Washington, DC – Conservative pundits are praising Republican lawmakers for blocking legislation in Congress to restore Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC). More than 3 million workers have lost benefits since Congress allowed benefits to lapse in late December. Many of the unemployed are facing home foreclosures, have had their car repossessed and have lost their health coverage.

On July 3, prominent conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer said that the recent decline in the unemployment rate was due to cutting unemployment benefits. Krauthammer told Fox News that “the real problem of long-term unemployment was a function of this anomaly of emergency-extended unemployment, which should never have happened, and whose end has contributed to this excellent result. The debate on that extension is over, and the conservatives were right.”

Many Republicans in Congress blame the high unemployment rate on workers who cannot find jobs and assert that poverty is caused by low-income people.

Steff Yorek, a spokesperson for Freedom Road Socialist Organization responded, stating, “No serious person believes that unemployment is caused by the unemployed. Jobs are there or they’re not. Corporations hire people when they think they can make a profit off their labor. If companies think they cannot exploit workers and make some money – the ‘job creators’ create no jobs. It is time for Congress to address the unemployment crisis and restore benefits to the long-term unemployed.”

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