Unemployment Benefits To Be Cut

Living in one of the worst hit economic areas in the nation, this will hit close to home to most Flint residents. With an unemployment rate of 13.7%(1) we are in the top 20 for the nation. How will this affect you and your family?

Congress has let jobless benefits lapse twice already this year as Republicans insist the cost — $160 billion in the last fiscal year — be offset by cuts elsewhere to prevent the nation's $13.8 trillion debt from growing further.

"I think we have to deal with the immediate crisis," Democratic Senator Jack Reed said. "I think we have to deal with the families that are struggling today."

Nearly half of the 15 million unemployed people in the United States have been out of work for more than six months, the highest level of long-term unemployment since the government began keeping track in the 1940s.

[via Millions to lose jobless benefits as holidays loom - Politics - More politics - msnbc.com.]

(1)United States Department of Labor