[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 152 (Tuesday, October 20, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10564-S10565]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS EXTENSION

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, another day has passed in the Senate and 
another opportunity has been wasted to extend unemployment insurance 
benefits across America. Let's make the record clear. The Democrats 
have asked the Republicans to move to this item of business and to pass 
the extension of unemployment insurance benefits to the hundreds of 
thousands of Americans out of work. They have refused time and time 
again. They have had a long series of reasons, none of them valid from 
my point of view. Many of them think they want to argue a lot of other 
issues. They want to argue the issue of immigration. They want to argue 
issues totally unrelated to unemployment. They don't seem to understand 
there are real people out there calling my office every day--and most 
Senators--explaining they are out of work and desperate.
  Let me read an e-mail I received recently from one of my constituents 
in Gurnee, IL:

       Dear Sir: I have worked my entire life from the age of 12 
     to 56 years old. I have never seen it this bad. Even during 
     the Reagan recession, you could find something. All the 
     emergency unemployment has expired. All everyone can talk 
     about is health care. I realize it's important but I refuse 
     to believe no one notices when we run out of help. When AIG 
     and the banks needed money, the Congress was pretty quick to 
     respond, and generous. So much so that the TARP fund still 
     has more than enough money to do the job. But when it comes 
     to the common man, we get help one piece at a time. 
     Unemployment compensation is not welfare. We are working 
     people. We are not invisible. But by the attention we get, 
     that's how I feel. I know you're a busy man, but if you can, 
     please say something about helping the unemployed. Emergency 
     funding expired 2 weeks ago. We need help yesterday.

  A lot of letters come into our office this way, e-mails. People are 
desperate. Last Friday, when I was in Chicago, I sat down with a group 
of about 20 unemployed people and let them tell their stories--invited 
the press in to let them hear the stories. Many people have a mistaken 
notion of who the unemployed are. Some Republicans argue they are folks 
who are not trying hard enough to find a job. Some argue that life on 
unemployment is so nice they don't even try to find other work. I wish 
a few of those Republican Senators would go home to their States and 
meet with the unemployed people whose benefits they are denying with 
this procedural obstacle. They could sit down and learn, as I did, that 
some of these folks have been working for more than a year to find a 
job. Republicans might acknowledge there are six people looking for 
every job out there. They might acknowledge that many of these people 
have lost their health care and health protection insurance during the 
period of their unemployment. They might hear some stories of families 
struggling to get by who have very little money and are exhausting what 
little savings they have left.
  That is the reality of unemployment. Yet when we turn to the 
Republicans and say: Can we do the ordinary thing we do around here on 
a bipartisan basis and extend unemployment benefits in what is the 
worst recession we have faced since America's Great Depression, they 
say no. No, we don't want to get to that now. Maybe later. We have some 
other ideas.
  For the people who are suffering under unemployment, that is not good 
enough. Republicans are ignoring the obvious. There are people all 
across America who are struggling to find work without success.
  For example, 400,000 American families have run out of their 
unemployment insurance benefits already, including 20,000 in my State 
who lost benefits at the end of September. Another 200,000 families 
across the country could lose their lifeline to unemployment benefits 
this month if Republicans continue to stall and stop us from extending 
unemployment insurance.
  What are the Republicans waiting for? Mr. President, 1.3 million 
Americans will lose this temporary assistance by the end of the year if 
Congress does not pass this simple extension of benefits, and 50,000 of 
those families are in my home State. The unemployment check certainly 
doesn't replace the wages people have lost, but it may give them enough 
to get by.
  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Recovery 
Act's unemployment insurance provisions have kept 800,000 Americans out 
of poverty so far this year. So if Republicans want to see unemployed 
people fall into the ranks of poverty, I can tell you what it means. It 
means that what is available to them is even less. What they will lose 
will be disastrous for them and their families. They will be the people 
you will find at the food banks, the soup lines. They will be similar 
to the one in my hometown heading out for township assistance which is, 
I am afraid, the bottom of the barrel for most people when you have run 
out of ideas on how to put some food on the table. That is what is 
going to happen if we don't extend unemployment insurance benefits.
  Never in the history of the Nation's unemployment insurance program 
have more workers been unemployed for such a long period. Half of all 
jobless workers can't find a job within 6 months after they started 
receiving unemployment benefits. That is the highest percentage of 
prolonged unemployment in the history of the unemployment program. When 
we come to the floor and ask Republicans to join us in a bipartisan way 
to extend the safety net to unemployed people and they say no, they 
have to understand they are causing hardship and suffering for some of 
the people who are the least fortunate around us today.
  The Democratic bill Republicans continue to block, even today, for 
unemployment insurance benefit extension would extend insurance for an 
additional 14 weeks for jobless workers in all 50 States, red States, 
blue States, purple States, Democratic States, Republican States, 
North, South, East and West, without any preference. If there are 
unemployed people, they would get the benefit. There is an additional 6 
weeks of insurance for jobless workers in States with unemployment 
above 8.5 percent, which, unfortunately, today includes my State.

  It is time to act. Are we going to finish this week with the 
Republicans stopping us from extending unemployment benefits? And if we 
do, how would we explain this to this man who wrote me and asked me 
about whether I know that unemployment compensation is

[[Page S10565]]

not welfare, it is a fund that workers pay into while they are working. 
As he said:

       We are working people. We are not invisible, but by the 
     attention we get that is how I feel.

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