NEWS RELEASE

Washington, D.C. - With unemployment benefits set to expire for thousands of Minnesotans by the end of the year, the U.S. Senate passed a bill, cosponsored by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, to extend an additional 14 weeks of benefits for jobless workers in Minnesota.

On Tuesday night, Klobuchar gave a speech on the Senate floor about the importance of passing the extension.  The Senate passed the measure 98-0 to extend unemployment benefits.

“By passing this legislation, we are giving more than a million jobless Americans the boost they need to get back on their feet, and keep going as they face a challenging job market,” said Klobuchar. “Wall Street is starting to recover, but we need to make sure our workforce is strong and recovering as well.”

Klobuchar has worked tirelessly to ensure that Minnesotans were included in legislation to extend unemployment benefits.  Previous proposals failed to include states with unemployment rates below 8.5 percent.  Klobuchar, along with 17 of her colleagues, called on Senate leaders and the Senate Finance Committee to include all states in the extension of unemployment benefits.  Just last night, Klobuchar went to the Senate floor to again urge for the bill’s passage.

“With each passing day without an extension, more and more Americans are losing the last lifeline they had to keep their heads above water in this difficult economy,” said Klobuchar on the Senate floor. “People in my state say: ‘the unemployment rate may be 7.3 percent in Minnesota, but in my house it’s 100 percent.”

The bill passed by the Senate would extend unemployment insurance up to 14 more weeks for unemployed workers in all states. Additionally, in states with unemployment rates at 8.5 percent or above, workers who have exhausted their unemployment benefits would receive an additional six weeks.  According to the Finance Committee, the additional unemployment benefits would be fully offset.

The Senate bill must be approved by the U.S. House of Representatives before going to the President to be signed into law.

A full transcript of Senator Klobuchar’s floor speech is included below:

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about extended unemployment benefits. I just received a call this afternoon from one of my State legislators in Minnesota who represents the Iron Range of Minnesota where my grandpa grew up and worked 1,500 feet underground in the mines in Ely, MN, never graduated from college, and saved money in a coffee can in the basement of his and my grandma’s house to send my dad to college, and my dad and brother also worked in the mines.

It is tough times up in Northern Minnesota. Things go up and down, up and down in the iron ore business. Right now, they are in a downtime. There are some glimmers of hope out there. Some of the mines have started up again, but there is high unemployment up there, high unemployment in the double digits. That is why this is so important, as America has been trying to really pick itself up and get moving again after this economic crisis.

Someone once said that when Wall Street gets a cold, Main Street gets pneumonia. That is what we are still seeing across this country despite the glimmers of hope we see with the GDP, the good numbers there and some of the other good numbers with house sales going up. There are some positives going on in this country, there is no doubt about that. But there are still so many people looking for jobs. For every job out there, there are six unemployed people trying to find that job. I have gotten letters from people saying they have applied for hundreds of jobs, sent in their resumes.

That is why it is so important, while Wall Street is starting to do well again, to make sure we are protecting the people in this country who need their unemployment benefits. In the past 25 days alone, over 185,000 Americans lost their unemployment benefits. With each passing day without an extension, more and more Americans are losing the last lifeline they have to keep their heads above water in this difficult economy.

One of the things I really like about the Senate bill—I see the Senator from Illinois is back. I thank him for his leadership, and Senator Reid and Senator Shaheen and others who have worked on this issue. The Senate bill doesn’t just say: OK, only certain States are going to be able to get this extension of unemployment benefits. The Senate bill says what the people in my State say: The unemployment rate in Minnesota might be 7.3 percent right now, but in my house it is 100 percent, and I have been trying to find work over and over again.

I don’t know what I would have said to the people of my State if I had to come home and say to them: Look, the people of Wisconsin are going to get their unemployment benefits extended, right across the border there, but the people of Minnesota are not.

We were glad to get Brett Favre from Wisconsin. That was a nice pickup. But it doesn’t mean they get unemployment benefits and we don’t. That is not a fair trade. So we are very glad the Senate bill takes care of States such as Minnesota and so many other States such as Montana and others across this country.

I urge the Senate to pass this as quickly as possible in the name of all the people in my State and others who have been looking for work.

I will end with a letter I got from a woman named Barbara, from Mahtomedi, MN. She wrote:

My husband has been looking for a job since March and without unemployment to help us out I don’t know what will happen. All of us [our kids] have been looking for steady employment for months. We drive old cars, we bought a house within our means that we have been fixing up slowly for ourselves for the past 22 years. We buy everything used or on sale. Please don’t let [the people of our State] get left out in the cold [because it is starting to get cold and we need the unemployment until we find a job].

I thank you for allowing me a few minutes to talk about this important bill pending before the Senate, and I urge the Senate to quickly adopt our unemployment bill.

I yield the floor.