Ranks of those running out of unemployment benefits rising
Ranks of those running out of unemployment benefits rising
TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: Here in this country, the Senate again failed to pass an extension
on long-term unemployment benefits. And now it’s on recess and it’ll be at least another week before they can try again. Which means thousands more people will keep running out of benefits. And that has serious consequences,
as Marketplace’s Alisa Roth reports.
Alisa Roth: So far, more than 1.7 million people have run out of unemployment benefits. That’s according to the best estimates of the Labor Department, which collects data from all the states. The department thinks by the end of this week, more than 2.1 million people will have used them up.
Sylvia Allegretto: They’ve already tapped into savings, retirement, you know if there’s any value in their homes.
Sylvia Allegretto is an economist at the Institute for Research on Labor Employment at UC Berkeley. She says once those are gone, there’s not much left.
Allegretto: What’s left is to find a job, but of course we know there are very few jobs out there.
And she says, the longer you’ve been out of work, the harder it is to find work. Even if there are jobs to be had. A lot of people have already given up looking, which is one reason June’s unemployment numbers weren’t worse.
Allegretto says the economy needs more stimulus right now, not less. Stimulus that could be as simple as extending unemployment benefits again.
I’m Alisa Roth for Marketplace.
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