To Be EQUAL

2 February 2004

What Will They Do Now?

by Marc H. Morial

President and CEO, National Urban League

Marc H. Morial, President of the National Urban League, is the former two-term mayor of New Orleans and President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

            “What will I do now?”

That desperate a question I am sure has already begun to gnaw at the physical and emotional spirit of hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans—those who’ve exhausted their eligibility for regular unemployment benefits and won’t be getting any emergency federal aid because Congress last month ignored appeals to extend that special program. 

If the projections from a respected research and policy organization are to be believed, our nation is now facing a social and economic calamity, a floodtide of people—the jobless—bereft of all government aid that is likely to break the boundaries of the statistics-laden and somewhat abstract discourse about unemployment to show us the real face of human misery.

Does that sound alarmist?

A slew of numbers indicate we should be alarmed.

At the end of January 375,000 unemployed workers exhausted their unemployment benefits without having a job or any chance of qualifying for further assistance. 

In other words, they must now make do without a paycheck or unemployment check.

This is by far the largest number of jobless workers to face this predicament in any one month since such records began to be kept in 1973.

But that’s only the beginning of the expected deluge.

Over the next six months, nearly 2 million jobless American workers will face the same fate, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

The latter figure would constitute a six-month record for jobless workers exhausting their regular benefits without being eligible to receive emergency federal assistance.

Just 1.5 percent of these workers—about 24,000 people—will qualify for extended unemployment benefits because of the states they live in, the Center’s report stated.

The Center said its projections are based on an analysis of federal Labor Department employment statistics from 1973 to 2003, including the just-released data for December 2003.

The Center is a liberal think tank, but its work is widely respected. 

Of course, these numbers don’t take into account the estimated 1.5 million jobless workers who’ve given up looking for work at all because finding work has been a literal impossibility for millions who’ve kept searching.  

That fact was stunningly underscored by the December Labor Department report.  It found that, instead of the 150,000 new jobs that were widely expected, just 1,000 new ones could be counted.   

Moreover, along with the December employment report, the federal government substantially scaled back its earlier estimates of job gains for October and November, from 143,000 jobs created, to 94,000. 

Compared to these figures, and the fact that 2.5 million jobs have disappeared from the economy since 2001, the decline of the unemployment rate in December to 5.7 percent, seem uninspiring indeed.       

The looming question—for the jobless now facing a personal catastrophe—and for all of us is what should we do now.   

An obvious answer is for Congress to re-extend the federal Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation program, the federal “safety valve” used for just this situation—to keep jobless workers who’ve exhausted their benefits because the jobs aren’t there to be taken from falling into dire poverty.

The roughly $20 billion in the program’s fund is more than enough to provide for another extension.

Moreover, the program’s history shows it works:  that giving unemployment checks to jobless workers continues to help not only them but consumer spending as a whole. 

Thus, it’s not only the compassionate thing to do, it makes economic sense as well.

But this hasn’t swayed Congressional Republicans who declare that an extension is unnecessary because significant job growth is just around the corner.

Such optimism rings hollow in light of the shattered expectations of recent months.

Unfortunately, the jobless facing dire poverty can’t use such declarations to pay their bills, or buy food for themselves and their families. 

So, if Congress doesn’t act, expect the already growing incidene of homelessness and hunger among low-income, working families depicted in a recent report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors to become more severe.

And expect the evidence of this hardship to be apparent across a broad swath of the country:  CBPP estimates that  the number of jobless “exhaustees” will reach record or second-highest levels in 28 states, including such populous ones as California, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin.  

Political junkies will immediately see that the CBPP projections coming to pass on the eve of the fight-to-the-finish campaigning for the White House will inject even more excitement into the race.

But I’m sure many Americans who have compassion for their fellow Americans who want to work but can’t find a job would rather get their political excitement another way.            

As America’s jobless exhaustees ask themselves in desperation, what will I do now, those of us who are more fortunate should be asking ourselves with equal urgency:  What must we resolve to do now?     

For the Congress, the answer is:  re-extend the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation program.