99 weeks.

Editor,

If mass unemployment is going to be a fixture in the American economy for as far as the eye can see, and of course it will be because our manufacturing sector has been decimated and even a WPA program to put money in workers' hands by borrowing it from the richest 2% of Americans would only tamp down unemployment temporarily, why will workers, who are not being rehired but have paid taxes and contributed faithfully to the American project for the last 30 or 40 years, be kicked off of unemployment compensation after they have collected it for 99 weeks? What is magic about the number 99? Why does the absence of jobs become these workers' fault after 99 weeks?

Re: "A Cross of Rubber" (1/31/2011)