Unemployment Insurance

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased, though frustrated, like my colleagues, to be here this morning on the floor to talk about the critical need to extend unemployment insurance.

Across the Nation, there are almost 15 million Americans who are out of work, and although we are making progress on our unemployment rate, it is still too high at 9.5 percent. We need to extend unemployment insurance, and we need to do it now, today, before one more family is put on the street and before one more child goes to bed hungry.

This legislation is every bit as important to our economy as it is to those who are struggling to get by. Nearly 7 million people, or half of all Americans collecting unemployment insurance, have been out of work for 6 months or longer. They have run out of the insurance that is provided by their State. These are the workers who will collect this Federal unemployment extension, which they are using, as my colleagues have said--the Senator from Ohio, with his letters, was eloquent as he reported on the people from Ohio who are talking about why they need this to pay their rent, to make mortgage payments, to buy groceries, and to put gas in their cars to go out and look for their next job.

As the Senator said so eloquently, sometimes the real people whom this legislation affects are forgotten during this debate. While Members of this body stand and give economic lessons and talk about the macro situation, there are honest hard-working people out there who are suffering because of our failure to act.

I recently heard from a woman in Canterbury, NH, named Jo Ellen. She is a professional psychiatric nurse with a graduate degree. She had a good job until she was laid off because of cutbacks to our mental health system. She is in her sixties and has been working since she was 11 years old. Since being laid off, she has applied for dozens of jobs, from part time to retail positions. She has cut back on her professional experience on her resume so that she is not ruled out for being overqualified. She always mentions that she is willing to accept any salary, but nonetheless she has not yet been called for an interview--not once.

Jo Ellen wrote to me not just because her unemployment was going to run out but because she is so troubled by what she keeps hearing from people who voted against the extension of unemployment benefits, who say that people who are collecting unemployment are irresponsible or that they are not looking for a job, they are looking for a handout. Jo Ellen is not looking for a handout; she is looking for a job.

While we still face one of the most difficult job markets in history, with five applicants for every one job, we need to make sure people such as Jo Ellen stay afloat. There are millions of people across this country who are just like Jo Ellen, who are working hard, who want to find a new job, who are one step away from disaster if they don't get an extension of unemployment benefits.

In New Hampshire, 20,000 people could see their unemployment insurance expire within the next 4 months if we don't act. By supporting the legislation today, we can make sure New Hampshire's unemployed workers receive $75 million in essential Federal assistance. This money, as has been pointed out, won't sit quietly in savings accounts; it will go to grocery stores, pharmacies, and small businesses in the communities where the unemployed are living. In fact, conservative economist Mark Zandi, a former adviser to Senator McCain, has cited unemployment insurance as one of the three most effective uses of Federal funding. According to his analysis, every dollar we invest today will create $1.61 in economic growth.

When I was Governor, after the September 11 attacks, when this country went into a recession, one of the first things we did in New Hampshire was to increase unemployment benefits because we knew what Mark Zandi said was correct--that people would put that money back into the economy, help stimulate the economy, and help create economic growth. We did that with bipartisan support from a Republican legislature. I don't know what has changed in the last 9 years since September 11 that we have our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who, by and large, say we can't support unemployment benefits and extending those benefits but we can have tax cuts for the wealthy without funding those. There is something wrong with that kind of logic.

These benefits that, hopefully, we are going to pass today will help people all across America invest in their community. At a time like this, with our economy poised to turn the corner, this funding is critical to our future. Quite simply, these are investments we can't afford not to make.

I am pleased to join my colleagues, and I hope we will get those 60 votes and extend the unemployment benefits for millions of Americans.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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