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Monday, June 7, 2010

Unemployment Benefits Are More Important Than Deficit Reduction, Say 3/4 Of Voters

By Arthur Delaney
arthur@huffingtonpost.com |
Huffington Post
First Posted: 06- 7-10 04:38 PM   |   Updated: 06- 7-10 04:38 PM

Three-quarters of registered voters think Congress should forget about the deficit and preserve extended unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers, according to a new poll commissioned by the National Employment Law Project.

Citing deficit concerns, Democrats in both chambers of Congress have said it's time to start thinking about how to wrap up the extended unemployment benefits put in place to fight the recession. But 74 percent of people surveyed said they agreed with the statement that "it is too early to start cutting back benefits and health coverage for workers who lost their jobs."

"We cannot let a handful of misguided deficit hawks pull the plug on benefits that are precisely the kind of stimulus needed for economic recovery and deficit reduction," said NELP director Christine Owens in a statement. "Given the choice, the vast majority of the American people would provide unemployed workers and their communities the benefits they continue to need -- Congress should be listening to them."

Sixty-seven percent said they either "strongly favored" or "somewhat favored" continuing federal unemployment benefits. The poll did not mention the fact that federally-funded extensions, in combination with the initial 26 weeks of state benefits, give the unemployed up to 99 weeks in some states. (There is no proposal on the Hill to help the "99ers" -- the hundreds of thousands of people who've been through all available benefits and still haven't found work.)

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