WASHINGTON - Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) today sent the following letter to all of his House Republican colleagues urging their support for an extension of federal unemployment insurance:
Dear Republican Colleague,
The Senate just achieved 60 votes to proceed to the debate on renewing the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation program and I am writing to urge your support for action in the House. This issue is urgent as 1.3 million unemployed workers lost their EUC benefit on December 28th. In addition, approximately 72,000 additional job-seeking Americans are unable to access the program each week.
As you know, President George W. Bush signed into law the creation of the EUC program with bipartisan support in 2008 when the unemployment rate was 5.6 percent--much lower than our current rate of 7 percent. Even more significantly, our long term unemployment rate (those who rely on the EUC program) is currently 37.3 percent, twice the rate of 18.2 percent when President Bush established the program.
Additionally, I thought you might be interested in the analysis by an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Strain, who made the case in December for extending the EUC program in this article. https://www.aei.org/article/economics/fiscal-policy/labor/why-unemployment-benefits-should-be-extended/
Finally, I’d like to share with you two interactive maps. The first shows the number of people that lost benefits at the end of December in each state. https://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/expiring-unemployment-insurance-interactive-map#overlay-context=
The second shows editorials in support of renewing the program from around the country. https://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/editorials-across-country-call-congress-extend-unemployment-insurance
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue with you and I hope you will join efforts to renew the EUC program immediately upon our return.
Sincerely,
Sander Levin
Member of Congress
