Political Quotes

“in the first 6 months of 2002, 2 million American workers are expected to exhaust their unemployment benefits. Even when we account for growth in the workforce, this means more workers are expected to exhaust their benefits in the next 3 months than in any first quarter since the early 1970s. Of those exhausting benefits over the next 6 months, only 4 percent, 4 percent, are expected to receive extensions through State unemployment programs. This extraordinary number of anticipated exhaustions is due to the huge number of job losses that occurred in the last 6 months of 2001. These job losses were caused by a slowing economy, by unsound trade policies and by the devastating attacks of September 11. To make matters worse, many of the jobs lost in 2001 were good-paying, high-skilled manufacturing jobs that have probably been lost forever. In my home State of Ohio and across the country, the steel industry has been devastated by a combination of foreign dumping and the current recession. According to the Department of Labor, the U.S. has lost 1.4 million manufacturing jobs since President Bush took office, 1.4 million manufacturing jobs. Total job losses from 2001 reduced our manufacturing base by 8 percent, 8 percent in 1 year, diminishing our industrial capacity to 1964 levels.”