On the recordMarch 2, 2010
I want to speak about the unemployment situation in my home State of New York. By mid-March, 54,000 people will lose their benefits if we don't move forward with the short-term extension of unemployment insurance. That is tragic. It is virtually inhumane. I have been around my State meeting with people who are looking for work. You look into their eyes and you feel their pain. Many of them are middle-class people who have had very good-paying jobs. Many of them have lost their jobs. Many lost their jobs more than a year ago and they have spent every day, 7 days a week, looking. I met a woman in Rochester. She was No. 2 in human resources for a big company. Her job was her life. She has been looking for 2 years and can't find a job. I plead with my colleague from Kentucky and all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--while we are debating a larger bill to extend unemployment benefits, we must allow this to go forward. We must allow this short-term extension to go forward for the sake of those people who lost their jobs, through no fault of their own, and they are desperately looking for work, but in this awful economy they can't find it. According to The Hill newspaper, New York is affected No. 1 by this. It is vital, vital, vital that we move this forward. I plead with my friend from Kentucky to reconsider and let the short-term extension move forward. We have done it before under the same conditions we have asked for this time.
