Sunday, March 25, 2012
Floor Statement on Unemployment Compensation Benefits
Mr. President, on April 5, the extension that was recently voted for extended unemployment compensation benefits will expire. We need to at least provide for a temporary extension while we await the resolution of a much broader piece of legislation that is in the House today which would provide for an extension of unemployment benefits from today until the end of the calendar year, as well as FMAP payments to the States and other provisions.
This is absolutely critical. In my home State of Rhode Island, we have basically a 13-percent unemployment rate--12.7 percent. We have a record number of long-term unemployed people. This is not a situation, as in the past, where there was a temporary labor crisis. This has been going on in Rhode Island for almost 2 years or more, and people have reached the end of their resources and the end of their patience. For many, the only thing that is sustaining them--and not particularly well--is the fact they are still getting some unemployment benefits.
So we have to move very aggressively to provide a solution. We have never, in the last several decades--reaching back at least as far as the 1980s--denied extended unemployment benefits as long as the unemployment rate nationally was at least 7.4 percent. It is 10 percent, and in many States it is higher than that--Rhode Island being one of those States. So this would break tradition in terms of disrupting, interrupting, preventing extended benefits at a time when we have 10 percent unemployment.
We have persistently seen this, accurately and realistically, as an emergency--an emergency that allows us to provide funding without offsets. That is something that I think still is compelling. This is an emergency. Perhaps one of the ironies that will take place on this floor in the next several weeks is that we will call up a supplemental budget from the Department of Defense which, as I understand, will not be offset totally. One of the ironies is that we will be providing benefits--because part of our strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq is civic engagement--we will be providing employment opportunities and investment in infrastructure for Afghans and Iraqis without offset, which is my understanding at the moment. The irony, of course, is that for our own citizens we are claiming: No, we can't do that.
The other side has accumulated, under the Bush administration, a huge debt. In fact, in the term of the Bush administration, the national debt grew astronomically. Part of it was because repeatedly the Republican side refused to provide offsets to the funding for the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and Medicare Part D, which was an entitlement payment for seniors in terms of their drug prescriptions. They thought that paying for things was an undue constraint on their plans. But now that we are in a crisis that affects Americans, there is the insistence during this emergency of paying for it, which contradicts practice and contradicts the real needs out there.
One final point. We are now beginning to see some very limited progress on the employment front. This week's report about jobs caused a very positive reaction in the marketplace because the number of first-time claimants for unemployment compensation dropped much further than they thought. That suggests we are beginning to bottom out. There are other reports that suggest we will see some job growth beginning. That is because of the stimulus efforts we have undertaken today and in the past.
Part of that stimulus effort has been unemployment compensation insurance. For every dollar we invest in unemployment compensation, there is $1.90 growth in economic activity. That is the result of studies over many years. So when we don't invest in these types of programs, we are not only denying sustenance to many families, we are also not providing the kind of economic stimulus that the country needs to move forward.
So for all those reasons and more, I hope we can move, in the course of this evening or tomorrow, to adopt a measure that will allow us to continue the funding for unemployment compensation.