A True Emergency
As with food stamps, so with Emergency Unemployment Compensation or EUC.
It’s been estimated that for every dollar paid out as food stamps, about $1.73 goes back into the U.S. economy. By way of extrapolating, let’s apply that same ratio – 1:1.73 – to Emergency Unemployment Compensation.
The national average for weekly EUC benefits is about $300.00. So we can assume, based on that figure and the ratio above, that for every such single weekly payment, about $519.00 returns to circulation.
There are approximately 1.3 million folks who, as of December 28, lost EUC. That means that not just $519.00, but a whopping $674 million is removed from our still-slightly-shaky economy every week.
Now let’s bring that nearly $675 million into sharper relief. Such an amount would fund:
- About 67.5 million flu shots
- One 135 million foot long sandwiches from Subway
- Almost 675,776 season tickets to 2014 Pittsburgh Pirates baseball (and the invaluable experience of watching Andrew McCutchen, the National League’s 2013 MVP)
Should the U. S. House of Representatives fail to take up and pass an additional three months of extended EUC benefits, the total of $675 million eliminated from our economy would skyrocket to a monstrous $8.1 billion.
Looks like the recipients of help put a lot back too.
Michele Petrovsky, Webmaster at Tools4Change Author of, Cathedral or Bazaar? Fix Higher Education – Teach by the Seat of Your Pants , Donkey Dharma, and Quick Guide to Linux Glen Mills, Pa.
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