[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 15, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H237]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    EXTENDING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, it is un-American that House Republicans are 
refusing to hold a vote on extending benefits for Americans who have 
worked and are now unemployed. It is particularly astounding, with a 
Speaker from Ohio, where unemployment has just ticked up, that the 
Republican Party refuses to bring up a vote on extending unemployment 
benefits.
  Since 1948, this is the first time that Congress has allowed extended 
unemployment benefits to expire with unemployment rates as high as they 
are. Long-term rates, especially among older workers--people who have 
worked their entire lives--are at the highest levels and doggedly 
resistant to amelioration.
  More than 1.3 million Americans, including nearly 40,000 Ohioans, 
have lost benefits because of House Republicans. If House Republicans 
get their way, by the end of this year, 5 million Americans and their 
families will have been denied unemployment benefits--people who have 
worked their entire lives.
  Speaker Boehner, that includes more than 128,000 Ohio families being 
denied benefits they have rightfully earned.
  My office has been receiving call after call from constituents who 
don't know why they lost their benefits and asking what they can do 
now. In one particular case, a woman put in the required years for her 
job and was ready to retire. She believed in work. She valued work. She 
spent her life doing it. Unfortunately, suddenly, just before she put 
her papers in to retire, she was laid off. She lost her job as a result 
of cutbacks, through no fault of her own. Her husband is disabled and 
unable to work. Extended unemployment benefits were helping the family 
make ends meet. Republicans in this House took away this family's 
ability to pay their bills. She is now begging friends and relatives to 
help pay their heat bill, to keep the lights turned on, and to pay 
their medical bills. The uncertainty and stress this family is now 
facing is unfair and completely un-American.
  Extending unemployment benefits to people who work is not only the 
right thing to do, it actually is better for our economy. The Economic 
Policy Institute estimates if we do not extend unemployment benefits, 
it will cost our economy 310,000 more lost jobs because people who 
aren't able to hold their family budgets together anymore don't buy as 
many groceries, can't pay their gas bills, can't pay their mortgages, 
and they fall into poverty.
  Why would Congress want millions more falling into poverty while 
creating more job loss in the Nation? Creating jobs and growing our 
economy should be our first priority here in Congress.
  As Paul Krugman put it in a recent New York Times article:

       No matter how desperate you make the unemployed, their 
     desperation does nothing to create more jobs.

  So let's come together to strengthen our economy, to stop offshoring 
millions and millions of jobs in this country, and let's extend 
unemployment benefits to the people in this country who have earned 
them. Until then, I urge Republicans to at least allow a vote on 
restoring unemployment benefits to those Americans who have worked for 
a living and deserve the respect of this Congress.

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