Statement of U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky

STATEMENT OF U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAN SCHAKOWSKY
APRIL 19, 2004

"I am very pleased to be here today with my colleagues from the House and our state's senior Senator, Dick Durbin. I also wish to thank Bob, Stephanie and others for joining us and for being willing to share their personal struggles. Soon, you will hear their courageous stories.

"Families are drowning in late notices and unpaid bills, but they won't get a lifeline from President Bush or Speaker Hastert. I have received letters and emails from my constituents who are struggling to keep their homes, pay the rent, buy their medicine or feed their family. A constituent who worked for ten years but was recently laid off writes:

…It has been five months … and my unemployment benefits are about to run out…I have bills like every other American and I don't know what to do when these benefits run out. When I was working I was earning around $40 thousand a year and now I have $600 every 2 weeks coming in. I have always said you do what you can with what you have. What do you do with zero? When I hear the job market is improving, I would like to know where. I just want a real reason why we don't have the option of extended benefits? What are we to do?

"Unfortunately, he is not alone. Thousands of workers in Chicago and Illinois are in the same miserable situation. President Bush and Speaker Hastert are refusing to extend emergency federal unemployment benefits so millions of Americans can get a few hundred dollars a week just to survive. Instead of traveling around the country trying to convince the American people that the economy is getting better, President Bush should spend more time in Washington convincing Congress to pass emergency federal aid to help laid off workers.

"On average, 3,540 jobless workers in Illinois are exhausting their state unemployment insurance each week. By June 31 of this year, a total of 61,600 workers in the Chicago metro area will lose their safety net of federal emergency unemployment insurance. Republicans want us to believe that the economy is actually getting better and people will be able to find jobs in the future. But in the meantime, they are ignoring the reality that thousands of Illinois families are hurting today. In Illinois, the unemployment rate is 6% and in the Chicago area, it is 6.8%.

"The Republicans made room in the budget so President Bush can get a $31,000 tax cut this year, but they won't make room for Bob and Stephanie to get $300 a week just to survive. Certainly, we have the room. It is only a matter of priorities.

"If we want to get the economy moving again, we need to put money in the hands of people who need it and who will spend it. We know that for every dollar spent on unemployment benefits, we get back a $1.72 in economic stimulus. So if Congress extends unemployment benefits, we will experience a stimulus to the local economy of up to $403 million.

"Until we have a new economic plan that will put back to work the millions of people who have lost their job under the Bush Administration, extending federal unemployment insurance is the least we can do. If we have time in Congress this week to vote on bills to name Post offices and to recognize the 91st meeting of the Garden Club of America, we can certainly find time to pass this emergency legislation"