[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2180]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1115
                        MARY PAKOS' UNEMPLOYMENT

  (Ms. DUCKWORTH asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. Speaker, Mary Pakos of Villa Park, Illinois, is 
one of my neighbors; and she needs Congress to extend unemployment 
insurance now. Mary has 16 years of experience in human resources, with 
seven of those as a manager. Yet she has been unemployed now for 3 
years, but it is not for the lack of trying. She has sent out more than 
500 resumes and has gone through interview after interview after 
interview with no success.
  She worries about losing her house and how she will support herself 
in retirement. You see, she recently turned 60, and she knows how tough 
it can be to find work at her age.
  But that doesn't stop Mary from looking for jobs for hours every day. 
It does not stop her from spending hours every week volunteering at her 
local church in Elmhurst, Illinois, because she cares so much about her 
community. Mary is not giving up, and we shouldn't give up on her 
either.
  Many Americans like her want to find work and simply can't. Punishing 
them by taking away unemployment benefits is a terrible mistake. Let's 
put our partisanship aside and extend unemployment insurance now for 
our families and our businesses.

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