UI funding crisis: ‘It’s becoming very hard on my household…’

Representative David Cicilline held a press conference this weekend calling out a “Republican-led Congress” that skipped town for the holidays leaving 1.3 million Americans without desperately needed unemployment insurance.

He also asked three Rhode Islanders to tell their stories.

• Read Steve Ahlquist’s full series here
• Rhonda McMichaels tells her story
• Reed, Cicilline fight to restore unemployment benefits

Clarice Thompson has a job, but her partner has been unemployed since July. Clarice spoke because her partner is “not able to be here because she’s looking for work… out and about, doing just that.” Recently her partner had to extend her search for work outside of Rhode Island.

Clarice later told me that when her partner was laid off the family could only afford the COBRA health care insurance payments for one of them, so Clarice currently has no health care coverage. They had to choose between health care for Clarice and paying the mortgage on the house.