On the recordApril 7, 2014
I rise tonight at a time when we face a quiet crisis in this country. President Obama and many on the other side of the aisle tell us the economy has improved, we have turned a corner, we are out of the woods, but I can tell my colleagues too many Americans are being left behind. In fact, historic numbers of Americans are disconnected from work. It is a quiet crisis. It is affecting them and their families. It is affecting our economy in very fundamental ways. It is one of the reasons we haven't seen the economic growth we had hoped for because not enough Americans are involved in active work because so many are out of work. The unemployment numbers, by the way, don't show the degree of the problem. An unemployment number around 7 percent doesn't show the fact that a lot of folks have left the work force all together. This crisis includes also 3.7 million long-term unemployed. These are people who have been out of work for 6 months or more. This is also at historic levels. During this recent recession and during this weak recovery over the last 5 years, we have had numbers of long-term unemployed, over 6 months, at historic levels. In fact, the number of long-term unemployed right now is higher than it has been during any recession in our Nation's history, except for the most recent one 5 years ago. Second, we have a lot of people who have left looking for work all together.…
