Friends,
President Biden’s new May job numbers are showing a positive trend in the right direction, thanks to the American Rescue Plan. Nearly 500,000 jobs were added in May.
Despite the improving but still fragile public health and economy, Governor Parson pulled Missouri out of an agreement to continue to fund the federal unemployment benefits last month, despite $770 million in federal funding still available to our state.
Tomorrow we will see the consequences of this shortsighted decision.
The American Rescue Plan extended the program through September 6th. Yet, after June 12th, federal unemployment benefits checks will cease in Missouri for 147,000 workers, the first state to do so in the country. Currently, the payments are $363 weekly.
“This costs the state absolutely nothing. The federal government has already set aside this money and the governor is just walking away from it, walking away from the Missouri people,” said Executive Director of the Missouri Democratic Party Randy Dunn.
In addition to the improving job numbers, the pandemic is in retreat. Nearly 300 million doses have been administered across the country, lowering deaths by 85%. In Missouri, we are still falling behind in vaccination rates. Right now, we stand at only 35%.
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MDP has created a new Missouri Playbook that we will roll-out in the next few weeks. Below we outline some of the strategies included:
- We are applying for a grant from the DNC to open regional offices across the state, including in our rural counties. The goal is ten offices, and the DNC grant will help fund creation and staffing. Currently, we have staff in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis.
- We are fostering relationships with new media outlets, newsletters and rural communications like radio. We are also developing a project to create an MDP podcast focused on rural issues and doing more to support our important Rural Caucus.
- We are visiting counties across the state already and are excited to get back to successfully and safely canvassing after COVID-19.
- We will bolster our existing volunteer programs by providing additional training and resources, but also build new volunteer recruitment and training procedures utilized in other parts of the country.
- We are actively working to recruit candidates who truly understand the needs of Missourians for races up and down the ballot. We are focusing ourselves on serving those candidates in the best way we can.
- We have hired new staff with diverse skills and experience with successful Democratic caucuses, campaigns and state parties. This will help us pivot in a different direction in canvassing, messaging, and fundraising. They came on staff May 31st.
As mentioned above, our new Missouri Playbook will include more details on our next steps and outlines our path forward with our base and new voters. We will release our plan in the following weeks.
We welcome further outreach and are happy to share more information if desired. This energy is just what Missouri needs.
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IN THE NEWS:
-GOP Rep. Vicky Hartzler announced her campaign for Roy Blunt’s Senate seat, creating an open House seat in Missouri’s 4th District, held by Democrats until 2010.
-Kansas City lost a trailblazing leader this week, Lali Garcia. We mourn her loss and our thoughts are with her family, the Latino community and Guadalupe Center.
You can also purchase our new #MoDemsCare merchandise from our online store.
