11/26/2025
50 YEARS of ORGANIZING AND SERVING OUR COMMUNITY
PHILADELPHIA UNEMPLOYMENT PROJECT
1975-2025
PUP is celebrating 50 years of continuous work on behalf of unemployed and low income people in the Philadelphia area and across the nation.
PUP began in 1975 as an effort to link the 1960s welfare rights organizing with working class unemployed workers. PUP has always focused on organizing and providing direct services to people in need due economic conditions which affected their lives and those of their families.
We have brought together workers of all races and nationalities linked by economic issues which were causing wide spread pain. Successful organizing has taken place over the past 50 years on issues like access to hospital care for the uninsured, extending unemployment benefits during recessions, fighting plant closings, winning public jobs programs, demanding fair minimum wages, preserving public health clinics, expanding Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, preventing mortgage foreclosures and evictions, providing reverse commute access for inner city workers, getting eligible workers their unemployment benefits in a timely fashion and other issues of importance to working class people.
Our Unemployment Information Center has a proud history of helping people get the benefits they are entitiled to during periods of unemployment and provides exceptional housing counseling to keep people in their homes and apartments until they get back on their feet.
Our Commuter Options program provides van pooling service to get inner city workers to better paying jobs in the suburbs.
We want to thank all those workers and supporters who have been part of our proud 50 year history. We continue on!
If you would like to celebrate our 50 years with a donation you can click here- https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/donate-to-pup