Consequences: The unemployed, benefits and Republican recalcitrance

Republicans spent a number of months holding up basic benefits — in the form of a much-needed extension — for unemployed Americans. Their stated reason: The deficit.

The move was both heartless (longterm unemployment is reaching record levels) and foolish (aid to the unemployed gets cycled right back into the economy in the form of spending).

The question remains, however, will the GOP be made to pay for the political posturing. The pundit class doesn’t think so, saying that anger will be focused on incumbents over the general state of the economy. There is some truth to this, though the generally terrible quality of GOP candidates is likely to save the jobs of some Democrats who should be joining the unemployed in seeking work.

There also is the very real possibility that unemployed Americans — about 14.6 million at the moment, not including the millions who are under-employed — will remember the way they were treated by the GOP and the distortions tossed into the political dialogue by people like Sharron Angle and others.

That’s the point of this story from The Washington Independent, which explains how comments by Paul, Angle and others “began reverberating in what might be termed the unemployed netroots — a system of highly trafficked, influential blogs and sites connecting the jobless and updating them, often in minute detail, about ins and outs of Congress’ work on unemployment issues.”

During the eight month battle to extend unemployment insurance, with the unemployment rate peaking over 10 percent, huge online networks of the unemployed came into fruition. Now, coming into the fall and the midterms, King and other grassroots organizers for the unemployed are hooking up with formal organizing groups to add institutional oomph to the effort. They say they do not want to let the long battle for simple extensions go to waste.

Already, a number of unions and other organizations have created dedicated working groups or online organizations for the jobless. Last year, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a labor union, founded the Ur Union of Unemployed, or U-Cubed, for jobless workers. Additionally, the AFL-CIO’s Working America affiliate has launched Unemployment Lifeline, an online site to rally and organize the unemployed.

Working America is “the biggest organization for the unemployed,” according to spokesman Robert Fox. By the union’s own count, 500,000 of its 3.2 million members are currently jobless, and the group is going door-to-door, recruiting more members from the ranks of the unemployed.

“We spend most of our time demanding the reform of banks, demanding good jobs, and trying to make sure that there’s investment being made in our communities,” says Fox. But come this fall, “We’re going to be engaging our members fully, making sure they’re aware of which candidates to support.”

“We have the ability to make sure a lot of unemployed folks know where politicians stand, who is voting against making investments in jobs, who needs to hear from unemployed workers and who needs to hear from them twice,” he says.

So, who is correct? Will the new fervor bubbling up below the pundits’ radar alter the accepted narrative being spun by Washington? I’m not going to predict.

But I know what outcome I’m rooting for.

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet