Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this legislation to temporarily extend unemployment insurance benefits.
Whether we are in a recession or not, the point is clear: current economic growth has been so sluggish that the job market is weak and job prospects are poor. The recent May 2008 jobs report confirms this as the unemployment rate increased by one-half point to 5.5 percent, which was the biggest one-month increase in over 20 years. Since the first of the year, our economy has lost more than 300,000 jobs.
By providing an extra 13 weeks of jobless benefits to workers in every state who exhaust their unemployment benefits and another 13 weeks of benefits to those in states with high unemployment rates, we can help approximately 4 million unemployed workers meet basic needs such as food and rent while they continue to look for work at a time when the economy is languishing. And we can give our economy a much-needed boost. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, extending unemployment benefits would be one of the most cost-effective and fastest-acting forms of economic stimulus.
Madam Speaker, many Americans are struggling to make ends meet. With rising gas and food prices and a weakened labor market, we can help those hardest hit by this sluggish economy by providing them relief by passing this much-needed bill.