By U.S. Rep. Sander Levin
D-12th District

WASHINGTON - Congressional Republicans left Washington last year without acting to extend the temporary extended unemployment benefits program. As a result, 800,000 individuals abruptly stopped receiving benefits on Dec. 28, and new applicants were prevented from entering the program.

The President remained silent while this happened, and only after the faces of the hardworking Americans (unemployed through no fault of their own and unable to find work in the stagnant economy) began hitting the front pages of newspapers around the country, did he announce during the holidays that Congress should act to reinstate the program.

On the first day of the 108th Congress, Congressional Democrats introduced legislation to provide temporary extended unemployment benefits to all workers who need them: those cut off on the 28th, those reaching the end of their regular benefits, and those who have reached the end of the extended benefits program, using funds which have accumulated in the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund. Unfortunately, House and Senate Republican leaders rejected this comprehensive approach, and instead passed legislation to address only part of the growing unemployment crisis.

Under the recently-enacted bill, those 800,000 workers will have their benefits reinstated and will be able to receive the rest of their 13 weeks of extended benefits. The bill also allows workers who exhaust their regular unemployment benefits between now and June of 2003 to receive up to 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits if they are unable to find work.

However, the bill provides no help at all to over a million workers who have already exhausted their 13 weeks of temporary benefits but have not yet found work. Democrats protested the decision to leave the workers who have been out of work the longest out completely, but their effort to amend the bill to include them was turned back on a party-line vote in the Senate and Republican leaders did not even allow them to offer their amendment in the House.

The case to cover those who have exhausted all of their regular and extended unemployment benefits will continue to be pressed by Congressional Democrats in the economic stimulus debate.

Rep. Levin (D-Royal Oak) serves on the U.S. House Ways and Means committee which has jurisdiction over unemployment insurance.