November 17, 2010
Legislation would help millions of unemployed workers make ends meet this holiday season
WASHINGTON DC – Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander M. Levin (D-MI) and Income Security and Family Support Subcommittee Chairman Jim McDermott (D-WA) today introduced the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Continuation Act. The legislation would extend Federal unemployment insurance (UI) programs for three months (through February 28, 2011) preventing approximately two million unemployed workers from losing their benefits by the end of the year and over another two million by the end of February.
“Without quick action, the last economic lifeline for two million Americans will be cut off during the holidays,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander M. Levin (D-MI). “Terminating this emergency unemployment assistance will not only devastate families, but it also will hurt the entire economy by depressing consumer confidence and demand. We simply cannot afford to conclude this Congress without responding to those Americans who have been most hurt by the recession.”
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 unemployed in this country face a grim holiday season if we don’t act quickly,” said Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support Chairman Jim McDermott (D-WA). “In 75 years we have never cut federal unemployment benefits when the unemployment rate has been this high. We cannot allow benefits to expire at a time when millions of Americans are just trying to put food on the table.”
In a report released today, the nonpartisan, independent 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 Census Bureau report found that UI benefits prevented 3.3 million Americans from falling into poverty. Furthermore, yesterday’s Wall Street Journal quotes 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 additional information on unemployment insurance.
