Feinstein Feeding Right Wing Myth of Unemployed Enjoying No Jobs After Senate Vote

(9AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

The Democratic Party holds the majority in the Senate, but increasing forgets why it exists, as it continues to enact the disaster capitalism scenario of a major party which screws over it constituents.

Today (Wed) the Senate voted against extending expired unemployment benefits, with 11 useless Democrats voting with the Republicans to increase human misery.   Oh, and Plantation Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, who just squeaked by in a Democratic primary because of her No Public Option health care stance ?   She couldn’t be bothered to vote at all.  http://www.senate.gov/legislat…      Senate Vote #190 motion to agree with House amend. to Senate amend.  American Workers, State, and Business Relief Act of 2010

At least people like Senator “He’s with us on everything but the war” Lieberman don’t pretend anymore.  He was a NO.  So were:

Nelson NB           cornhusker strikes again

Webb VA            

McCaskill MO

Bayh IN               lame duck still can poop on your lawn

Begich AL

Feingold WI    

Kohl  WI

Landrieu  LA    isn’t she incredible

Menendez  NJ

Nelson FL      the other Nelson. on the Gulf.

Pryor AR

HuffPo 6/15/10

By the end of this week, 903,000 long-term unemployed who otherwise would have received benefits will have missed checks. By the end of next week that number will reach 1.2 million.

A day after an uninspiring primetime Oval Office speech on the greatest ecological disaster of our time from the Disengaged In Chief, we get this from another DINO Democrat who tried to give Nebraska the biggest medical payment kickback of our time:

“$77 billion or more of this is not paid for and that translates into deficit spending and adding to the debt, and the American people are right: We’ve got to stop doing that.”

Population of Nebraska.  1.79 million.  89% of the towns have fewer than 3000 people.  53 out of 93 counties report declining populations.  wikipedia

There are 8 times as many unemployed people as there are total Nebraskans.

Population of the United States.  309 million.   There’s 172 times as many other people than there are Nebraskans.

Even one of the Dems who voted for the bill couldn’t resist getting a little jab in at the new supplicants:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

“We have 99 weeks of unemployment insurance,” Feinstein said. “The question comes, how long do you continue before people just don’t want to go back to work at all?”

Well, Senator Feinstein, it goes like this.  The Senate is blocking all the bills coming out of the House.  The President is ignoring or covering.  So it’s on your House of Lords – Country Club – Society of Best Friends or whatever version of C Span Dungeons and Dragons you are this week to create jobs, if you don’t want to pay out survival money for people not working.

The government controls all job policy in this country, whether it’s letting the so called free market do nothing but cannibalize the middle and working classes, to funding Defense Contractors and the CIA and Pentagon.   Nobody else regulates financial institutions or prints money or sets spending agendas.

The neocon- “fiscal hawk”  wing of the Democratic Party, and by this I specifically mean OMB’s Peter Orszag and Sen. Kent Conrad, are completely out of touch with what is needed-  and that is NOT a domestic funding freeze but funding given to making jobs and not campaign donors and not a bigger Pentagon throttle.

I noticed they were smart enough to cover their tracks on this, North Dakota’s Conrad and Byron Dorgan both voted for this.  Dorgan, another lame duck,  was taking his turn in the Senate Village Villain Rotation the other day and declaring that the Senate didn’t have the votes to do climate change in the Energy Bill.  http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US…

Do you really think that the unemployed we have now are living high on the average unemployment check of $293 a week ?    $14,503 a year over 2 years ?    Because if you had a family of four and no COBRA health benefits, like these people do now, in our expensive state, even with the slightly higher ue benefits,  the unemployment benefits would just about be the same as private insurance premiums, with nothing left over.

Out of the over 15 million unemployed, with a 10% jobless rate, (because you don’t officially count the people who fall thru the cracks)   back in 2009,  when it was 11 to 12.5 million –

About 38% of those currently unemployed are receiving benefits. The remainder have exhausted their benefits already or never qualified in the first place because they were self-employed, fired for cause or worked only part time.  

http://articles.moneycentral.m…

So called “right to work states” actually have laws that say the employer can fire you anytime for no cause.  I noticed Missouri is a low wage,  “right to work state,”   and both Senators voted against this.  Nice to see Blue Dog Claire McCaskill voting with half- senile Republican Senator Bond.

Treading Water, But Not Getting Anywhere:  Statistics from the US Dept of Labor, for May 2010  

Employment Situation Summary

http://www.bls.gov/news.releas…

The number of unemployed persons was 15.0 million in May. The unem-

ployment rate edged down to 9.7 percent, the same rate as in the

first 3 months of 2010. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for blacks (15.5

percent) declined in May, while the rates for adult men (9.8 percent),

adult women (8.1 percent), teenagers (26.4 percent), whites (8.8 per-

cent), and Hispanics (12.4 percent) showed little change. The jobless

rate for Asians was 7.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables

A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

In May, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks

and over) was about unchanged at 6.8 million. These individuals made

up 46.0 percent of unemployed persons, about the same as in April.

(See table A-12.)

The number of unemployed reentrants to the labor force fell by 286,000

in May, offsetting an increase in April. (See table A-11.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (some-

times referred to as involuntary part-time workers) declined by

343,000 in May to 8.8 million. These individuals were working part

time because their hours had been cut back or because they were un-

able to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.)

About 2.2 million persons  were marginally attached to the labor force

in May, unchanged from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally

adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and

were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the

prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had

not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table

A-16.)    

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged

workers in May, up by 291,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not

seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently

looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.  

The remaining 1.1 million persons marginally attached to the labor

force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey

for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

(See table A-16.)

Is it really necessary to feed the formerly Republican myth that the unemployed like sitting around doing nothing for their money ?   All of 6% of the above, about 1 out of 17,  have not looked recently because they can’t find anything.  

Because to get those unemployment benefits in the first place, people not only have to meet strict criteria, but prove that they are looking for work currently.   And employers get out of paying unemployment by making as many jobs part time as possible so employees never qualify.   Why work for a negative gain, ie, more debt because you can’t cover the cost of transporting yourself to work ?  What is this, the tent society of economic theory ?

How much longer should the Democrats be allowed to act like this ?  

And no, Republican Party, the answer is not “more tax cuts and more war” for the wealthiest, either.