BACK TO WORK INCENTIVE ACT OF 2003 -- (House of Representatives - June 03, 2004)
Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 656, I call up the bill (H.R. 444) to amend the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to establish a Personal Reemployment Accounts grant program to assist Americans in returning to work, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
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Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, it is about time we address unemployment. Unfortunately, H.R. 444 is not the legislation that will truly put Americans back to work. It offers only a temporary solution for a limited pool of unemployed workers and is a poor solution to the ongoing unemployment problem of this Nation.
Rather than PRAs, personal reemployment accounts, we need across-the-board investments in the Workforce Investment Act, WIA, and the Unemployment Insurance, UI, programs. These are the existing programs that need help so a broader number of workers stabilize their lives and develop the necessary skills to secure new jobs. Proper funding of these programs would make the difference. Finding ways to give unemployed workers real jobs is the real solution to the national unemployment problem, not a bill that puts additional burdens on the States, threatening to undo the Federal unemployment system in the first place.
Let me also remind my colleagues that $1 billion invested in highways and transit creates 47,500 new jobs. If we really want to create jobs, we should be moving forward with the transportation bill. These jobs pay a living wage, give workers the opportunity to better their communities, while at the same time supporting their families.
H.R. 444 is not a real solution. The real solution would grant unemployment extensions when finding work takes longer than the length of the initial benefits, not a bill that forces workers to choose between receiving
WIA benefits or PRA benefits with no flexibility to go back to one when the other is exhausted.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 444 is false security.
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Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the motion to recommit H.R. 444. We must support the workers who are desperately trying to find work before their benefits run out. Their families are the reason we must absolutely extend unemployment benefits, not pass legislation that will fundamentally change the Federal unemployment benefits system, like H.R. 444.
We need a real solution like extending unemployment benefits so families have the means to be healthy and safe when their jobs are no longer secure. How else will these families pay their heating bill, clothe their children, and feed their family?
These workers want work and seek work, and we must help them as they get back on their feet again. There is still too little job creation to write off the Federal Extended Benefits Program.
Mr. Speaker, today, 8.4 million people are out of work, 2.6 million private sector jobs have been lost since the beginning of the Bush Administration. Even worse, long-term unemployment is at the highest level in 10 years. As of April 2004, over 1 million people, in my home State of California, were unemployed.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe they are helping unemployed workers by creating these personal reemployment accounts. But my constituents are not writing me on a weekly basis asking for a brand new unemployment system. They simply want their unemployment benefits to continue until they find a job.
H.R. 444 is not the fix they are seeking. If my colleagues really listened to what the unemployed workers wanted they would grant families the security of benefits while they continue to seek work. That's why I urge my colleagues to support this motion to recommit H.R. 444 so we can address what workers really want.