Alabama County-By-County Breakdown Shows the Harm of Not Extending Unemployment Insurance

If Congress fails to extend the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation program more than 12,000 people in Alabama will lose their insurance coverage immediately on Dec. 28, according to the Alabama Department of Labor. An additional 18,800 people in Alabama will lose their coverage in the first six months of 2014 if Republicans continue to block an extension of the program, according to Department of Labor estimates.

Federal unemployment insurance took effect in 2008 and has been reauthorized several times since as Americans continue to recover from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Despite the real progress the economy has made since its near collapse in 2008, there are still 1.3 million fewer jobs than there were before the recession began and long-term unemployment as a percentage of the unemployed is 37 percent, near historic highs.

Failure to extend federal unemployment insurance would also hurt job growth throughout the nation, costing the economy 240,000 jobs, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers. The CEA estimates that in Alabama alone, failing to extend the program will cost 1,083 jobs.