After her kids leave for school in the morning, Lisa Cicchinelli turns the heat down. On the weekends, Cicchinelli's husband picks up odd jobs around their Loudonville neighborhood: cutting lawns, cleaning houses.
Since Cicchinelli was let go from her job as at a local doctor's office in June, these small sacrifices are just a few of the adjustments her family has made to stay above the margins.
The extra few hundred dollars each month from emergency unemployment insurance, a federal program that extends unemployment benefits for those who have exhausted what they can collect from the state, went a long way. On Dec. 28, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act expired. Flanked by Democratic lawmakers, Cicchinelli and others who say they are stretched to the brink without the federal funds gathered at a city coffee shop Sunday, urging Congress to pass an extension for benefits they say are needed to pay bills and buy groceries.
"What I got from unemployment helped us sustain," Cicchinelli, 46, said. "It's not going to the movies, it's not going to dinners out."
The Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act was created in June 2008. Attempts at an extension of the bill failed to move forward in the House of Representatives, where Democrats who support the extension have failed to generate enough Republican support. Those opposed to an extension have given various explanations, including arguments that tax exemptions would be a better solution and accusations that Democrats are using the act to push unemployment as a campaign issue.
The bill's backers say the extended unemployment benefits help the economy because almost all the money that goes to people like Cicchinelli isn't saved, but rather immediately spent on necessities. At a news conference Sunday at the Hudson River Coffee House on Quail Street, Assemblywoman Pat Fahy said that every $1 of unemployment benefits creates roughly $1.50 for the economy.
"No other rebate has this type of ripple effect," Fahy said.
Congress failing to extend the benefits has also prompted a rally to raise awareness of society's marginalized. The Freedom from Want rally will be held Tuesday at noon at West Capitol Park, on the steps near the Alfred E. Smith Building. Based on President Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous Four Freedoms speech in 1941 in the prelude to U.S. entering into World War II, the rally will have free hot food and feature speakers from Occupy Albany, SNUG, Women Against War, Homeless and Travelers Aid Society, Homeless Action Committee and Hunger Action Network. Advocates for the poor and homeless said they were discouraged that Gov. Andrew Cuomo's State of the State address last week did not offer any new initiatives to combat social problems like unemployment benefits and cuts in food stamp funding.
At Sunday's news conference, U.S. Rep. Paul D. Tonko said that in New York, 127,000 people lost a total of $38,860,825 the first week after the benefits were not extended.
"It's a heartless, insensitive lack of understanding," Tonko said.