Xavier Becerra: “I guess if we look at what was proposed by the Republican majority today versus what was proposed last year, this is…”

“I guess if we look at what was proposed by the Republican majority today versus what was proposed last year, this is generous because this proposal that we have before us provides 13 weeks of unemployment compensation for about a million Americans. Last year the Republicans proposed a 5-week extension not for every American in every State but in only three States. Three States last year would have received unemployment benefit compensation for some of its workers. What has changed between that proposal, which was puny, to today's, which is a more realistic proposal? Well, we had 800,000 Americans cut off from all of their benefits on December 28; and every week since then about 90,000 Americans, in addition, have been losing their unemployment benefits. And between now and June, we are going to see about another 2.5 million Americans run out of unemployment benefits. So yes, it is more generous; but it does not take into account all of the millions of Americans who are going to be left out.”