Unemployment Benefits Extension for 2003

Dear President Bush!

We, the undersigned, respectfully request your leadership, compassion and support as well as Congress' action to immediately address the burgeoning unemployment problems across the nation. As you know, Congress failed to agree on terms of an emergency unemployment insurance benefits extension prior to Thanksgiving. It is time to turn your attention to domestic matters and adopt a policy of "leaving no worker behind".

Regardless of "official" numbers or wishful thinking to the contrary, nearly 1 million workers are running out of unemployment benefits on Dec. 28, 2002. The job market is in relative recession - and in severe crisis in some areas (the San Francisco Bay Area, for example). Allowing people to fall off the unemployment rolls may affect the calculation, but it does not address the problem. Long-term unemployment is rampant and the job market is not just soft - it is effectively frozen.

Some have lost all, all have lost some. People are losing their homes and possessions. Foreclosures are on the rise, bankruptcies are on the rise, poverty is on the rise - please do not allow hopelessness to rise, too. Since unemployment benefits are immediately and completely put back into the economy in the form of rent, food, basics, children's needs and related consumer spending - this actually helps strengthen the economy. We need these benefits to survive until we can find adequate employment.

While you must develop long-term solutions - in the short-term, we need a hand-up - not a hand-outThe funds are already availablePlease get the political parties to agree and draft an emergency unemployment benefits extension and sign this into law immediately.

We are your fellow citizens, taxpayers and voters, parents and children and families, teachers, attorneys, engineers, laborers, accountants, programmers, technical and non-technical, men and women of every race, creed and national origin. We are America and we are hurting