On the recordMarch 17, 2010
as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior by a small number of executives on Wall Street, the American people today are suffering through the most serious economic conditions we have seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Since the recession started in December of 2007, 8.4 million Americans have lost their jobs and, while the official unemployment rate is 9.7 percent, according to the latest Gallup Poll, nearly 20 percent of the American workforce is either unemployed or underemployed. In other words, we have people who are working, but they are working 20 hours when they need to be working 40 hours. Further, long-term unemployment is soaring. Today, over 6 million Americans have been unemployed for over 6 months, the highest on record. This is not a situation where people are losing their jobs and a few weeks later they go out and get another job. People are losing their jobs and they cannot find another job, which is why it is so important that we extend unemployment benefits and so reprehensible that there are those in this Chamber who have resisted that effort. Today, there are fewer jobs in the United States than there were in the year 2000, even though the workforce has grown by 12 million since that time. Today, we have the fewest manufacturing jobs than at any time since April 1941, 8 months before the start of World War II.
