Louisville the latest to join dozens of jurisdictions giving qualified job applicants who have past convictions a fair chance

Statement of NELP Executive Director Christine Owens

“We’re pleased that a filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate has at long last found a way to resolve their differences and reach agreement on a temporary, paid-for reauthorization of the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program.

“This agreement is not perfect; we would prefer a longer-term renewal, to avoid re-fighting this battle in the early summer.  But if enacted promptly by the Senate and the House, the measure will restore benefits, retroactively, to more than two million long-term unemployed workers who have been denied this crucial support during the harshest winter the nation has experienced in years.

“For the sake of those unemployed workers and their families, we urge Congress not to fail them again—to take up and pass this measure as quickly as possible, restoring benefits and avoiding further infliction of needless injury on those who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and have already paid a heavy price for an economic downturn they neither caused nor contributed to.”