[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 126 (Tuesday, October 1, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9663-S9664]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            EMERGENCY UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION ACT OF 2002

  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, I probably will not use all the 5 
minutes allocated. I thank my colleagues for their courtesy in granting 
me this time.
  I have been on the floor this morning listening to charges and 
countercharges between the parties as to who is to blame for the 
current state of the economy. Frankly, I do not believe we planned this 
economy. I think Congresses and Presidents are given too much credit 
and blame for the free-market system. I think the people at home could 
care less about all the fingerpointing. In my view, now is the time to 
come together, not as partisans but as Americans and as bipartisans, if 
you will, to support legislation that is critical to those who are 
bearing the brunt of the economic downturn our country has been 
experiencing.
  I have joined Senator Kennedy as the lead cosponsor of this 
legislation to extend emergency benefits for workers who have already 
exhausted their benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Program. I am 
here again to offer my support for another attempt to extend the 
emergency benefits for unemployed workers.
  Last week, Senator Kennedy, Senator Wellstone, and I introduced the 
Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 2002. This is yet another 
effort to push the issue to provide benefits from this Congress before 
it adjourns.
  I note for the record, I have been pushing emergency benefits for 
unemployed workers in Oregon for a year

[[Page S9664]]

now, since October of 2001. After months of work, last March Congress 
finally extended emergency unemployment benefits to workers who have 
lost their jobs during the economic downturn, but this is no longer 
adequate.
  Under the extension, unemployed workers in 48 States received 13 
additional weeks of benefits, and those in 2 States received 26 weeks. 
My State, the State of Oregon, was one of those two States, as our 
economy has been hurt, in a relative sense, worse than any other in the 
United States.
  Now those benefits are ending for Oregonians. Starting this month 
about 1,000 Oregonians a week will stop receiving badly needed 
emergency unemployment benefits. That is a lot of buying power that 
will leave the economy of the State of Oregon if it happens but, more 
importantly, there will be an awful lot of human hardship that will 
ensue among these Oregonians if it happens.
  These benefits are not gratuitous. They are not excessive. They are 
the barest of safety nets required by these families. For many of these 
families, as I have said, 1,000 a week, these benefits will cease if we 
do not act before we go home. For that reason, we are, again, 
introducing legislation, this time the Emergency Unemployment 
Compensation Act of 2002, in an effort to provide for these families.
  Under this new legislation, those Oregonians will receive up to an 
additional 20 weeks of emergency benefits. This is a temporary 
extension through July of 2003. Oregon's unemployment rate is simply 
the highest in America, and this is the least we can do for those who 
are bearing most of the burden of this economic downturn.
  I am going to join with Senator Kennedy and Senator Wellstone again 
to work in a bipartisan way to get this bill passed before we go home 
and influence our leadership to come to an agreement, as the assistant 
Republican leader indicated his willingness to do. This is a must-do 
before we go home.
  I thank my colleagues for the time and yield the floor.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to address the increasingly 
serious problem of unemployment in the United States, in particular the 
number of workers who have exhausted their unemployment insurance 
benefits and are still unable to find work.
  According to the latest data from the Department of Labor, the 
adjusted unemployment rate in the United States is now 5.7 percent, 
with over 8.1 million, 8.1 million, workers now unemployed. 1.4 million 
other workers who want work but cannot find it are not included in this 
total because they had not looked for work in the four weeks before the 
survey was completed.
  In my State of New Mexico, we are doing much, much worse than this. 
Our adjusted unemployment rate is 6.3 percent, which puts us at number 
nine in the Nation in terms of the worst unemployment rate. Our 
unadjusted unemployment rate is 6.6 percent. We have had an increase of 
31.6 percent in initial unemployment insurance claims since July 2001, 
and an increase of 33.4 percent in continued unemployment insurance 
claims in that same timeframe.
  The bottom line in my State and across the Nation is that jobs are 
being lost, and there are no new jobs being created that workers can 
apply for. Even worse, the workers that have not been able to find work 
now face an additional crisis, that being that they have been on 
unemployment insurance for as long as allowed and will soon no longer 
be eligible for new benefits.
  According to the Department of Labor, by the end of August over 1.1 
million workers have exhausted the extended unemployment insurance 
benefits provided by the stimulus legislation and now have no funding 
at all available to them. According to the Center for Budget and Policy 
Priorities, this number will rise to over 2.2 million by the end of 
2002. The number of workers who exhausted their regular unemployment 
insurance benefits in August 2002 was 46 percent higher than the number 
of who exhausted such benefits in August 2001. The number who exhausted 
their regular unemployment benefits in the first six months of 2002 is 
75 percent greater than the number who exhausted these benefits in the 
first eight months of 2001, and is more than double the number who 
exhausted these benefits during the same months of 2000.
  For workers in New Mexico and across the Nation, these data are truly 
frightening. And in spite of these data, the comments we keep hearing 
from the administration is that we are on the verge of a recovery, or 
we have a strong foundation for a recovery, or the recovery is just 
around the corner. But I see no evidence of this. Investment in new 
research and development is falling. Investment in new equipment is 
flat. Production is falling. Lay-offs are rising. From what I can tell 
the economy stalled, and I have seen no evidence at all that the 
administration knows what to do. Even worse, from what I can tell there 
is a complete lack of concern in the administration about where the 
economy is going right now. Nothing is being said about what should be 
done or when it should be done.
  Given this lack of response by the administration, I say it is time 
we in Congress act. The Emergency Unemployment Insurance Act of 2002 is 
a very positive step in this direction. Its purpose is very 
straightforward: it will revise and extend the temporary unemployment 
program to provide an additional 20 weeks of temporary extended 
benefits for ``high unemployment'' States, States like New Mexico, and 
an additional 13 weeks to all other states until June 2003.
  As a practical matter, this means workers can continue to get 
unemployment insurance benefits while they continue to search for work. 
In my view it is the least we can do for these folks. Unemployment 
insurance offers at most a subsistence-level existence, and most 
workers who receive benefits are forced to choose between paying for 
education, health care, mortgages, and food. These are folks that have 
played by the rules over the years and now find themselves in hard 
times. Personally, I would prefer that we offer them more, but if we 
cannot, then it seems to me we should be able to offer them some 
minimal financial security when they need it the most.
  So I want to add my voice to the others today and say that we must 
pass this legislation before we go out on recess. American workers 
deserve to be dealt with in a fair and equitable manner, especially in 
this time of need. They need a lifeline, and its up to us to provide 
it. I recognize that there are a number of important issues that we 
have to address in a very short timeframe. But from where I sit, this 
is a priority. The administration can talk all it wants about how the 
economy is going to improve, but what matters to the folks in my home 
state is whether they can find good jobs and keep them. Right now, they 
can't do that. We need to give them some help until they can. This is 
one step in that direction.

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