Maria Cantwell: “Before we adjourn, whatever date that is, sometime in the very near future, hopefully before the Thanksgiving holiday…”

“Before we adjourn, whatever date that is, sometime in the very near future, hopefully before the Thanksgiving holiday, it is imperative that this body take a stance and pass the unemployment benefit extension before we go home. We are in the same position we were in virtually a year ago. What has changed? The economy might have gotten slightly better but not really much better. We have a .4 percent improvement in the unemployment rate. We in Washington State are still just above 7 percent in unemployment. The reason we do the unemployment benefit extension program at the Federal level is to help States, which includes those that have been hardest hit by unemployment, get some extra weeks of unemployment benefits. It has been a successful program in the times of downturns of our economy. During the first Bush and Clinton administrations, when our economy was not doing so well, we basically extended Federal unemployment benefits for a total of 30 months. At that time, the benefits were at the Federal level, 20 additional weeks.”