Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 2008

EMERGENCY EXTENDED UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION ACT OF 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 12, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, democrats in Congress have pushed to extend unemployment benefits since the beginning of the year, as the economy weakened, but have faced continued resistance from the Bush Administration. Nobody can argue that our economy is struggling. For five consecutive months, the U.S. economy has lost jobs, totaling 324,000. Over the last year, the number of unemployed workers has grown by 1.6 million. The number of people looking for work climbed to 8.5 million in May. Nearly 1 in 5 jobless workers (1.6 million) is long-term unemployed (jobless for more than 26 weeks). There are 200,000 more long-term jobless Americans now than when President Bush signed the last extension of unemployment benefits into law in 2002.

The airline industry has eliminated 22,000 jobs so far this year, more than in all of 2007, most recently at Continental (3,000 jobs) and United (up to 1,600 jobs), and the automobile industry continues to face job cuts, leading industries with announced layoffs in May with over 30,000.

In May, we had the biggest one-month jump in the unemployment rate in two decades. The unemployment rate surged to 5.5 percent from 5.0 percent--the biggest one-month jump in more than two decades (since February 1986) and climbing to the highest level in nearly four years (October 2004). The unemployment rate is now a full percentage point higher than a year ago. Families can wait no longer, and neither will this Congress.

Today, the House will take up H.R. 5749, the Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act:

To immediately provide up to 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits in every state to workers exhausting the 26 weeks of regular unemployment benefits.

In states with higher levels of unemployment (six percent or higher), an additional 13 weeks would be available, for a total of 26 weeks of extended benefits.

Relief would run through March 2009.

The bill would provide much-needed relief to 3.8 million unemployed workers to assist them with rapidly rising gas and food costs, while they continue to struggle to find work in the slowing economy.

Federal unemployment trust funds, which have more than enough reserves to cover the cost, will finance these benefits.

In Texas, this bill would help 160,239 unemployed workers. Extending these benefits is one of the most cost-effective and fast-acting ways to stimulate the economy because the money is spent quickly. According to the Congressional Budget Office, every $1 spent on unemployment benefits generates $1.64 in new economic demand. This bill costs $11 billion over 10 years, or 1.1 billion per year. That is approximately 3 days in Iraq.

I commend my colleagues, Congressman MCDERMOTT and Congressman ENGLISH for introducing this bill and I urge my colleagues to support its passage.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source