The Missing Million

THE MISSING MILLION

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am happy we were able to get an extension of unemployment compensation earlier today so there is a seamless flow of checks from December 28 through the period of our new legislation. If we had not completed it today, and hopefully in the House tomorrow and with the President's signature on Thursday, there would have been a lapse of those checks. We could have gone back and made up the difference but there still would have been a period of time that unemployed people would not get checks. I know there was a lot of concern on the other side of the aisle that we were trying to pass this too quickly. I am glad they backed down and allowed us to move ahead.

During the debate that took the form of reserving the right to object, there were a number of statements made about what they wanted to do. I take the opportunity to clarify the record of what my Democratic colleagues were really talking about. A number of colleagues have made the statement that the unemployment extension we passed earlier today leaves out a million workers.

Under the regular State unemployment program—and this is under longstanding law—workers are entitled to as much as 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. Under the temporary federally funded unemployment program that Congress passed last March, which we are continuing now, those who exhaust their State regular unemployment benefits can receive up to 13 weeks of additional benefits. In addition, the program we passed last March provided up to 13 weeks of yet more benefits in extremely high unemployment States. In those high unemployment States, that means a maximum of 26 weeks of Federal benefits on top of the usual 26 weeks of State benefits. I repeat, workers in every State can collect 39 weeks of benefits—26 weeks State, plus 13 weeks Federal. And workers in high unemployment States can collect 52 weeks of benefits—26 weeks of State benefits and 13 weeks Federal, plus an additional 13 weeks for unemployed people in the high unemployment States.

As we discussed, the bill we passed earlier today would allow more than 2 million workers to collect extended benefits through May of this year. According to some of my Democratic colleagues, that is not enough. They want to let workers who have collected 26 weeks of regular State benefits plus 13 weeks of federally funded benefits collect an additional 13 weeks of benefits, for a total of 52 weeks of benefits for everyone, every place, regardless of the unemployment rate of a particular State. In other words, the agreement we reached last March to provide up to 9 months of benefits in every State, and 12 months of benefits in high unemployment States, is no longer good enough as indicated by the debate of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle earlier this afternoon. They want 12 months of benefits for everyone in every State regardless of whether unemployment is going up or going down.

They claim extending last year's agreement leaves out a million workers. I respectfully disagree. Their proposal goes well beyond anything Congress has ever done. It provides 12 months of federally funded benefits to all workers in every State. While the national unemployment rate is higher than it was at this time last year, the unemployment rate in 20 States is now lower than it was a year ago.

Under current law, no one can receive more in federally funded benefits than they received in State benefits. In other words, those who collect 26 weeks of State benefits could also collect 26 weeks of federally funded benefits; but in those States that might have only 20 weeks of State benefits, then there would only be 20 weeks of federally funded benefits under current law. So there is a link between what we give in Federal benefits and State benefits. This link is designed to give States the ability to honor their unemployment program.

Although we have not seen the latest version, the Democratic proposal would break this link. By breaking the link, it would pay federally funded benefits without regard to the 26 week level of State benefits. This represents a very historic and unprecedented expansion of the unemployment program.

While we may need to revisit the issue of unemployment benefits later this year, it seems to me that we should carefully review this proposal before final action. In the meantime, we have had an opportunity to make sure that there is a seamless flow of checks from December 28, now, to those 750,000 unemployed people who would otherwise have had a lapse in receiving unemployment compensation, plus probably 2.5 million people connected with those respective families. And, for people on the other side of the aisle who think they have legitimacy and want to discuss these additional issues, the institution of the Senate is very prone towards hearing any idea that Senators want presented, having an environment or a forum for the presentation of that. So we probably will be forced to, and maybe ought to, review what the Democrats propose today. But we should not do it in an environment as we had today. If it had been adopted today, I am sure the House of Representatives would not have accepted it and, obviously, if we had gone to conference to work out the differences, no bill would have been presented to the President of the United States by Thursday—for his signature in time, then, to keep a seamless flow of unemployment checks.

So I am glad we were able to work this out. Obviously, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I have to be open to discussion of any issues dealing with unemployment. I look forward to those discussions but in an environment that does not stall the flow of checks for people who are deserving of them, and that is those people who would have otherwise been cut off on December 28.