Warren Buffett has said that “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
The treatment of Americans who have been unemployed more than 99 weeks is a perfect example. On average, there are nearly three job seekers for every vacancy. Because this is an average, some areas have far more job seekers per vacancy. Also, surveys have established that many employers will not even consider people who have been unemployed for more than six months, however good their credentials may be.
Congress has refused to extend unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed while continuing to lavish tax breaks and corporate welfare subsidies on the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy. The latter will not suffer hardship without their tax breaks and subsidies, but Americans deprived of unemployment benefits through no fault of their own certainly will.
The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution states that one of the purposes of the Constitution is “to promote the general Welfare.” These words are deprived of all meaning if they are interpreted so as to exclude unemployment benefits for Americans looking for work.
