VIDEO: Pushing for extension of unemployment benefits

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree urges Congress to extend benefits that help Maine families, support Maine businesses


Congresswoman Chellie Pingree today pushed her colleagues in Congress to approve an extension of unemployment benefits before they expire at the end of this month. Without the extension, an estimate 21,000 Mainers will see their benefits run out, beginning just a few weeks before Christmas.


“Not only are unemployment benefits an essential part of the safety net, they are critical to keeping the local economy moving,” Pingree told her colleagues on the House floor this morning. “When an unemployed Mainer gets a benefit check, he or she turns around and spends that money in the local community—at the supermarket or the gas station or hardware store.”


Pingree co-sponsored a bill to provide an emergency three-month extension of unemployment benefits, which will be voted on by the House later today. If Congress doesn’t act by the end of November, unemployed Americans will see their benefits started running out within a few weeks.

Pingree said that with winter in Maine setting in and Christmas around the corner, an expiration of benefits “couldn’t come at a worse time.”

According to study ordered by the Bush Administration, every $1 in unemployment benefits generates $2 in economic activity. The study found an average of 1.6 million jobs are saved every quarter because of unemployment checks making their way into the local economy. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that if unemployment benefits lapsed, the current economic growth rate would drop by 25%. 

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