people, about one-third of those on the unemployment list, have been without a job for six months or more, a record since data started being recorded in 1948, according to the research and advocacy group National Employment Law Project.
The states that are currently experiencing unemployment rates of 8.5 percent or more are Alabama, Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
With the high rates of unemployment looking as though they will continue well into 2010, it is essential for our country to create more jobs here at home and stop sending work overseas. Our government needs to open its eyes and start helping those who want to work and don’t want to have to rely on an unemployment check to take care of the bills. Maybe if we stopped providing free money to those who choose to not work we could supplement that money into unemployment and provide it to those who truly deserve it.