Home > News

Ways and Means Leaders Praise Senate Passage of Unemployment Insurance Extension
November 20, 2008

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) and Income Security and Family Support Subcommittee Chairman Jim McDermott (D-WA) praised the Senate for agreeing to legislation passed by the House (H.R. 6867) to extend unemployment insurance benefits to Americans suffering in these difficult economic times.

“With this extension we are taking the right step, a necessary step, toward rebuilding our economy,” said Chairman Rangel.  “Extending this basic assistance to help unemployed workers pay their mortgages, feed their families, and heat their homes is a down payment on broader economic recovery legislation that our economy desperately needs.  I welcome the news that the President intends to sign this critical legislation, which will help hundreds of thousands of workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.”

“Extending UI benefits is nothing less than throwing a life ring to unemployed Americans to help them stay afloat in these treacherous economic waters while they continue to look for a new job,” Subcommittee Chairman McDermott said.  “This legislation represents a humane, responsible and pragmatic course of action to assist decent hard-working Americans who cannot find a job in a declining domestic economy that continues to shed jobs.”

The House legislative leaders emphasized that the legislation is fully paid for with monies saved in the federal unemployment trust funds and provides very modest support for people who are running out of benefits.  Nationwide, the average weekly UI benefit amounts to about $300.

Specifically, the legislation would provide an additional 7 weeks of extended unemployment benefits in every State, plus another 13 weeks in States where the unemployment rate has averaged 6 percent or higher over the most recent three months.  In early October, the House passed the bill, H.R. 6867, on an overwhelming bi-partisan vote of 368-28.  The benefits provided by the legislation would be in addition to the 13 weeks of federally-funded extended unemployment benefits provided by Congress in June.

The legislation would provide $5.7 billion in additional UI benefits and economists calculate that every UI dollar yields approximately $1.64 in economic impact as the money ripples through the economy and helps to sustain other jobs and restore consumer confidence.  And, economic studies show that an unemployment insurance benefit is money that is almost immediately re-injected directly into the economy to pay for food, housing and other family expenses. 

Subcommittee Chairman McDermott said, “Last week, I said all it would take to jump start the U.S. economy would be for the President to make one telephone call to Senate Republican leadership to signal his support for UI, and it looks like the call was made.  I am grateful for that, because the American people need compassion, not politics right now.  I look forward to the President quickly signing the legislation into law and giving us all a reason to be a little more thankful next week.”

As passed by Congress, HR 6867 would:

·         Amend the current Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program to provide another 7 weeks of extended unemployment benefits in every State (bringing the total amount of potential extended benefits to 20 weeks).

·         Provide an additional 13 weeks in high unemployment States defined as having a seasonally-adjusted, three-month average total unemployment rate of 6 percent (providing a total of up to 33 weeks of extended benefits).

·         Provide about $5.7 billion in extended unemployment benefits (CBO estimate).

·         Nearly 900,000 workers are estimated to have run out of their current extended benefits by the end of October.  Without this legislation, this number would grow to 1.2  million by the end of calendar year 2008.

Please click here to view the text of H.R. 6867.