Nearly three-quarters of voters say extending unemployment insurance (UI) and COBRA health care benefits that [1] Congress allowed to expire last month is more important than reducing the deficit, according to a new poll.

[2] The survey, by Hart Research Associates, says 74 percent of the public believes it is too soon for Congress to cut back UI and COBRA benefits. Just 21 percent said extended UI and COBRA should be cut back to help reduce the federal deficit.

With unemployment near 10 percent, at least 15 million people out of work and 6.8 million people out of work for 27 weeks or more, National Employment Law Project ([3] NELP) Executive Director Chris Owens says:

We cannot let a handful of misguided deficit hawks pull the plug on benefits that are precisely the kind of stimulus needed for economic recovery and deficit reduction. Given the choice, the vast majority of the American people would provide unemployed workers and their communities the benefits they continue to need—Congress should be listening to them.

Just before Memorial Day, the U.S. [1] House passed a limited jobs bill that include a six-month extension of the UI program but not COBRA, which provides subsidies to help jobless workers maintain their health care coverage. COBRA and financial aid to states that could save 900,000 private- and public-sector jobs were dropped from the original jobs bill because many members claimed it would increase the federal deficit. The Senate left town without acting on the bill. More than 250,000 people a week are losing their unemployment benefits, according to NELP.

The Senate is now considering the House bill and may return COBRA and the state aid to the legislation, though Republicans and a handful of Democrats are citing concerns about the federal deficit. But AFL-CIO President [4] Richard Trumka said yesterday at the America’s Future Now conference, while there is a long-term deficit problem—mainly due the current weak economy

we have no short-term deficit problem. Textbook economics and decades of experience teach us that slashing spending when we still have high unemployment is a terrible idea. Not only will many suffer needlessly, but it does little to improve the budget deficit, because what the government saves by cutting back on spending, it loses as a weaker economy depresses tax receipts.

It is simply sick that we have millions of unemployed, trillions of dollars of work to do and politicians blocking action in the name of a deficit crisis that doesn’t exist.

Call you senators today at 877-442-6801 and urge them to extend lifeline aid to states and jobless families. If the Senate doesn’t continue helping states with their Medicaid costs, state budgets will sink into an even deeper free fall with devastating consequences for health care, school funding and jobs. And failing to keep COBRA health coverage affordable to jobless families threatens their ability to survive unemployment.

Meanwhile, a new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute ([5] EPI) finds that unemployment numbers for Hispanics and African Americans is at depression-era levels in many major metropolitan areas.

According to the study, “[6] Uneven Pain: Unemployment by Metropolitan Area and Race“:

The Hispanic and African American metro unemployment rates exceeded 1.5 times the white metro unemployment rate in most of the metros analyzed.

The white unemployment rate reached double digits in four metro areas. Unemployment rates for nonwhite populations were particularly high in three cities: Providence had a Hispanic unemployment rate of 21.4 percent and Detroit and Minneapolis had African American unemployment rates of 20.9 percent and 20.4 percent, respectively.

Click [6] here for the full report.