Over the holiday break, Democrats and liberal activists plan to pound Republicans to get enough of them on board to extend the federally funded Emergency Unemployment Compensation come the new year. Much of the extensive effort will be directed at voters in vulnerable Republican congressional districts.
This is the kind of thing Democrats ought to spend more of their out-of-D.C. time doing: Putting political pressure on Republicans to do what they very much don't want to do.
In this case, what Republicans don't want to do is renew—for the twelfth time—the EUC program that provides a portion of the nation's long-term unemployed with modest benefits so they can pay their bills. First implemented in June 2008 when unemployment in the Great Recession was 5.6 percent, EUC will expire on Dec. 28. If the Republicans have their way, it will stay expired.
Please read below the fold for more on EUC.
Of the the 4.1 million Americans who have been officially out of a job for at least six months, 1.37 million are now receiving benefits from EUC. If enough Republicans can't be swayed to support renewal, those unemployed workers will be flat out of luck. And they will have lots of company. Over the next year, it's estimated an additional 3.6 million jobless Americans will become eligible for EUC compensation. If it exists.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that he expects a vote on the EUC renewal Jan. 6 or 7. Between then and now, Greg Sargent reported Thursday:
• The day after Christmas, liberal groups will launch a national cable television ad campaign that will run at least until Dec. 28. In addition to pushing for the EUC renewal, the ads will also take digs at Republicans for their resistance to closing tax loopholes enjoyed by the wealthiest Americans at a time when they're shredding a piece of the safety net.
• Additional ads may be run after Congress returns. A Sargent source says these will be "backed by a 'significant' buy" by the progressive activist group Americans United for Change.
• House Democrats will continue focusing on getting local media to cover the personal and economic damage that loss of compensation will cause. We've already seen a bit of this as local newspapers have pointed out, often with front-page headlines, the impact the expiration will have on their communities. Writes Sargent:"This is hyper-granular stuff: I’m told Ways and Means Committee Dems are collecting county-by-county data on the number of people who will be kicked off benefits, and pushing local press outlets to reflect these numbers in their coverage."
• To more effectively focus the local media effort, liberal groups are putting together targeted lists of House Republicans representing vulnerable districts in states with high unemployment.
Currently, in most states hit worst by unemployment, an eligible jobless worker can receive 26 weeks of unemployment compensation and an additional 47 weeks of federal compensation. Until almost two years ago, it was an additional 73 weeks, but a budget deal carved off more than a third of those. Millions of out-of-work Americans have already exhausted their unemployment benefits or were never eligible for it in the first place. That speaks to a need to revamp the entire unemployment compensation program. But, for now, just keeping the EUC Band-Aid in place is a hard enough fight.