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(Washington D.C.)- Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander M. Levin (D-MI) and Income Security and Family Support Subcommittee Chairman Jim McDermott (D-WA) today introduced H.R. 5618, the Restoration of Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act, to extend unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to millions of American families. The bill follows Senate Republicans’ obstruction of legislation that would have not only promoted job creation here in the U.S. but extended critical unemployment insurance benefits to help Americans make ends meet as they look for their next job opportunity.
“Nearly two million families are without their economic lifeline because of the latest Republican obstruction in the Senate to block the passage of jobs legislation that included unemployment benefits,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander M. Levin (D-MI). “We will not abandon these families. This bill is the cornerstone of emergency economic spending and I encourage Congressional Republicans to put aside political grandstanding and start standing with the American people.”
By July 3, 2010, approximately 1.7 million unemployed workers will have lost their UI benefits because of last week’s Republican filibuster. H.R. 5618 would extend the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) and Extended Benefits programs through November 30, 2010. The legislation would retroactively restore benefits to recipients who may have started losing their benefits as early as the end of May.
“We have the highest number of long-term unemployed Americans ever on record, so you’d think we’d be overwhelmed by bipartisan cooperation to help the millions of people who rely on unemployment benefits to put food on the table,” said Income Security and Family Support Subcommittee Chairman Jim McDermott (D-WA). “Instead, only one of the more than 200 Republicans in Congress voted to continue benefits. I refuse to tell millions of jobless Americans that we don’t care what happens to them.”
Click here for the legislative text of H.R. 5618.
Click here for a summary of H.R. 5618.
Click here for a chart of the cumulative number of claimants losing benefits due to Senate Republicans’ filibuster.
Click here for a State-by-State chart on the estimated number of claimants losing benefits by July 3, 2010 if Congress fails to act.
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