[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 5686]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  RESTORATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. DANNY K. DAVIS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, April 4, 2014

  Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise to join with the 
Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Committee and my colleagues to 
call for the immediate passage of legislation in the House concur with 
the Senate in the restoration of unemployment benefits to the more than 
2.2 million Americans who have been cut off extended unemployment 
insurance because Republicans continue to block extension of the 
program.
  It is inconceivable that as a government and as a nation, we would 
leave all of these people hanging, many of them since December 28 of 
last year 2013. Nationally, nearly 72,000 people are losing 
unemployment insurance on average every week, adding to the 202 million 
people who have already lost their benefits.
  The Department of Labor estimated that the bipartisan Senate 
agreement to extend the emergency unemployment insurance program would 
benefit nearly 2.8 million people.
  Illinois, my state of Illinois is estimated to have lost 296,763,435 
just under 300 million dollars in unemployment dollars in unemployment 
benefits during the first three months of 2014 due to the Republican 
shutdown of the Federal benefits program. 153,400 Illinoisans would 
benefit from extending emergency unemployment benefits. And let's do it 
now.

                          ____________________