(Above video via email: In this MSNBC news clip from earlier today, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, calls on President Obama to take a bold economic recovery plan directly to the American people in his upcoming speech.)

So the Democratic officials on the ground must be hearing a lot about the unemployment crisis, because it sounds like they're going to try to communicate a sense of urgency to the president before he makes his Thursday speech:

The chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and of the three caucuses of black, Hispanic and Asian members of the House would like a word with President Obama before his Thursday jobs address.

In a Tuesday letter provided by a source, the leaders, who speak for a majority of House Dems, sought to make sure that Obama keeps his eye on the jobs crisis, which has disproportionately hit minority groups.

"With unemployment at 9.1% nationally-- approaching 12% in the Hispanic community, 16.7% in the African American community and with Asian American and Pacific Islanders remaining unemployed for longer periods than any other group-- we are in a national crisis. We have learned throughout American history that big, bold action is required to put people back to work and promote economic growth," the chairs write.

"The chairs of the CBC, CAPAC, CPC, and CHC look forward to an opportunity to talk with you about proposals we would like you to consider before you address the nation this week."

These guys have to be worried about getting reelected when the administration isn't pursuing aggressive policies to help the unemployed. Personally, I don't think Obama will pay much attention to them. If he decides not to even meet with them, it's probably because the proposals are too weak to defend.

I'm hearing from Hill sources that he's about to propose a package that won't do much: $300 billion in tax cuts and federal spending with over half of that made up of continuing the payroll tax "holiday" that's weakening Social Security, extending federal unemployment benefits, less than $50 billion for infrastructure, tax credits for hiring the unemployed, and extending the current provision that allows businesses to fully write off new equipment in the first year.

In other words, just enough spending to maintain the current economic situation without actually making it better.

UPDATE: John Amato: More possible bad news from Ezra Klein:

Getting less attention in the media is the follow-up speech the White House is planning, which will lay out a specific deficit-reduction agenda that not only meets the $1.5 trillion goal of the “supercommittee,” but exceeds it and pays for the new jobs spending. These proposals will look quite similar to the grand bargain the White House offered Speaker John Boehner, and liberal groups are grimly preparing for the administration to call for raising the Medicare eligibility age.

If he does offer up raising eligibility ages then he's going to have an even more serious problem with the entire Democratic Party and not just the ones that have been unhappy for a long time. Count me included in the latter category. Dems have already won special elections based on Paul Ryan's Medicare destruction bill that the House Republicans passed so this strategy makes no sense at all, especially since their debt ceiling negotiations only made independents angrier than before. What's the definition of insanity again?

People are going off a cliff and we're not really doing anything about it. That's not great public policy. - Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project

This "99ers" unemployment crisis is a giant iceberg lurking under the political water line, and the Democrats in Congress don't seem to understand they're dancing on the Titanic. Since Wall Street is happy, and corporate America is happy, they assume everything's fine.

Many Americans still think the last extension vote was intended to add additional benefits, and thus aren't swamping their representatives with calls and emails, so our political leaders happily doze at the wheel, assuming everything's fine.

It isn't. You know when they'll figure it out? The day after the November midterms. Well, don't say I didn't warn you.

In the meantime, if you're one of the lucky duckies whose unemployment ran out, please take part in today's Mayday SOS and fax or email your resume to your Congressional representatives:

Karl Schafer says he has tried for hundreds of jobs since he was laid off from a truck factory more than two years ago. Still waiting to get hired, the 52-year-old Ohio man has suffered the indignity of applying for food stamps and asking his elderly mother for help.

Weary of her own job search, former customer service representative Wagma Omar, 40, of Mission Viejo is thinking about applying for a dangerous civilian job in Afghanistan.

And in California's wine country, Kay Stephens, 56, is frantically looking to cut her living expenses so her unemployment doesn't become a burden to her 30-year-old daughter.

Schafer, Omar and Stephens are among the increasing number of unemployed Americans whose burdens just got heavier: They've exhausted their 99 weeks of jobless benefits and must now figure out how to get by on ever more meager resources.

In California, state officials estimate there are nearly 100,000 people who are still looking for work but can no longer draw an unemployment check. Federal labor officials could not provide a number nationally, but private-sector experts say it could easily top 1 million.

What is certain is that, as the jobless rate remains stubbornly high, more Americans will have to face the challenge of making ends meet without a monthly check.

"People are going off a cliff and we're not really doing anything about it," said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project. "That's not great public policy."

Once unemployment benefits run out, people are eligible for general relief — but that pays a maximum of $221 a month in Los Angeles County, compared with as much as nearly $2,000 a month for unemployment. Only workers with dependent children are eligible for welfare.

Worried that they could lose their homes and get put out on the street, thousands of "99ers," as they call themselves, are banding together to agitate for another extension. On Friday they're kicking off a "Mayday SOS" campaign, faxing and e-mailing Congress their resumes, along with pleas for more benefits.

[...] People who know they'll keep receiving benefits "don't rush to find new employment," said Alan Reynolds, a senior fellow at the conservative Cato Institute. Data show that the long-term unemployed often find a job just as their benefits run out, he said.

Talk about "receiving benefits"! All this Cato fellow has to do is keep parroting the conservative dogma, and he's set for life.

And really, isn't that how it should be?

Change.org is gathering signatures to petition Congress to add another tier of unemployment benefits. (No, the just-passed legislation doesn't do a thing for people who have just exhausted their 99 weeks of benefits - even though there aren't any jobs for them.)

You would think we wouldn't have to shame Democrats into standing up for those who need help, but apparently we do. Please, go sign the petition!

Greetings

Senators and Representatives:

You have decided to ignore the people you reduced to poverty. The longest unemployed workers did not create this depression, you did. You did this with your failure to regulate the banks, health industry, and corporations. People who were fully employed, paying taxes, and raising families are now paying the price for your negligence. They trusted you to keep something like this from happening. You failed them.

Now you are deliberately failing them again. This may be a recession for you, but it's a depression for them. You know this depression will last longer than until March, yet you have no plans to add additional unemployment tiers to keep these people from becoming increasingly destitute. Tens of thousands will begin to lose all financial support on March 14. You know with full clarity that these benefits are the only money keeping food on their tables. You know that their benefits run out in March, and that these American families will be on the path to shelters and soup kitchens.

...and this is not of their making. They're not to blame. You are.

...and you're about to discount them again by allowing their benefits to end with Tier IV.

By the way, don't pride yourself on extending the current benefits for the more recently unemployed, as included in the Job Bill. Of course you should do this, but as you know, the bill as it is written will not help any of those who have been the longest and hardest hit by this depression. The Job Bill only half addresses the unemployed, and 50% is an F.

Please make sure that the only choice for Americans who want to work is either a job or unemployment benefits. Don't end benefits until there are jobs for them. As of now, there is only 1 job for every 6 unemployed workers. Take care of these victims. ADD A TIER V.

[Your name]

I suppose this is good news ("good" meaning "less horrible"), but most of the new jobs added are in health care, or they're temp jobs. As we saw the other day, businesses are sitting on huge piles of cash but refusing to hire permanent employees:

After losing eight million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, payrolls finally surged in March, the Labor Department reported on Friday. Employers added 162,000 nonfarm jobs last month. Nationwide, the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent.

“We are beginning to turn the corner,” said President Obama, speaking in Charlotte, N.C., calling it “the best news we’ve seen on the job front in more than two years.”

Though everything seems to be moving in the right direction, he was careful not to raise expectations too high. “It will take time to achieve the strong and sustained job growth that we need,” President Obama said.

The economy needs to add more than 100,000 jobs a month just to absorb new entrants into the labor market, let alone provide a livelihood for the 15 million Americans already looking for work. Without constant, robust growth, the unemployment rate won’t budge. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office has projected that the rate will hover around 10 percent for the rest of the year.

And in the meantime, two million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits Monday:

The interruption in benefits will last two weeks at a minimum, according to Judy Conti of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), since lawmakers return from spring break on April 12.

As the two-week recess began, Congress was at an impasse over how to extend the emergency unemployment insurance program and other expiring provisions, including increased COBRA health insurance subsidies for the unemployed, the Medicare doctor payment rate and federal flood insurance.

Senate Republicans said the $9.3 billion, 30-day extension preferred by Democrats should be paid for, while Democrats said the bill's cost didn't need to be offset because the program was "emergency spending."

Under the jobless benefits program that ends Monday, Americans out of work are eligible for up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. The program, aimed at helping jobless Americans stay afloat when new jobs aren't readily available, gives an unemployed worker more than the 26 weeks of unemployment insurance normally available. But with the program ending, those out of work for as few as six months will see an interruption in their benefit checks.

This will be fixed when Congress returns and the benefits will be paid retroacticely, but in the meantime, a lot of people will be suffering real hardship. Nice work, House of Lords!

I continue to worry that at some point, Wall Street will convince the administration that it would be a great psychological ploy to cut off unemployment compensation to convince the market there's a recovery.

And if they do that, all hell will break loose:

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. employers won’t hire enough workers this year to lower the jobless rate much below the level of 9.7 percent reached in February, three Obama administration economic officials said today.

The proportion of Americans who can’t find work is likely to “remain elevated for an extended period,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, White House budget director Peter Orszag and Christina Romer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said in a joint statement. The officials said unemployment may even rise “slightly” over the next few months as discouraged workers start job-hunting again.

“We do not expect further declines in unemployment this year,” the officials said in testimony prepared for the House Appropriations Committee. They predicted the economy would add about 100,000 jobs a month on average -- not enough to bring the jobless rate down substantially.

Today’s projections are in line with the 10 percent average unemployment forecast for this year in last month’s budget plan. Christopher Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York, said the administration’s language risks damping expectations for a recovery.

“They need to work on the message, and right now the message is that there is not a lot to be hopeful about,” Rupkey said. “Warning about a slow jobless recovery can help make it a reality.”

Older workers really are having a harder time, and this is why opening Medicare to people 55 and older would have helped the group that was slammed so hard in this recession. But, you know, I guess they're just going to let us hang instead.

Washington, DC—Older workers endured a staggering 331% increase in unemployment over the last 10 years, a new analysis conducted by the AARP Public Policy Institute shows. This dramatic rise in older unemployed workers has resulted in declining financial and retirement security for millions of Americans who have little time to make up the losses.

[...] The new analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by AARP’s Public Policy Institute shows a dramatic 331.4% increase in the number of unemployed Americans age 55+ and over from January 2000 through December 2009. For age 65+ workers, the increase in the number of unemployed was lower, but still a massive 235%.

During this 10-year period, the number of people unemployed individuals age 55+ increased from 490,000 to 2,114,000. The number of unemployed individuals age 65+ jumped from 143,000 to 479,000.

“Many older Americans are trying to reenter the workforce or stay employed longer for a variety of reasons—for millions of older workers, there is no other choice,” said LeaMond.

On another important measure, duration of unemployment—the length of time an unemployed worker has been looking for a job—older workers also faced an incredibly difficult time.

Average duration of unemployment for workers age 55+ increased from 18.7 weeks in January, 2000 to 34.7 weeks in December, 2009—a jump of 85.6%. Over the same time period, workers age 65+ saw their situation go from bad (24.8 weeks of unemployment) to worse (32.9 weeks), an increase of 32.7%.

Just about every laid-off person I know developed health problems - and the ones who don't have health insurance are even more terrified. (I had breakfast today with an unemployed friend who has severe anxiety attacks and is turning agoraphobic.)

That's why I don't pay any attention to the "experts" who insist the Dems should have concentrated on jobs and not healthcare reform. It's both. Concentrating on one and not the other is like selling somebody one shoe:

A growing body of research suggests that layoffs can have profound health consequences. One 2006 study by a group of epidemiologists at Yale found that layoffs more than doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke among older workers. Another paper, published last year by Kate W. Strully, a sociology professor at the State University of New York at Albany, found that a person who lost a job had an 83 percent greater chance of developing a stress-related health problem, like diabetes, arthritis or psychiatric issues.

In perhaps the most sobering finding, a study published last year found that layoffs can affect life expectancy. The paper, by Till von Wachter, a Columbia University economist, and Daniel G. Sullivan, director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, examined death records and earnings data in Pennsylvania during the recession of the early 1980s and concluded that death rates among high-seniority male workers jumped by 50 percent to 100 percent in the year after a job loss, depending on the worker’s age. Even 20 years later, deaths were 10 percent to 15 percent higher. That meant a worker who lost his job at age 40 had his life expectancy cut by a year to a year and half.

Additional investigation is still needed to understand the exact connection between job loss and poor health, according to scientists. The focus is mostly on the direct and indirect effects of stress. Acute stress can cause biochemical changes that trigger heart attacks, for example. Job loss and chronic stress can also lead to lifestyle changes that damage health.

[...] “We’re just at the very beginning of studying pathways,” said William T. Gallo, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Hunter College in New York. “We want to find out how we can intervene so we can lessen the effects of job loss, or eliminate them.”

Awfully optimistic, aren't they? I hope they're right:

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Fewer Americans than anticipated filed claims for unemployment benefits last week, pointing to an improvement in the labor market that will help sustain economic growth next year.

Initial jobless claims fell by 22,000 to 432,000 in the week ended Dec. 26, the lowest level since July 2008, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The number of people receiving unemployment insurance fell in the prior week to 4.98 million, and those receiving extended benefits jumped.

Companies are retaining staff as sales improve and production picks up. Gains in consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, may encourage more hiring in coming months, helping to bolster the rebound from the worst recession since the 1930s.

“It’s boding well for outright job growth,” said Stephen Gallagher, chief U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, who forecast claims would drop to 430,000. “It seems that some of the layoffs that took place in the early part of the year were excessive.”

You have to love how utterly shameless these Republican oligarchs are. In the middle of a massive recession, a Republican governor is complaining about "Rolls Royce" unemployment benefits in Indiana. By "Rolls Royce," I assume he means anyone who's getting enough money to pay for heat is living too damned high on the hog.

Maximum weekly unemployment benefit in Indiana: $360.

But that's not even news, is it? That the party that so happily poured billions of untracked dollars down the memory hole in Iraq is suddenly so thrifty when it comes to us cannot be a shock to any sentient being:

The recession's jobless toll is draining unemployment-compensation funds so fast that according to federal projections, 40 state programs will go broke within two years and need $90 billion in loans to keep issuing the benefit checks.

The shortfalls are putting pressure on governments to either raise taxes or shrink the aid payments.

Debates over the state benefit programs have erupted in South Carolina, Nevada, Kansas, Vermont and Indiana. And the budget gaps are expected to spread and become more acute in the coming year, compelling legislators in many states to reconsider their operations.

Currently, 25 states have run out of unemployment money and have borrowed $24 billion from the federal government to cover the gaps. By 2011, according to Department of Labor estimates, 40 state funds will have been emptied by the jobless tsunami.

"There's immense pressure, and it's got to be faced," said Indiana state Rep. David Niezgodski (D), a sponsor of a bill that addressed the gaps in Indiana's unemployment program. "Our system was absolutely broke."

The Indiana legislation protected the aid checks, Niezgodski said, but it came after a give-and-take this spring in which Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. (R) said the state had been providing "Rolls-Royce benefits" and several thousand union workers countered by protesting proposed cuts at the state capitol. In January, the legislature is slated to consider a bill to delay the proposed tax increases intended to refill the fund.

But hey, it's not as if any of us can afford antidepressants, anyway!

In the meantime, bankers are doing better than ever and Joe Lieberman has decided that insurance companies are more important than you or your family. The Democrats haven't delivered on even one major promise and that light at the end of the tunnel sure does look like an oncoming train. Why wouldn't you be depressed?

More than half of the nation’s unemployed workers have borrowed money from friends or relatives since losing their jobs. An equal number have cut back on doctor visits or medical treatments because they are out of work.

Almost half have suffered from depression or anxiety. About 4 in 10 parents have noticed behavioral changes in their children that they attribute to their difficulties in finding work.

Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults, causing major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.

The results of the poll, which surveyed 708 unemployed adults from Dec. 5 to Dec. 10 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points, help to lay bare the depth of the trauma experienced by millions across the country who are out of work as the jobless rate hovers at 10 percent and, in particular, as the ranks of the long-term unemployed soar.

Roughly half of the respondents described the recession as a hardship that had caused fundamental changes in their lives. Generally, those who have been out of work longer reported experiencing more acute financial and emotional effects.