Will stoppage of long term benefits increase cat relinquishment?
In the United States, federal long-term unemployment benefit that was instigated by president Bush is to be stopped this Saturday. It is a generous welfare benefit and stopping it will severely affect about 1.3 million Americans initially. The numbers will climb. In California alone half-million people will lose payments by June.
When I read what the people in receipt of this unemployment payment are saying it makes me think of cats and dogs. People are talking about having to move home and pawn possessions etc. to get by. For some people this is a very big deal. We know that keeping a cat properly is not cheap. It all adds up.
We also know that the cost of keeping a cat and moving home are two of the most common reasons for relinquishing a cat.
Add up all these factors and there would appear to be the sad prospect of a lot more cat reliquishments over the forthcoming months.
About 46% of Americans keep a cat. That means that almost 600,000 of the people who are about to lose benefits have a cat. If just 10% relinquish their cat there will 60,000 more cats in shelters.
I just wanted to make the point, speak out on behalf of the cat that this federal government policy, amongst other things, will probably indirectly result in cats being PTS.
The difficulty is that the federal government can’t afford to keep running this welfare scheme to support the long term unemployed, plus the crisis is meant to almost over.