By Lauren Bloomberg 202-225-8933

 WASHINGTON DC – House Republicans today blocked passage of legislation that would help millions of unemployed workers make ends meet this holiday season.  H.R. 6419, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Continuation Act would extend Federal unemployment insurance (UI) programs for three months preventing approximately two million unemployed workers from losing their benefits by the end of the year.

“I don't see how Republicans can go home for Thanksgiving  knowing that, because they  blocked this bill, hundreds of thousands of people may not have a turkey on their table,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander M. Levin (D-MI).  “Ensuring that millions of Americans looking for work receive the benefits they depend on to put food on the table should be a bipartisan effort. I wonder, if the two million people who are going to lose their benefits by the end of the year were brought to the House Floor, would anyone look them in the face and vote no?  We will continue fighting on behalf of these unemployed Americans when Congress returns.”

The temporary Federal unemployment benefits programs will start phasing out at the end of November should Congress fail to extend them. This means that even individuals exhausting the six months of regular, State-provided unemployment benefits after Thanksgiving will become ineligible for Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC).

“The experts agree—two out of every three people who get unemployment benefits are middle class,” said Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support Chairman Jim McDermott (D-WA). “While the Republicans don’t mind bankrupting the country to give $700 Billion in unpaid tax cuts to the rich with one hand, the Republicans are using the other hand to push unemployed middle class Americans out of their homes, to prevent them from having food on their table, and to keep their children from being properly clothed.”

Key Facts:

• H.R. 6419 would extend Federal UI programs through February 28, 2011, preventing two million unemployed workers from losing their benefits by the end of the year and over another two million by February.
   
•  Consistent with past Democratic and Republican Congresses, the bill is considered emergency spending and is estimated to cost $12.5 billion.
   
• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that because UI benefits increase consumer demand and spending, while preventing people from falling out of the labor market, “the extensions of unemployment insurance benefits in the past few years increased both employment and participation in the labor force over what they would otherwise have been in 2009.”
   
•  A September Census Bureau report found that UI benefits prevented 3.3 million Americans from falling into poverty.
   
•  This week the Wall Street Journal quoted an estimate suggesting that allowing the extensions to expire would cut economic growth by half a percentage point.

Click here for the legislative text of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Continuation Act.

Click here for a State-by-State chart on the estimated number of claimants losing benefits through January 1, 2011, if Congress fails to act.

Click here for the CBO table.

Click here for additional information on unemployment insurance.

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