December 7: Day of Online Solidarity for Jobless

To show solidarity with the 25 million unemployed or underemployed Americans, tomorrow morning, change your Facebook and Twitter avatar to this Jobless image.   

Update your status to “We are all Jobless” or whatever best expresses your thoughts on our economy which has returned record profits for the financial industry and enormous corporations and top income earners, but for decades has meant stagnant worker wages and for the past two years, a jobs crisis like none we have seen since the Great Depression.

When Congress failed to extend jobless benefits by November 30th, 800,000 workers and their families turned into income refugees. This was the first time ever that congress refused to extend jobless benefits when the unemployment rate has been this high for this long.

If Congress fails to act, by the end of December this number will grow to 2,000,000. By the end of January it will be an astonishing 3,000,000 people.  These numbers do not include the 99ers – those whose benefits expired this summer but who’ve remained without gainful employment for over two years.

This past Saturday, President Obama drew a line in the sand by pledging to fellow Democrats that he will refuse to pass any tax cut extension unless there are is also an extension of jobless benefits and populist tax cuts like Making Work Pay, a cut specifically targeted for the working poor; tuition tax credit for students; a child credit for the working parents; and a payroll tax credit for new hires.

The problem with this scenario, however, is why $30 billion in jobless benefits is being weighed against $700 billion dollars in tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires is in any way a fair bargain?
 
The Democrat’s tax  proposal – which was shot down by Senate Republicans – gives tax breaks to 100% of Americans. 98% of Americans get the break on their entire income and 2% continue to get a break on the first $250,000 of household income they earn, but the surplus income reverts to 1990’s tax rates.  

~Tracy Kurowski has been active in
the labor movement for ten years, first as a member of AFSCME 3506, when
she taught adult education classes at the City Colleges of Chicago. She
moved to the Quad Cities in 2007 where she worked as political
coordinator with the Quad City Federation of Labor, and as a caseworker
for Congressman Bruce Braley from 2007 – 2009.