The government is not fooling anyone with the creative accounting of the unemployed in America. Just trying to fool people with chicanery constitutes government malevolence in a time of need. This behavior from Washington DC only helps fuel the disgust and disdain Americans feel towards their disconnected government.

Do they really think the 8.6 million [and rising] people out of work won’t noticed they are out of work? The arrogance of Obama to go around spouting these numbers, when he damn well knows they are not true, is frightening and anything but hope and change. He is the politician now, who like the ones before him, will just lie to our faces.

We are approaching ten million jobs lost and how on Earth ten million people will suddenly be able to just get a job that does not exist is maddening. Even more scary and deadly to the American Family is the games he is playing with eligibility dates with unemployment benefits for the nearly ten million people out of work.

Up to today, he has only covered the first two months of the collapse with extended emergency unemployment benefits. Only the people who were laid off in November 2008 when it started and the people who were laid off in December 2008 are covered by this safety net. Unless Obama moves the dates like he did on December 19, 2009, all the people who were laid off from January 2009 and beyond will twist in the wind and be put on the streets.

There has been a complete news blackout on this and the lack of understanding of what is happening here is explosive. January 2009, nearly eight hundred thousand people lost their job in that month alone. As of today, all those people are not eligible for emergency unemployment benefits. If President Obama does not move the eligibility date by the end of February, millions of people will be cut off unemployment. If he does it later then that, all those people can reapply, but their disruption in their checks will cause devastating problems at home paying their bills. It also will affect the economy because all of this money in unemployment goes directly back into the economy and is the only “true” stimulus out there.

The fact that these people have to wait until the last moment to find out if they are destitute is beyond words like terrible or horrible, it is pernicious to say the least. The government wants you to believe that at the same time companies dropped twenty thousand people from payroll, somehow the laws of math were suspended and the unemployment number dropped under ten percent. Not to mention how weird that was that it stayed at ten percent month after month with no indicators that backed up such an untruth. The next problem on the horizon is even more troublesome.

The people, who actually “got” the emergency benefits from the first two months of the collapse, got twenty additional weeks and as we all know, we will not suddenly have ten million new jobs to place these people in twenty weeks. This group is already in this countdown to destruction and has no idea if Obama will go beyond what he did and keep benefits going until things turn around. The uncertainty has affected people’s health, because the stress becomes unbearable.

These are trying times in America. Even the people, who are going back to college to retrain for a new economy and learn something new, will be cut off from the unemployment roll. That will destroy the possibility that people can retrain and find a new way to support their families. It is “only” the unemployment benefits that make it possible for these people to go back to school and retrain. The must have a way to pay their bills while they go to school fulltime. Without that safety net, they are all doomed.

Now ask yourself what kind of country would destroy people trying to do the right thing? What kind of a country would not support these people in college? Unless the president changes his entire way of managing this problem, our nation as a whole will be less healthy. The answers here are simple. Make the unemployment benefits a blanket thing that goes a year at a time to those still waiting to find jobs and return to their fields. This is a long-term problem and band-aids won’t work.

Also, support the people who are going back to school to try to retrain for a new field, by continuing to pay unemployment as long as they are in school. Focus on a giant public works program to kick-start the economy. I’m not just talking about roads and bridges but build one hundred Nuclear Power plants, fifty gasoline refineries, rebuild the electrical grid and start drilling for oil everywhere we can. Environmentalism cannot be allowed to destroy a democracy.

We need leaders here to lead. Stop putting out growth numbers of our GNP like it is some sign of recovery. The numbers don’t represent the economy getting better, but include government spending and Wall Street Bankers having nearly 6% growth. We cannot have a recovery without jobs and if you keep saying that jobs are always the last to recover, then do something about that. Jobs do not have to be the last thing to recover unless you chose to do business as usual. Just because that was so in the past, doesn’t mean you can’t make jobs the first thing to recover by changing the way you do things. Make jobs the first thing to recover, not the last. We are not just victims of this process. We can manage and manipulate around the past and make jobs first this time.

This is a different kind of recession and different kinds of solutions are needed. America can’t just sit around for years waiting for jobs to catch up, while Wall Street is cashing in. We don’t need a third world war to get out of this jobs depression; we need the things I’ve listed here.

Last but not least, end these two wars. This money pit or black hole must end now. Many people complain about everything that is going wrong in America. What I have done here is laid out the problems and the solutions to solve them. I’m not just another voice of complaint. I am giving you the solutions to a healthier nation. Can someone please hear me!

C. Rich

[update on February 17]

February 16, 2010
FAC Program Eligibility Deadline February 28

Under current law, Federal Additional Compensation payments of $25 weekly, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will not be available to people whose claims are effective after February 28, 2010. If your claim began prior to February 28, you will continue to receive the additional $25 weekly until your claim ends or until the program ends September 4, 2010, whichever comes first.

The U.S. Congress is currently considering legislation that would extend the eligibility time period for Federal Additional Compensation payments.

February 11, 2010
Congress Considers Extending Eligibility for EUC

The U.S. Congress is considering legislation that would extend the window of eligibility until May 31, 2010 for additional federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits.

Under current law, unemployed workers who are receiving benefits from their regular state claim must exhaust these benefits by February 20, 2010 to be potentially eligible for EUC Tier I, which provides up to an additional 20 weeks of benefits.

Likewise, unemployed workers currently receiving EUC benefits on Tiers I, II, or III must exhaust their current tier of benefits by February 27, 2010 to be eligible for the next tier.

Under current law, EUC Tier II provides up to 14 weeks of benefits and Tier III provides up to 13 weeks of additional benefits.  Those who exhaust Tier III benefits by February 27, 2010 can establish eligibility for Tier IV benefits, which provides up to 6 additional weeks of benefits.

[end of February 17 update]

{March 4th Update}

March 4, 2010
President Signs Eligibility Extension for EUC; Governor Signs Legislation for Additional EB

EUC
This week President Obama signed a law adding a one-month extension to the last date to establish eligibility for federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC).

• Tier I: Under this new law, unemployed workers currently receiving benefits from their regular state claims now have until March 27, 2010 to exhaust their state benefits and establish eligibility for EUC Tier I, which provides up to an additional 20 weeks of benefits.

• Tiers II and III: Unemployed workers currently receiving benefits on EUC Tiers I, II, or III can now qualify for the next level of benefits if their current tier is exhausted by April 3, 2010.  EUC Tier II provides up to 14 weeks of benefits and Tier III provides up to 13 weeks of additional benefits.

• Tier IV: Those who exhaust Tier III benefits by April 3, 2010 can establish eligibility for Tier IV benefits, which provides up to 6 additional weeks of benefits.

The new law did not create any additional tiers of benefits.

• Unemployed workers who exhausted all benefits (regular state benefits, EUC Tiers I, II, and Extended Benefits (EB) prior to November , 2009 need to apply for EUC Tier III.

• Those who will exhaust EUC Tiers I, II, and III between November 1 and March 27, 2010 will be automatically enrolled in the next level of benefits.

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