Faith Groups Join with Senators to Fix Unemployment
Interfaith justice groups are joining with U.S. Senators to lobby against unemployment as millions of jobless claims are scheduled to expire just before Christmas.
Sens. Robert Casey (D-PA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are meeting today with members of the Interfaith Worker Justice, the National Catholic Social Justice Lobby and the National Council of Churches to address the ongoing jobs crisis.
Unemployment has become a sore issue among Americans. Labor statistics show that some 2 million unemployed people in the United States have lost their unemployment benefits. The federal provision expired at the end of November. Partisan debates by Congressional Republicans and Democrats halted efforts to extend benefits by an additional year.
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Some religious groups worry that long-term unemployment will adversely affect youths and the future workforce.
Casey Schoenberger, lobby associate for the National Catholic Social Justice lobby NETWORK, quoted University of California Berkeley Professor Rucker Johnson in a November blog post, saying, "Not only does unemployment affect children during their childhoods, but children who face parental unemployment have been shown to grow into adults with decreased earnings."
IWJ Executive Director Kim Bobo is also concerned about unemployed Americans who may not have received their last paychecks or are being improperly paid and exploited as they try to find work. Bobo, author of Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid and What We Can Do About It, calls this wage theft.
"It's all around us," said Bobo.
"There [are] workers not being paid the minimum wage, not being paid overtime, misclassified as independent contractors. They don't get all their tips. They get laid off and they don't get their last paycheck or for some workers, they work all day and don't get paid at all," she explained.
IWj is now calling on public leaders to work with religious groups to uplift workers and those in poverty by creating sound-paying jobs.
"Community groups can't solve [these issues] on their own. The Department of Labor can't solve these issues on its own. Lawyers can't solve these issues on their own. We need to come together and form a collaborative approach where everyone working together strategically solves this problem," IWJ Public Policy Director Ted Smuckler reasoned.
The IWJ plan is to create a number of support groups – such as an unemployed support group and business leaders support groups – to offer spiritual guidance in the form of prayer, Bible study and reflection along with skill development trainings, and address survival skills and ethical concerns.
IWf is also advocating for public policy initiatives and the development of educational programs and resources for job creation.
