[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 5 (Thursday, January 9, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H84]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      EXTEND UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  (Ms. CHU asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. CHU. Mr. Speaker, this past Monday was the first time in months 
that 1.3 million out-of-work Americans went to their mailboxes and did 
not find an unemployment check.
  People like Kaitlyn Smith from my State of California, a Marine Corps 
vet and mother of two young children, she said that she had been 
searching for work for months but has not had success. California is 
starting to recover, but it still has 400,000 fewer jobs than it did 
before the downturn. It is especially hard to find jobs in the high 
desert where she lives; but the family can't move because her husband, 
a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, must remain near the combat 
center until he is discharged from the Marines in July.
  The loss of her benefits will cut even more deeply into the couple's 
income. Kaitlyn says the family is already skimping on basics, 
including heat. She says:

       I have to keep the house at 55 degrees, even though I have 
     two little girls, ages 2\1/2\ and 1\1/2\.

  For Kaitlyn and others like her, we must extend unemployment 
benefits, and we must extend them now.

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