Extension of Unemployment Benefits

EXTENSION OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I join my colleague from New Jersey in discussing jobs, job creation and whether we will have the opportunity to vote on two key amendments that will help stimulate our economy-one amendment addresses overtime pay and the other would reinstate the federal unemployment insurance program.

Many of my colleagues know that when we took a vote on reinstating the unemployment program on February 26, we actually had a majority of Members of this body supporting the program. On February 4, a majority of Members of the House of Representatives supported a similar provision.

Congress supports this program, and supports an extension. The reason we created the State and Federal unemployment programs was to provide temporary and partial wage replacement to people who are involuntarily unemployed and to help stabilize the economy during recession. That is why we created the program.

Yet, for some reason, we have put that notion aside and somehow think the economy is getting better and unemployed workers who have lost their jobs, through no fault of their own, somehow should not be able to participate in this Federal program.

My own newspaper, the Spokesman-Review, had an editorial this week that basically said: Let us put money in the pockets of those who are not to blame for being out of work. Such a move will help businesses that rely on consumer spending, help them stay afloat, and was one of the chief reasons for creating unemployment benefits in the first place.

What we are doing this morning is continuing to ignore the plight of the American workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. We are being irresponsible, not allowing Americans to participate in a Federal program that was designed to create opportunity for people and to allow them to sustain themselves in an economic downturn when there are no jobs being created.

So much has been bandied back and forth about whether we are actually recovering from this recession and whether and how many jobs will be created. I think it is important to look at the facts to see what economic projections have been made in comparison to what has really happened.

My point is not to place blame for what has happened. At this point my concern is with the unemployed workers who are struggling to make mortgage payments, pay insurance bills, put food on the table.

Any economist will tell you that sometimes projections are wrong. In the case of job creation in the past several years, we have been dead wrong about what was going to happen to the U.S. economy. In 2002, the Bush's Council of Economic Advisers said: We are going to have job loss, but it is not going to be that severe: We are going to lose about 100,000 jobs. But, in fact, in that year we actually lost 1.5 million jobs.

As a result, the President proposed his policies that were based on that projection. I didn't support his policies, but I am not going to spend a lot of time this morning critiquing whether or not they were sound. Instead, I am asking my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to not make this a partisan issue. I am asking them to make this about the American worker who needs our help utilizing a Federal program designed to help out in times just like this.

So, then in 2003, the President's economic forecast projected that the economy would create 1.7 million new jobs. But in reality, there was no job growth. In fact, we lost jobs. Instead of growing the economy, we lost 406,000 jobs.

This year, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are saying we don't have to keep the Federal unemployment benefits program going because the President has projected that we are going to have a record year-that we are going to create 2.6 million jobs. That was the actual forecast from the Council of Economic Advisors. I can provide to my colleagues the specific page, the specific citation.

When several members of the President's Cabinet traveled to my state of Washington in February, they backed away from the projections. They said: We don't think that 2.6 million really is the number of jobs that are going to be created this year. We don't really think the forecast means what we thought it meant. I can tell you, the unemployed worker is not a rounding error; they are real people with real needs they have to meet on a day-to-day basis.

To reach this 2.6 million jobs by the end of the year, the economy would need to create between 200,000 to 300,000 jobs per month. That is not what is happening at all. That is not what happened in January and it is not what happened in February. It is probably not what is going to happen in March.

The real issue is that, while some people are saying the economy is better, and gee, things are rosy since the unemployment rate is only 5.6 percent, they are hiding the fact that the unemployment rate held steady last month largely because 392,000 people are no longer counted as unemployed. Many economists and many newspapers around the country have said the national average would be more like above 7 percent if you actually included those people who aren't getting counted.
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Some people question whether the Federal program helps or hurts in the end. They say, don't we want these people out looking for jobs? Well, I can guarantee they are out looking for jobs. I have had so many constituents who have come to my Web site and told me their personal stories about how they are trying to find a job, often competing with 20 or 30 other people for a job for which they are all overqualified because there are not jobs being created. Consequently, they are without the opportunity we all would like to see in their communities. They have lost a job through no fault of their own, they are working hard to find a new opportunity, but jobs are not being created.

What do you do when jobs are not being created? You utilize this Federal program that could provide opportunity to people for 13 weeks beyond the State program. And this program creates an economic stimulus. Even Alan Greenspan recently said he believed we should have programs like this one in times of economic downturn. In fact, he testified before the House Education and the Workforce Committee before we adjourned for our last recess and he said:

In times like this, I have supported the issue of extension of unemployment insurance.

He said that is because it is important to stimulate the economy.

The program we are talking about right now would generate billions of dollars of stimulus that would go directly into the economy over the next 6 months. In fact, for every dollar spent on unemployment insurance, those individuals turn around and spend that money, $2, in our local economies. They pay their mortgage payments, their health care bills, their tuition for education, for their children to go to college. It helps sustain them until economic growth actually returns.

When the first Bush administration was faced with this dilemma, when they had a recession in the 1990s, the first Bush administration said: Let's extend the Federal unemployment insurance program. Actually, the economy had been creating substantial numbers of new jobs for several months when the first Bush administration extended the program. Why? Because they knew that it would take time for the economy to recover. They knew all of those people were not going to find jobs immediately. Even though jobs had been created, the Bush administration extended the unemployment benefit program for another 9 months. As we all know, that was the right policy decision and many people went back to work over a period of time and they had the wherewithal to sustain their families in the meantime.

I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, it is time to get past the obstructionists who are holding this up. A majority of Members in both the House and the Senate want this legislation passed. They want to help the American worker. 5.6 is not the real number of unemployed people in America. It is not a fair representation.

Even Business Week did a fabulous story presenting the issue of jobs in America, "Where Are The Jobs?" I urge all my colleagues to read through it in detail and see where exactly the jobs are in America. In reading it, you will find there has been an increase in productivity. There has been an increase in productivity and consequently there have been fewer new hires.

While corporate CEOs have made more money and the stock market has benefited from the efficiencies of business, the person who has not benefited is the American worker who has not found a job. Unlike the 1990s when there were millions of jobs created at the same time that we achieved gains in productivity, now we have productivity gains and no jobs are being created. It is going to take us longer to recover.

This Senator believes very much in the economy of the future. I believe there are some very strong sectors. As my colleague said yesterday, I believe we have to have the right fiscal plan, we have to have the right sectors-sectors like biotechnology and nanotechnology, software, and aerospace will continue to grow with the American economy. I think if we make this investment in unemployment now, we can give the American workers the help and the assistance they need during this time of job loss.

I yield the floor.