The word emergency has a special significance in the English language. Few words can incite panic and stop people directly in their tracks than hearing the phrase, ‘It’s an emergency.’ Human instinct is to respond swiftly and decisively to emergencies. This is why Congress originally adopted the term to describe a temporary package of benefits for the long-term unemployed to help them get back on their feet amid the financial crisis.
That was five and a half years ago.
Since Congress first approved the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program in June of 2008, it has renewed it 11 times, turning legislation that was meant to be a temporary fix into a staple of society. What was once deemed “emergency” money became ‘necessary’ assistance for the poor, and Americans are now allowed to receive unemployment benefits for a total of 73 weeks consecutively, or roughly a year and a half.
“The long-term unemployed are not lazy, they’re not lacking in motivation, they’re coping with the aftermath of the worst economic crisis in generations,” President Obama said Tuesday, speaking in favor of extending the program, which expired Dec. 28.
Instead of coming up with new ways to help these long-term unemployed Americans find work, Democrats have made reinstating the program their top priority upon returning to DC. Tuesday the Senate narrowly advanced legislation to extend the program for the twelfth time. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said he will not consider the $6.5 billion legislation unless Democrats agree to find a way to pay for the extension of benefits and include additional programs in the package to help put the long-term unemployed back to work.
“To date, the president has offered no such plan. If he does, I’ll be happy to discuss it, but right now the House is going to remain focused on growing the economy and giving America’s unemployed the independence that only comes from finding a good job,” Boehner said in a press release Tuesday.
In hopes of pressuring Republicans in Congress to immediately pass an extension, Congressional Democrats tried to shame their colleagues across the aisle during the party’s weekly press conference on Wednesday. Rep. Xaxier Becerra (D-Calif.) first tied passing the extension to the realization of Lyndon B. Johnson’s quest to win the so-called “War on Poverty,” then to former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) shooting. Both Johnson’s War on Poverty speech and Gifford’s shooting took place on Jan. 8, but have no other ties whatsoever.
“We must fight for Americans the way LBJ did. We must fight to make sure that we get this done. It is an emergency, and we should not have politicians hold this up,” Becerra told reporters.
According to Merriam-Webster, an emergency is “an unexpected and usually dangerous situation that calls for immediate action” or “an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.”
While extending unemployment insurance and eliminating poverty is certainly a serious concern, an “emergency” it is not. America’s lackluster economy hasn’t fully recovered to pre- 2008 levels, but the state of the U.S. economy can longer be categorized as an “unexpected “or “unforeseen” crisis. The War on Poverty has been raging for 50 years.
The Washington Post editorial board has called on Congress to extend unemployment benefits under the guise that “this extension of unemployment insurance may be the last” as the economy looks to recover within the next year. The unemployment rate has subsided substantially from its October 2009 peak of 10 percent, but it is nowhere near where it was in June of 2008 when this “emergency” legislation was first passed. The unemployment rate then was 5.6 percent. As of the most recent jobs report, the unemployment rate is currently 7 percent. This economy is the new normal unless Congress takes substantive steps to spur job growth in America.
As Speaker Boehner noted, the U.S. needs is a long-term fix for unemployment, not long-term benefits for the unemployed. Congress cannot continue to extend unemployment benefits to Americans who have been jobless for a year without also making reforms to the policies that put so many Americans out of work in the first place.
