In response to today’s unemployment numbers, which were higher than estimated and remain at levels worse than the worst point of the Great Recession, Protect Our Care’s Coronavirus War Room Director Zac Petkanas released the following statement:
“American families are navigating one of the most treacherous times in American history, as deaths skyrocket, hospitals become overwhelmed, and – as today’s unemployment numbers show – the economic crisis gets worse and worse.
“Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell is single-handedly holding a bipartisan relief package hostage over special corporate legal protections for companies who knowingly endanger their employees during this pandemic. This is absolutely despicable.
“Throughout nine long months of a failed pandemic response, Americans have been asked to make impossible choices about what bills get paid, whether going to work or staying healthy is more important, and what to do when the extended unemployment benefits expire.
“There is a bipartisan relief package on the table that extends unemployment benefits, includes rental and housing assistance, provides money for testing, contact tracing and vaccines, and gives state and local funding. Passing it would be a first step in getting aid to the families and communities that desperately need it.
“But Mitch McConnell and his Senate allies have made their choice long ago, and they’ve chosen to put the interests of their wealthy Wall Street donors before the interests of struggling American families.”