Reid: Senate to vote “in next few days” on Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC)
Washington D.C. – Senate Majority leader Harry Reid announced this evening, March 4, that he had filed a bill to renew Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC). In a twitter message he stated that, “We'll vote on it in the next few days.”
More than 2 million jobless workers have lost unemployment benefits and the number is rapidly rising each day. Many are facing home foreclosures, car repossessions, utility cutoffs and hunger.
The stage was set for the massive cutoff in Dec. 2013 when the Senate’s Democratic leadership failed to insist on including extended unemployment benefits in the budget agreement. This gave the Republicans, who are generally opposed to benefits for the long term unemployed, the power to block any extension of unemployment insurance.
If the Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) passes the Senate, it will need to be approved by the Republican-controlled House.
Commenting on these developments, Steff Yorek, the Political Secretary of Freedom Road Socialist Organization stated, “Congress needs to act now. The working class is sick and tired of hearing about hand outs to the so called ‘job creators’ while those of us who have been laid off and can’t find work get nothing.”
Yorek continued, “Both Republicans and Democrats have failed the unemployed. They serve the big corporations and the wealthy. In the next few days, all of us should call our Senators and tell them to do whatever it takes to pass Extended Unemployment Compensation.”