U.S. Rep. Gary Peters Leads Fight to Fully Maintain Long-Term Unemployment Benefits

Press Release

Fighting for unemployed Michiganders, today U.S. Rep. Gary Peters sent a letter to the leaders of the House, Senate and Chairs of the Payroll Tax Cut Conference Committee urging them to maintain current levels of federal unemployment benefits in their negotiations. If Congress does not address this issue by the end of February, long-term unemployment benefits for 4.5 million Americans that lost their jobs through no fault of their own will disappear by the end of June, 2012.

The Peters Letter earned broad support with 70 other members of Congress signing it. Amongst the signers of the Peters Letter are the Chairs of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the New Democrat Coalition.

"The broad support this letter received is evidence that the Democratic Caucus is united against Republican attempts to cut unemployment benefits," said U.S. Rep. Gary Peters. "These benefits are a lifeline for tens of thousands of unemployed workers in Michigan who are struggling to pay their bills and feed their families. Not only do we have a moral obligation to extend these benefits, but economists like Mark Zandi have noted that failure to do so would be devastating to our economic recovery. I'm honored to have the support of such a broad coalition of leaders like Chairman Emanuel Cleaver, Chairman Charles Gonzalez, Chairwoman Judy Chu, Chairman Raúl Grijalva, Chairman Keith Ellison, Chairman Joe Crowley and my good friend Congressman John Conyers."

If House Republicans refuse to act by the end of February, 4.5 million unemployed Americans, including 86,400 unemployed Michiganders, will lose their unemployment benefits by the end of June, 2012. If the current Republican plan to cut federal unemployment insurance benefits by 40 weeks passes, approximately 3 million Americans will lose their UI benefits by the end of the year, including approximately 90,000 Michiganders.

Recent legislative action has not addressed the need to maintain current levels of federal unemployment benefits. If the same type of extension is passed that went through in December 2011, 30,000 Michiganders would no longer qualify for the last 20 weeks of their unemployment benefits as of next week, February 18, 2012.

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