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“FEDERAL UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BENEFITS: 4 MILLION MORE REASONS TO END THE SEQUESTER” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E989 on June 28, 2013.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FEDERAL UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BENEFITS: 4 MILLION MORE REASONS TO END
THE SEQUESTER
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HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY
of illinois
in the house of representatives
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, like many of my colleagues, I am hearing from constituents who are looking but unable to find jobs, and who are now faced with cuts to their Federal unemployment insurance (UI) benefits because of the sequester.
These are people like Janice in Chicago, who last month wrote me,
``Yesterday, I received an email from the Illinois Department of Employment Security stating that starting in June and through the month of September, my unemployment benefits will be reduced by 16.8%'' because of the budget sequester.
Or Mary in Arlington Heights, who emailed me, ``I am currently unemployed. These cuts will cost me $200 a month. This is a lot of money for a single woman living on her own. These effects are real. They're more than just numbers on a piece of paper.''
Mary is right--the effects of the sequester are happening to real people--people like her and Janice and their families. The Department of Labor estimates that by October 1, as many as 3.8 million unemployed workers could see reductions in their federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits as a result of the sequester.
For these families, the sequester means that they will have less money available to pay their mortgage or rent, doctor's and grocery bills. UI cuts ripple out into local communities, since unemployed workers will spend less on goods and services. Experts tell us that a
$1 spent on UI benefits results in higher consumer spending and increased economic activity of between $1.50 and $2.00--so a $1 cut from UI benefits means an even greater loss in the effort to strengthen local economies. As Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics says, ``if you cut unemployment insurance, then the economic impact is outsized.'' (``Unemployment Benefit Cut Adds to Drag on U.S. Spending: Economy,'' Bloomberg News, May 6, 2013.)
The National Employment Law Project has released an excellent analysis, ``The Sequester's Devastating Impact on Families of Unemployed Workers and the Struggling Unemployment Insurance System.'' It estimates that, if the sequester continues for the rest of FY2013, federal EUC benefits could be cut by more than $2.3 billion--an average of more than $400 per family.
The NELP analysis also points out that the sequester's impacts do not stop at federal UI cuts--they also mean cuts to the training, job matching and reemployment initiatives designed to help unemployed workers get back to work. Those cuts, too, impose real harm on families and our economy by making it harder for unemployed men and women to get back into the workforce.
I am a cosponsor of H.R. 900, the Cancel the Sequester Act, because it will stop these very harmful cuts to Federal UI benefits and job creation efforts. I urge my colleagues to come together now so that we can stop these across-the-board, meat-ax sequester cuts that are so damaging to our constituents.
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