Economic Hardship in America

Floor Speech

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Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address what is top of mind to Americans across the country, and that is the extraordinary economic and health hardship of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout this year.

The reason I decided to rise today is because we are here convening in Washington, and just a day or two ago, the Senate majority leader, Senator McConnell, decided to break the Senate.

He broke the Senate as there are thousands of people in Texas lined up for food lines. He broke the Senate while hospitals no longer have beds to house the sick. He broke the Senate and dismissed the Senate while 30 million Americans are on the brink of eviction.

He dismissed the Senate when every single day when we go back to our communities, people are asking us: Is there going to be help? Is there going to be a second stimulus check? Are we going to get the resources that we need?

He broke the Senate. And in breaking the Senate, we are abandoning our people.

Thanksgiving is around the corner, and there are millions of Americans that won't be able to afford a meal to eat, that don't know if they will be kicked out of their home, that are unsure if they are going to have to quit their job to care for their child. And we are having entire bodies, and the Senate prides itself as one of the most deliberative bodies, they abandoned them.

The number of Americans living in poverty since May has grown by 8 million people, since just May 2020. According to a study from Columbia University, this rise in poverty has been concentrated in Black and Latino children and people.

The CARES Act stimulus checks and unemployment benefits lifted more than 18 million individuals in the United States out of monthly poverty in April alone. But this number fell from 18 million to 4 million individuals in August and September after unemployment benefits were expired.

Just 44 percent of people in the United States are very confident that they can afford the needed food that will be necessary for the next 4 weeks. That means the majority of people in the United States are not very confident in their ability to eat over the next 4 weeks, according to a new Census survey data. About 10 percent, or 3.5 million households, are not at all confident in their ability to eat the week before Thanksgiving, and the Senate broke. It is unconscionable, unconscionable leadership to abandon our people.

And while we are arguing about negotiations, and while we are arguing about points, people are going hungry. And we are dismissing their needs as blue State needs or as bailouts depending on what party you voted for. Hunger has no party. Illness has no party. And when we allow suffering to be alleviated or concentrated based on political affiliation, we are doing a disservice to our entire Nation.

This uncertainty in food reflects food hardship across the country, with 5.6 million households with children struggling to put enough food on the table in the last 7 days.

Landlords filed at least 43,500 evictions in 17 major cities from March until September. An estimated 13.4 million adults living in rental housing today--nearly one-in-five renters--were not caught up on rent.

Small businesses don't know if they are going to survive or exist in a month, in a week, in January.

We cannot afford to wait for a new administration or another election, or a political state of play. We need to get people help now, and the Senate broke. They broke.

We are supposed to be here to work for everyday people. We are not supposed to be here to work for political donors or political favors or the powerful. We are here to serve the people who are most vulnerable, all the way up to the top. But we start with the people most in need.

Our country is going hungry on the week before Thanksgiving, and the Senate broke. I don't care what party you are. It is an abandonment of our responsibilities as elected officials who are charged with acting in the public trust.

The unemployment rate jumped in April to a level not seen since the 1930s and still stood at 6.9 percent in October. Some 10.8 percent of Black workers and 8.8 percent of Latino workers were unemployed in October compared to 6 percent of White workers. Last week, 1.1 million Americans filed new unemployment claims. Today, 4.4 million Americans are receiving pandemic emergency unemployment compensation, up from 1.4 million in August.

Last week was the 35th straight week total initial claims were greater than the worst week of the Great Recession, and the Senate broke.

You know, I want to address some of the claims, because yesterday I said that we need to make sure that people get economic relief due to these shutdowns. And I was surprised to hear so many Republicans now concerned about how we are going to pay for it or using other people's money. But the Senate majority leader wasn't concerned about other people's money when he authorized a $4 trillion leveraged bailout for Wall Street in March. He wasn't concerned about where that money came from. He wasn't concerned about how we were going to pay for that.

It is only when we are talking about relief for working people, for children, for families, for parents, for education, for healthcare that, all of a sudden, we can't pay for any of these things. But when it comes to tax subsidies for private jets, we have got the money for that. When it comes to the endless appropriation towards more and more military spending, when we aren't even, technically, in growing elements of war, according to some people, we have money for that. But we don't have money to feed our own kids. We don't have money to educate people. We don't have money to provide healthcare.

But we have money for private jets. We have money for tax loopholes for yachts. We have money to incentivize stock buybacks. We have a billion dollars to invest in research and development for a vaccine-- which was proudly invested in and a good use of public funds--just for pharmaceutical companies to take these publicly developed drugs and then sell them back to the public at no discount, so we don't even get a return on this investment. How is that fiscally responsible?

So we are living in a world and a state of play in our governance where the party who is eager to help subsidize private jets somehow can't find the dollars and the cents to get people a $1,200 check. It is unconscionable, and it is wrong. And the Senate broke.

I am rising today, because it is extraordinarily difficult to represent a working-class district, not a private jet district, and go home every week, just as I am about to do again, and feel as helpless in this body because the majority of its Members and the majority of the Senate can't seem to get it together and get people the help that we need. And the Senate broke.

This is what I have to do. This is what we are resorting to, speaking to an empty room because the Senate broke.

So if there is anything that I have left to say, if there is anybody out there that is listening, if you are a working family, if you are struggling to get the food that you need, if you feel like you are on the brink of eviction, we see you. We see you.

What I ask of the Senate and what I ask of our Republican colleagues in the Senate is to act as if you were the one that was going hungry. Act as if it is you getting evicted from your house. Act with that urgency.

That is all I have to say.

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