Starting on Monday, the unemployed in the U.S. will no longer be able to apply for federal unemployment benefits or the COBRA health insurance subsidy. This means that millions of Americans that have been unemployed for a long period of time may suddenly find themselves without an unemployment check and without any health coverage. You see, normally state-funded unemployment benefits last for about 26 weeks. After that, federal unemployment benefits kick in. During this recent economic crisis, the U.S. Congress has approved up to an additional 73 weeks of unemployment benefits for unemployed Americans. But now the U.S. Senate has not approved an extension, and so now millions of unemployed Americans that are relying on federal unemployment benefits will stop getting checks once their current federal benefits run out. Millions more will not be able to apply for federal unemployment benefits.
So what could this mean?
It could mean that large numbers of Americans may soon be forced into bankruptcy.
It could mean that large numbers of Americans may soon lose their homes.
It could mean that large numbers of Americans may soon be devastated by medical bills they simply cannot pay.
It could mean that large numbers of Americans may soon be forced to live in the streets.
But should we expect the federal government to pay long-term unemployment benefits for all unemployed Americans indefinitely?
That gets really expensive very quickly. Considering the fact that the U.S. national debt is growing exponentially, the U.S. government cannot really afford to be throwing around cash as if it was water.
But with millions upon millions of Americans completely broke and unable to find jobs, what else can you do?
The reality is that it is extremely likely that the U.S. Congress will find a way to come to an agreement to extend these benefits at some point in the coming days.
So total catastrophe is likely to be avoided.
At least for now.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve's $1.25 trillion program to push down mortgage rates is scheduled to expire on March 31st.
So what is that going to mean?
It is going to mean that mortgage rates are going to start to rise.
That will mean that less people will be able to afford to buy homes and it will mean that there are going to be even more foreclosures.
That is not good news for the housing market.
Even now, sales of previously owned homes plunged in January to their lowest level since last summer.
So what is going to happen when mortgage rates start to rise?
The reality is that the U.S. housing market is simply not going to recover to previous levels. In fact, all signs point to another major housing market disaster in the years ahead.
Home loan standards are tightening.
Mortgage rates are rising.
The big banks are hoarding cash and have reduced lending.
Another massive wave of adjustable rate mortgages is scheduled to reset between 2010 and 2012 which will force another gigantic pile of foreclosures on to the market.
So where in the world is the "housing recovery" going to come from?
There are going to be many more houses for sale and many fewer qualified buyers.
It does not take an economic genius to figure out what that is going to do to housing prices.
Hopefully the U.S. government and the financial powers that be can figure out a way to stabilize things for a while.
But there is no getting around the fact that the U.S. is headed for an economic collapse.
By borrowing gigantic piles of cash the U.S. government can put the pain off for a little while, but by doing so they make the eventual collapse much worse.
So what do you think? Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion....
Millions of people without any means to live can quickly engulf a nation into civil unrest as people anger over being looked over and aid going to rich banksters and crooked Wall Steet execs. It’s not going to be pretty. Prepare before it’s too late. http://www.newamerica-now.blogspot.com
This remindes me of the “Ides of March”, or march madness. Get ready to tighten those belts.
In the blink of an evolutionary eye we have squandered our energy and resource capital to achieve our species’ apex; the moon landing and big screen TV… Now, it’s back to our planets’ carrying capacity of 1.6B humans, organized into geographic ‘tribes’, subsistence living, and going to sleep when the sun goes down. The days of ‘bread and circuses’, and ‘happy motoring’ will be over soon. Good riddance. My paternal grandparents both grew up on dirt floors, raising their own food. They lived to be 100 and led REAL lives. The Savior State and its corrupt plutocracy are doomed, and they know it. It’s time we know it too…
what do I think?
I think we are all screwed.
With unemployment benefits set to expire if not renewed of course many people will loose what little they are getting to keep what little they have left. But such is an Empire built on debt. I live home withmy parents and yes my father is unemployed and having difficulty getting work. While he has not passed the 26 week mark yet and I hope he doesn’t, yet if he does then like others if its not extended we’re screwed.
Spending money the government does not know it’ll be able to pay back is like buying a car with no job though. I don’t think congress can keep spending money at the rate they do to stimulate things. It is irresponsible to run ourselves into the level of debt we are in and no one seems to want to take a hard stance on it, and the ones who do like Ron Paul etc. Get boo’d away.
I think the American economy needs to really drop before it gets corrected, I think that we as Americans live on an over inflated dream of what we should have. While this will directly affect my family and I either waynational debt in crease or no bennies I guess we need to find the cheaper route.
Politicians and the oligarchy are shifting from “extend and pretend” to “delay and pray”.
They will continue with business as usual until the system completely collapses.
The expiration of benefits and failure to address the underlying issues that are preventing job growth are just one more step in the march towards a “reset” of the entire monetary system.
I have an uncle that has been jumping for joy at Obama because he is recieving unemplotment money. Boy will he be dissapointed when the check does not come in the mail. I agree with the article when it says that the government might not new the unemployment programs because of the massive debt that is being accumulated. However, programs like unemployment, food stamps, social security, etc, are really what is keeping us out of a depression along with the money that foreign countries are lending to us(China). I look for really rough times to appear soon.
Total economic collapse is right around the corner. But you make it sound like a bad thing.
The modern civilization is collapsing. That is the reality. And what will happen when a large percentage of Americans and others realize that this? Because they have been so deeply conditioned in ignorance, they will not be able to cope with the reality of the situation, and will totally freak out. We can expect suicides to increase as people lose their homes and families, we can expect large scale social rioting as food becomes more and more expensive and scarce.
I am an American who has moved to India, and I don’t know what will happen when the s*** hits the fan here. My guess is that we will see a reversal of the trend of people leaving the villages to move to the city, that is, we will see large numbers of people who lived in the city return to the villages because they won’t be able to find a job in the city anymore, and in the village at least they will be able to grow their own food. Indians will be much more capable of handling hard times since they are not as conditioned by all of the modern material comforts as westerners are, but still, I believe large scale rioting and anarchy will also occur here as well. Luckily, I am living in a very remote village in the middle of the jungle in south India, so I don’t think we will be so much affected by the coming social collapse as the people living in the cities will be.
The laws of the jungle have not been repealed, just delayed a little while.
You just wait and see the bad parts of town go up in flames when welfare checks and unemployement are gone. It will be like the Los Angeles riots x 100.
Get yourself supplies and protection. You gonna need it. Crime is already exploding.
Sure no money for americans. Lets just send more tax dollars to Haiti and Obama’s homeland of Africa. People have had about all their gonna take from this administration. Giving a speech and a promise everyday for the past year has not kept anyone in their home or their kids fed. We need someone with economic experience, it is not the tome to have a community organzer running the country. Maybe he will share some of his $100.00 a pound imported Japanese kyobe beef with the starving masses. I can hear it now ” let them eat beef”
Steven P@ And who would we Americans be? What about people who have worked all their lives, paid there taxes and bills on time, have 800++ fico’s, who do not have mortgages in the red, who owe pennies on credit cards, who have no delusion of what America should be. Your over inflated dream must be somebody only you can relate to or are familiar with. Because real people who never played your game are paying the price for those you seem to seem to refer to.
having spent 30 + years in a Fed. public service job, I have saw it all. I knew who the high livers were. I knew who the poor were. I saw with my own eyes, and was responsible for the delivery of all those county tax foreclosure notices, which broke my heart to tender over. I retired 2 years ago because I could’nt take to see any more. I remember how the people acted in the “good times” of just 2 or so years ago. They thought they were a part of the “elite”. Plenty of borrowed money on the cards and HELOC’s. They thought they were untouchable. Now look at them. Even deprived of their unemployment checks, at least for now. Those of us that still have some kind of money left. Those of us that worked all our lives to save a little “scratch”, and did’nt quickly blow it on trips to the islands or Disney World, are now gonna hand it over to the local gov. authorities in ever increasing property taxes, a lifetime of work and no longer anything to show for it by playing straight with the system, while a lot of others, played WITH the system. What about all this welfare? Food stamps and grants and such. How long are we still gonna have to pay lazy do nothings… to do nothing, while hard working…or formally hard working people do without even unemployment money?
My situation is this – we have lived our lives playing by the rules: never carried debt on a credit card that we couldn’t pay off by the due date. If we couldn’t afford the item, we didn’t buy it. We always had a Christmas Club which enabled us to pay cash for the holiday. We payed ourselves first after every paycheck whether it was $10 or $100, whatever we could afford. We made double payments on our mortgage when we could which helped us to pay off our modest home 10 years early. We knew that we couldn’t afford to “have it all” so we made our choices early on and stuck with it. We sacrificed the fancy vacations in order to do large home repairs (like a new roof) ourselves. We didn’t buy expensive cars and now own one outright and carry a small loan on another. That’s our only debt besides monthly bills. We chose jobs that provided health care benefits. We did everything right…we saved and saved and saved to have a decent retirement but of course last year took half the value of our 401k.
Now, I’m expected to sit back and watch Bush, Congress and Obama bail everyone out because they didn’t have the fiscal discipline to manage their money?? I’m supposed to feel bad for people who bought homes they couldn’t afford? or cars they couldn’t pay for? or $1000 cell phone bills? or $20,000 in credit card debt? HELL NO! I’m livid! If I ran my checkbook the way Washington is running the national checkbook, I’d be thrown in jail!
All we can do now is educate as many people as possible about what is happening and hopefully vote all these s.o.b.’s out of office and replace them with fiscally conservative candidates who will vote for term limits. The days of a career politician are over. I don’t know if we can turn any of this around – it will take a lot of hard work to make the tough decisions, but they have to be made if we’re to survive. How many people have the guts to work through this? Not many…we’ve become a spoiled, selfish, arrogant and hypocritical nation with no spine.
Housing will crash hard. One, when you raise rates, house prices will come down to adjust for the lower income levels, they have too. Which will cause more homeowners to be upside down in their existing mortgages. Hmm, so who is going to pay on that mortgage? Just deed in lieu of foreclosure and let the bank have it back. So, there will be a hard time coming for a lot of people.
Wow Mae! You have stated the obvious better than I’ve ever seen it. Thank You! My wife and I have followed the same rules for 25 years and it really pisses us off to hear people whine and complain about problems they brought on themselves. It’s hard to feel sorry for them at all.
I have yet to see anyone mention WHY the benefits are expiring. You can thank Jim Bunning for depriving these millions of families.
Also, if anyone is truly concerned about the deficit on this site, one needn’t look any further than simply returning to the tax structure we had in place for over 30 years.
This top graph shows what happened to the debt when that tax code was changed so that the richest 2% were no longer paying the share they had paid for decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png
Top adjusted for 2008 dollars.
Oh and “Fiscal Conservative” is an oxymoron:
http://crookedtimber.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/fiscalconservative.png
God bless jim bunning!!! i think paying people not too work is nuts especially when were 13 trillion in the hole and only 800 billion dollars printed
To all you ignorant people making comments about unemployment like it is welfare, you need to find out the facts. I have worked since I was 16 and am now 48. I have pulled pallet jacks, worked as a distribution clerk, personnel clerk, Import specialist, went to college, I have paid my dues.
I didnt ask for 3 companies I worked for to have huge Reductions In Force and eventually close their doors. I do not feel guilty receiving unemployment benefits to keep from loosing my car and home. I dont have luxurious things. All you people making those ignorant comments about receiving money without working; When you loose your job and Walmart isnt even hiring lets see how you are affected when you cant pay your bills on time. Get off of your soap boxes obviously if you are so well off in this economy you must be getting help from mommy and daddy or have an inheritance cause this economy is bad and getting worse. I know of people who were executives in large companies who lost everything not by any fault of their own… Wake up you Self Righteous hateful judgemental people because if you have not been affected yet just wait…..
Guys, you can play by the rules and still go down the tubes. Thank god I paid off my house, otherwise I’d be living in a box under a bridge. I was self-employed and I developed too many physical problems to work at the same time the distributors of my product all went bankrupt. I lost nearly all my money. I spent my savings holding on for seven years until Social Security kicked in–and I had no medical insurance or unemployment either.
But I don’t whine about it and I don’t complain that other people got help and I didn’t. I see too many posters bitching about people who need help, or medical treatment, or even food. Instead of compassion, you offer nasty, mean-spirited remarks. Since you too could experience a sudden loss, or get hit by a car, or develop a terminal disease, you might want to rethink your attitude.
we’re on pace to lose a million or two jobs this year, and probably that much next year.you want to turn the tide in our favor?simple, u buy something, look at the label, if says made in china put it back on the shelf.that’ll keep hop sing from eventually snagging your job. make no mistake, if you work for someone or some company you’re on the short list for unemployment benes
All the bitching aside, few posters would deny help to those who truly make an effort. But human nature makes it easy to put off work for ‘one more day’. After all, something big might break today so don’t miss it. Turn on the TV because it may show up. Lets see—I’ve got $300 this week. Enough for groceries. I’ll call Joe this afternoon and see if he’s found anything. Maybe we can split a beer.
I look at it like this. I worked construction for over 30 years. In the winter I would get laid off or I hardly had any hours. I did not claim unemployment becuase I was just too ashamed. Now that nobody is building anything, I really needed help this time, so I finally claimed my share of unemployment that I have paid through all these years. Now I want to go to school and learn a new trade becuase there is no construction jobs. At least I want to do something with my life instead of sitting around and being a dead beat like some of these other people that can’t get off their ass, but how can people like myself do this if we don’t have unemployment benefits? Its goes to show you that maybe people should be under the microscope more often and catch these dead beats ruining it for the rest of us hard workers! So good luck America! It was time to wake up eons ago on how we were getting ripped off from the central bank and these greedy CEO’s.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money,
first by inflation and then by deflation,
the banks and corporations that will
grow up around them (around the banks),
will deprive the people of their property
until their children will wake up homeless
on the continent their fathers conquered.”
- Thomas Jefferson
So true! So True!
unemployment workers,men and women,family-members go to street to wake up those so called congressmen, law makers before it,s too late.
the Hopi predict hunting in high places.