Fellow Unemployed Americans,

Early next month congress will reconvene and consider 2 bills on extending unemployment benefits for those who are still unemployed:

1. Representative Jim McDermott has introduced the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 2009, H.R. 3404. The bill would continue important ARRA benefits including the $25 per week federal additional compensation, full federal sharing for EB benefits, and the existing 33 weeks of EUC, through December 31, 2010 and phasing out by June 2011. In addition, the bill would provide 13 weeks of "further additional emergency unemployment compensation" to those states with an unemployment rate above 9.5%.

2. Senator Jack Reed introduced a similar package in the Senate (S. 1647) would provide such benefits to states with a three months average unemployment rate of 8.5%.

Unemployed Americans are being left out because their state doesn’t have a current unemployment rate of 9.5% or their state’s 3 month average is less than 8.5%. Does that mean that they need relief less than other unemployed individuals in other states with higher unemployment? No. Unemployed is unemployed no matter how many of your neighbors have jobs.

I am urging everyone to get off your duffs and do something to ensure that nobody is left out when congress extends unemployment benefits next month.

Q: What can you do?
A: Contact your elected officials and let them know that all unemployed Americans need relief no matter what the state unemployment rate is.

Q: How do I contact my elected officials?
A: Unemployedworkers.org and The National Employment Law Project (NELP) has a tool that will provide you the names and contact information of elected officials in your area. You can find it here: http://www.unemployedworkers.org/page/speakout/FederalExtension
Entering your zip code will display all of the elected officials in your state/city/district and their contact information.

The one major flaw that both of these pieces of legislation have is that not all unemployed Americans will benefit from the proposed extension of unemployment benefits. Let your legislators know that you think it is unfair to exclude anyone who is currently unemployed through no fault of their own!

Thank you.