Nonprofit Newswire | Stimulus Cliff: 240,000 Jobs at Risk?

September 27, 2010; Source: Huffington Post | Among other expiring components of stimulus funding is an “Emergency Fund” under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program that helped put an estimated 240,000 unemployed people to work, sometimes in nonprofits like San Francisco’s Living Wage Coalition. The Coalition employs six moms who will soon be out of a job as of September 30 unless the Senate does a very unlikely about-face. The Senate voted in May not to reauthorize the bill and an attempt last week to resurface it was blocked by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. Even the American Enterprise Institute’s Kevin Hassett endorses the program. He called it a “pretty cost-effective way to create jobs.” Think about these people when next you hear a jobs report. For those who will be handed pink slips at week’s end, this will clearly be a cruel turn of events.—Ruth McCambridge