IV Post

“The Labor Department recently announced that the unemployment rate for California increased to 6.2 percent in March of 2008, up from 5.7 percent in February of 2008 and 3.7 percent in March of 2007. That is why I am supporting this legislation moving through Congress, which would provide much-needed relief to unemployed workers to assist them with rapidly rising gas and food costs, while they continue to struggle to find work in the slowing economy," stated Congressman Filner.

“The strain of the economic downturn on middle-class families demands a second growth and relief package now. Yesterday, President Bush announced his interest in ‘work[ing] with Congress on pieces of legislation that’ll actually help people.’ That announcement is a hopeful sign that the President will now agree to work in a bipartisan manner on a second package, which includes unemployment benefits for millions of out-of-work Americans. With projections that unemployment will continue to increase through the end of this year, economists agree that additional unemployment compensation will be the most cost-effective and immediate way to jumpstart the economy,” continued Filner.

The Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act will:

* Immediately provide up to 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits to workers exhausting regular unemployment compensation in every state.

* Provide an additional 13 weeks (for a total of 26) in States with high unemployment (six percent or higher).

* Run through January 2009 and be financed by the federal unemployment trust funds, which now have more than enough reserves to cover the cost.

Over the last three months, the U.S. economy has lost 232,000 jobs and over the past year the number of unemployed has grown by over one million. The number of long-term unemployed workers is nearly twice as high as it was at the beginning of the last recession (March 2001).