Catholic World News

US bishops call for continued unemployment benefits

December 13, 2011

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is urging members of the House of Representatives to “find effective ways to assure continuing Unemployment Insurance and Emergency Unemployment Compensation to protect jobless workers and their families.” The House is considering a measure that would the reduce the duration of unemployment benefits from a maximum of 99 weeks to 59 weeks.

“When the economy fails to generate sufficient jobs, there is a moral obligation to help protect the life and dignity of unemployed workers and their families,” said Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

In his letter to House members, Bishop Blaire quoted Blessed John Paul II, who wrote in his 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens that “the obligation to provide unemployment benefits, that is to say, the duty to make suitable grants indispensable for the subsistence of unemployed workers and their families, is a duty springing from the fundamental principle of . . . the right to life and subsistence.”

For all current news, visit our News home page.