[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 59 (Friday, April 11, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5383-S5385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. KENNEDY (for himself, Mr. Smith, Mr. Daschle, Mrs. 
        Clinton, Mr. Reed, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Sarbanes, Mr. Bingaman, Mr. 
        Rockefeller, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Levin, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Harkin, Ms. 
        Mikulski, Ms. Cantwell, and Mr. Schumer):
  S. 923. A bill to provide for additional weeks of temporary extended 
unemployment compensation, to provide for a program of temporary 
enhanced regular unemployment compensation, and for other purposes; to 
the Committee on Finance.
  Mr. KENNEDY. The economy continues to falter. Hundreds of thousands 
of hard-working men and women have lost their jobs, and consumer 
confidence is the lowest in 9 years. Americans are suffering. College 
graduates can't find jobs. Americans who have worked all their lives 
are out of work. Their unemployment benefits are running out. They are 
losing their savings, and watching their 401(k) plans plummet. They are 
being forced to take desperate measures--selling their homes, moving 
back in with their parents, or cashing in their retirement savings.
  Our first domestic priority should be to get America back to work. 
Democrats have a plan to do just that. The Senate Democratic proposal 
for economic growth will create more than 1 million jobs next year, 
three times as many as President Bush's plan. It will provide fiscal 
relief to states to avoid further lay-offs and make vital investments 
in the economy to achieve growth.
  But out-of-work Americans also need help and they need it now. The 
Economic Security Act I am introducing today will extend temporary 
Federal unemployment benefits for 6 months past the May expiration 
date. It will provide additional weeks of benefits as in past 
recessions and provide extended benefits to the more than 1 million 
Americans who have run out of benefits but still cannot find work. It 
will also give states the option to use Federal funds to extend 
coverage to part-time workers and low-wage workers. This bill will help 
more than 4 million workers, including 150,000 in Massachusetts.
  The unemployment rate remains high at 5.8 percent, with 8.4 million 
Americans out of work, and those numbers don't include discouraged 
workers, who have dropped out of the labor force, or those working 
part-time because they can't find a full-time job. When these workers 
are included, the true unemployment rate is 10.4 percent.

[[Page S5384]]

  Over the last two months, the economy has lost nearly half a million 
jobs. More than 330,000 jobs have been lost in Massachusetts, including 
20,000 in Boston and 23,000 in Worcester. Such severe, persistent loss 
of jobs 2 years after the beginning of a recession is unheard of since 
the Great Depression.
  Richard Wilcox of Canton, MA has taken to standing on a street corner 
holding up a sign that says ``I need a job . . . 36 years experience: 
Insurance/Management.'' Thirty-six years of experience, and he has had 
only two interviews after a year of sending out hundreds of resumes.
  Mr. Wilcox is not alone. The crisis in our labor market has continued 
to worsen under the current administration's watch. Two and a half 
million more Americans have lost their jobs since the Bush 
administration took office, and the number of long-term unemployed has 
nearly tripled.
  The economy is still not showing clear signs of recovery, and the 
number of unemployed continues to grow. The administration's own budget 
predicts an average of 5.7 percent unemployment for this year. The 
Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will be 5.9 percent.
  In this bleak condition, unemployed workers deserve to be able to 
count on a further extension of benefits when the current one expires 
at the end of May. In the last recession, we enacted an extension of 
benefits five times with overwhelming bipartisan support. Now as then, 
out-of-work Americans need our help.
  In the last recession we also made sure that workers who ran out of 
Federal benefits but still could not find work were not left in the 
cold. Today, one in five unemployed workers has been out of work for 
more than 6 months. One million of these long-term unemployed are 
without jobs and without any safety net. With three unemployed workers 
vying for every job, workers across the county are losing hope.
  The current unemployment insurance system clearly needs to be 
modernized to cover today's workers. Two glaring defects stand out. In 
1975, 75 percent of unemployed workers were eligible for unemployment 
benefits, compared to only half of such workers last year. Many of the 
unemployed who fail to receive benefits are part-time and low-wage 
workers. Only eight States provide benefits to unemployed residents 
seeking part-time work on the same basis as the benefits they provide 
to full-time workers. In addition, in all but a handful of States, low-
wage workers are ineligible for benefits because their most recent 
earnings are not counted. Part-time and low-wage workers pay into the 
system, and they should be able to rely on it while searching for a new 
job.
  We must pass another extension of unemployment benefits before the 
current one expires at the end of May. We must not allow a repeat of 
last year, when Democrats asked eight times for an extension and eight 
times were told no. Ultimately, we were able to work on a bipartisan 
basis to provide benefits for out-of-work Americans, and I hope we can 
do so again this time. I look forward to working with my colleagues to 
see that Americans here at home who've been hit by these troubled 
economic times receive the support they need and deserve.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today in support of The 
Unemployment Benefits Extension Act of which I am a proud cosponsor. 
The purpose of this bill is to extend the Temporary Extended 
Unemployment Compensation, TEUC, program, for an additional 6 months 
through the end of November. Currently, extended umeployment insurance 
benefits are scheduled to expire at the end of May. Beginning June 
first, individuals whose regular unemployment benefits expire will no 
longer be eligible for extended benefits.
  Extending the existing unemployment insurance benefits program for an 
additional 6 months is estimated to provide assistance to between 2 to 
2.5 million working Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault 
of their own. This legislation also provides an additional 13 weeks of 
benefits to unemployed workers who have already exhausted their 
extended benefits prior to enactment and remain unable to find work. 
The bill also provides tempory Federal funding, through July 2004, for 
States to implement alternative base periods, which could a worker's 
most recent wages when determining eligibility, and to allow displaced 
part-income workers to seek part-time employment while receiving 
unemployment insurance workers. Improving the unemployment insurance 
system for part-time workers is important. A recent op-ed in the 
Baltimore Sun makes the point that:

       The old rationale for excluding part-time workers from 
     unemployment insurance eligibility was that part-time workers 
     were not working to support their families. But this is not 
     true today.

  I am convinced that we are going to still be in very difficult shape 
when the current extension of unemployment insurance benefits expires 
at the end of May. There is little chance that the labor market will 
significantly improve for unemployed workers between now and then. 
There is growing evidence that the labor market is still in fact 
deteriorating. The Federal Open Markets Committee's most recent 
statement on interest rates concluded that, ``recent labor market 
indicators have proven disappointing.''
  That is an understatement. Last month the economy lost 108,000 jobs 
in addition to losing 357,000 jobs in February. There are 1.8 million 
workers who have been out of work for more than 26 weeks and are 
looking for work but cannot find a job. The unemployment rate at 5.8 
percent is higher today than when extended benefits were first enacted 
in March, 2002. Over 3.48 million Americans are currently drawing 
unemployment benefits. We have lost 2.6 million private sector jobs 
since President Bush took office. No President in over 50 years has 
failed to create jobs during a 4-year term in office, let alone lose 
jobs during an administration. But it would take private sector job 
creation of over 100,000 per month, every month, for the next 2 years, 
in order for the economy to dig out of the jobs deficit created during 
this administration.

  Yet instead of abandoning the economic policies which have failed, 
the administration continues to pursue the same fundamental policy--
large tax cuts which primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans. The 
administration, whose budget contained nothing to further extend the 
unemployment benefits program, remains out of touch with today's 
economic realities. Over 8.5 million Americans are unemployed and 
looking for work but cannot find a job because there are no jobs to be 
had. In situations like this the Congress has always provided extended 
unemployment benefits. In the last recession these benefits were 
provided for 29 months. During the recession before that, they lasted 
for 33 months. In both of those recessions extended benefits were 
discontinued only after a pronounced strengthening in the labor market.
  Today these benefits are set to expire after only 15 months, well 
before the labor market has improved. If this happens it will mark not 
only a departure from prudent fiscal policy that has been implemented 
in a bipartisan fashion in the past but will also harm economic growth 
and hurt millions of Americans. Extended unemployment insurance 
benefits, already enacted by the Congress, have assisted 4.7 million 
workers and provided $12 billion of stimulus into the economy. Federal 
Reserve Chairman Greenspan has testified that, ``extended unemployment 
insurance provided a timely boost to disposable income.''
  This legislation also allows for all Americans who qualify to receive 
an additional 13 weeks of benefits. This would include the 1 million 
workers who have already exhausted their extended benefits. These 
workers need help. They want to find work but cannot find a job because 
there are simply no jobs to be had.
  I know that some of my colleagues oppose providing extended benefits 
for more than 13 weeks to anyone. I have a differing viewpoint. I point 
out that at this stage of the last recession, a minimum of 20 weeks of 
additional Federal benefits were provided for all Americans in every 
State. In the previous recession and jobless recovery extended 
unemployment insurance benefits lasted for 29 months and for much of 
that time provided benefits for 26 to 33 weeks. In this recession and 
jobless recovery, benefits are scheduled to expire only after 15 months 
and have provided only 13 weeks of extended benefits to the vast 
majority of Americans.

[[Page S5385]]

  Under normal circumstances with a growing labor market there is a 
case to be made that providing too long of a duration of unemployment 
insurance benefits would be harmful. However, in times when the labor 
market is weak and the job base is shrinking, the situation is very 
different. Even Fed Chairman Greenspan acknowledged this in testimony 
before the Joint Economic Committee, stating: ``in periods like this [a 
shrinking labor market], that the economic restraints on the 
unemployment insurance system almost surely ought to be eased.'' 
Unfortunately, many are forecasting continued weaknesses in the labor 
market.
  Today's Washington Post reports that the International Monetary Fund 
is forecasting economic growth of only 2.2 percent for the United 
States in 2003, which the IMF's chief economist, Kenneth Rogoff noted 
is ``not yet enough to make a meaningful dent in unemployment.'' The 
article goes on to state that: ``the jobless rate stood last month at 
5.8 percent, and the IMF projected that it will average 6.2 percent 
this year.'' Considering the weak labor market that we face today and 
the troubling forecasts for the remainder of the year, it appears to me 
that we most certainly are in such a period as described by Chairman 
Greenspan and that the restraints on the unemployment insurance system 
ought to be eased. This legislation accomplishes this goal in a 
fiscally responsible manner with an estimated cost of $16 billion, 
which is below the unemployment insurance trust funds current surplus 
of $20 billion.
  Last year this issue was not properly dealt with, and as a result 
millions of Americans suffered through the holiday season believing 
that their benefits were going to expire. Yet when Congress reconvened, 
extended benefits were retroactively restored, 11 days after they had 
expired. Let's not put these people through this again. I urge my 
colleagues to support this legislation and to work expeditiously and 
prudently to enact it before the current program expires, less than 8 
weeks from today.
                                 ______