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Dear Friend,
We need your help! In just three weeks, unless the U.S. Congress acts, many of the pandemic relief policies that have been lifelines for our families and economy (like extended unemployment benefits, emergency paid family leave and earned sick days, and eviction protections) will all expire on December 31st. [1]
We are facing a crisis on top of a crisis!
Congress has no time to waste. Our families, like Kimberly’s, are hurting:
“I’m a single parent with a school age child. Since the pandemic began, I lost my second job and all child care options. I’m fortunate enough to be able to work from home, but it’s nearly impossible to work full time and supervise remote learning. My rent increased, grocery costs are soaring, and I learned this week that our company health plan costs are increasing significantly in January. Our budget is razor thin and shrinking. Seven members of my family have COVID-19 and we lost family earlier this year. Everyone I know is suffering from this pandemic.”
These critical benefits that are about to expire? They’ve been helping so many of us. For examples, a recent study from researchers at Cornell University and the Swiss Economic Institute, states with new access to emergency paid leave during the pandemic have seen 400 fewer cases per day, further underscoring that paid leave is one of the best tools for slowing the spread of the virus and combating the pandemic. [2]
We can’t let paid leave and other critical programs expire just as COVID-19 is surging.
Making your voice heard now is super important because negotiations have started on an end-of-the year COVID-relief package and we’re hearing that a final package might be introduced in the coming days. [3] We need to make sure Congress takes action to extend critical COVID relief to families and that OUR priorities are in that package--not just protections and giveaways to big business and the very wealthy.
Our families have been waiting months for more funding for programs that will support our families, hospitals, and economy during this pandemic. Programs like expanded unemployment benefits, extensions on emergency paid leave and earned sick days, protections against evictions, funding for healthcare programs and childcare and K-12 education, and expansions of the EITC and Child Tax Credit and another round of stimulus checks are essential to provide much needed cash to struggling families and local businesses.
While we have needed this package for months, the crisis point we are facing right now is extreme. Unless the U.S. Congress takes action within the next few weeks, 12 million people will be immediately kicked off of unemployment insurance [4] and 19 million renters will lose their homes. [5] This is all at the same time that 1 in 4 children are living in hunger because of the impacts of COVID and cases of the virus are soaring in every single state—and only expected to go up as we head into the holidays and colder months. [6,7]
Inaction is not an option! Our families and economy are hurting and we need our leaders in the U.S. Congress to know that we expect them to take action NOW!
Even if you think your members of Congress already support COVID relief, we need all of Congress talking about how much they are hearing from their constituents about how urgent this is. This is why earlier in the week we asked you to call your U.S. Senators and now we are asking that you sign our petition.
We plan on delivering this petition Monday morning so after you sign our petition, please forward this email to your friends and family. You can also Retweet us on Twitter and repost us on Facebook. We need to continue to make our voices heard until the U.S. Congress passes emergency aid for COVID!
-Elyssa, Ruth, Felicia, Nina, Hanna, Donna, Kristin, and the whole MomsRising / MamásConPoder team
P.S. Are you one of the people that will lose emergency paid leave or unemployment benefits at the end of the year? Are you struggling with child care and/or virtual learning during the pandemic? MomsRising wants to hear from you about your COVID experience.
P.P.S. Monday morning can you call your U.S. Senators and let them know that #ReliefCantWait? Text RELIEFNOW to 747464 and when we connect you tell them, “Pass a COVID-relief package that protects all families and extends paid leave, unemployment benefits, eviction protections and funding for childcare and healthcare.”
Register to vote! / ¡Regístrese para votar!
Join our Spanish language community, MamásConPoder.org
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