Tell USA news media to focus their lenses on suffering Americans & SOLUTIONS!

PLEASE Report ASAP re: the plight & human stories of 99ers with no Tier 5 UI benefits

Greetings,

I call on televised news media to get back to responsible journalism by executing due diligence re: investigations of pending legislation and reporting of same in a timely manner to best educate and inform the American public PRIOR to legislation being passed. Equally important would be reporting on associated subjects, impacting any legislation.

The longest unemployed, "99ers", were SHUT OUT of the recently signed Obama-GOP Tax Deal, by President Obama, the Congress, Senate and our public news media, despite S.3706 having been re-introduced by Rep. Jackson-Lee & on December 10, 2010, along with H.R. 6556.  S.3706, 'The Americans Want to Work Act' establishes a Tier 5 Unemployment Insurance benefits program and Jobs Bill.

It's unconscionable that the news media were such an epic failure in conveying to America, that the 99ers were NOT included in this legislation.  During the final vote and call-in phase of the live C-Span broadcast, a caller stated, "I'm confused;  Will this bill mean that 99ers will receive unemployment benefits? I'm concerned because I'm a 99er." The moderator ERRONEOUSLY answered, "Yes, 99ers will receive benefits if this tax-unemployment package is passed".  The news media didn't even understand the bill!  Only a handful of reporters occasionally talked about the 99ers being absent from the bill, during the months leading up to the work by our elected leaders.

The news media are THE PRIME COMMUNICATIONS LINK between Washington and we citizens. Historically, journalists have educated the masses while reporting those responses, back to Washington. Washington is broken, news media are failing and We The People are suffering because of the negligence of both.

There are PLENTY of topics to report IMMEDIATELY, that affect the 99ers and thus our economy.

Many legislators don't understand unemployment, the tiers and intricacies. It's also clear through posts in Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere, that most Americans THOUGHT the 99ers were included and are distressed that the most vulnerable and disenfranchised were left out.  This is the first time in the history of unemployment insurance, that unemployed have not been included, while unemployment rates remain high, especially cruel since 99ers are the longest unemployed in an atmosphere where there are five applicants for every one job. 

The CBO reports that for EVERY dollar spent in unemployment benefits, there is at least a $1.61 "jolt to the economy" that occurs as the unemployed spend every dollar in benefits for necessities i.e. food, utilities, children's clothing, etc.  This CREATES jobs!  Another CBO report says, that the #1 BEST way to stimulate job growth/the economy, is to extend unemployment benefits. 

The state of the economy since 2008 has driven an alarming rise of statistics in every aspect of the unemployed person's life including but not limited to; Child Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Suicides, 3.5 million homeless, 43.6 Million categorized as living "in Poverty", 25% of children now live in "low-income" families, record bankruptcies and foreclosures with foreclosures expected to increase and peak in 2011. 50.7 million are without health insurance, 46,000 people died in 2009 from lack of health insurance/care and 1 in 5 Americans suffer mental illness, most going "untreated" due to lack of insurance/psychological care

51 MILLION people are overwhelming U.S. food pantries, 17.2 million of them children, (food banks had 20-30% of their normal turkey donations at Thanksgiving and are closing because of lack of resources to meet the demand!) and 42.9 million people collected SNAP, (formerly known as 'food stamps'), benefits in November.  TANF, (formerly known as 'welfare'), was CUT by 20% to the state governments, by the Senate, earlier this week.  The evidence is mounting that 99er's children are now among the record numbers of hungry and homeless in our public schools and colleges as they try to secure their education.

There are record library closures, when unemployed need computers & resources the most to file applications for JOBS while recent studies show the 40, 50 & 60 year old 99ers stand little to no chance of being hired the longer their unemployment goes on and that there is employer age bias/discrimination towards long-term unemployed.  We also know that the services and organizations that help the 99ers are hurting when we read that charity giving by the wealthy dropped 35% in 2009, according to Bank of America & Bloomberg.

Millions of 99ers are living in a second Great Depression while the rest of Americans have no idea because of the lenses shining on Washington, their rhetoric, the rhetoric of talk show hosts and news driven by polls. The time has come to put your lenses back on We The People so that we can overcome the "disconnect" between our elected leaders and the impacts of their decisions here on the ground.

Should news media addressed in this petition fail to comply immediately, I will be forced to take further action via another petition and boycotts at a yet to be determined date.

Thank you for your time and consideration of all I present.

Respectfully,


P.S. Links to all data and reports contained herein may be found within the 'Description' of this petition.

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