AFL-CIO Video Presses Congress to Renew Unemployment Benefits

The AFL-CIO posted a YouTube video featuring out-of-work Americans pleading for Congress to extend their "lifeline" by extending their unemployment benefits. Benefits for about two million unemployed Americans expired on November 30, and Republicans in the Senate are blocking their renewal. About two million people nationwide will lose their unemployment benefits by January 1, 2011. Without another Congressional extension, more than 7 million people nationally will lose their unemployment income by November, 2011. One year's worth of renewed benefits is expected to cost about $56 billion. Republicans are demanding that spending cuts be made elsewhere in the budget to offset an extension in unemployment benefits, and are demanding that the expiring Bush-era tax cuts be renewed for everyone, including the country's wealthiest citizens, before they will agree to vote on renewing unemployment benefits. Extending the tax cuts is expected to cost the country $700 billion, but Republicans have not proposed a way to offset that amount from the budget. Democrats have tried several times to renew unemployment benefits, but the 42 Senate Republicans have blocked their efforts.