Senate Committee discussess employment at hearing

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee held a hearing today to discuss “Unemployment in a Volatile Economy: How to Secure Families and Build Opportunity.”

Chairman of the committee Edward Kennedy (D-MA) spoke briefly to say that his committee cares about fellow human beings and is concerned about rising unemployment, the lack of jobs, and what happens to people when they lose jobs. He said that the country’s unemployed have been looking for work longer than in any period in recent times.

Ranking member Mike Enzi (R-WY) said that the administration must ensure that workers and students are provided the resources needed in order to live lives without severe financial troubles. He stressed the importance of improving k-12 education where, he said, 7,000 students drop out every day. He talked about a Tennessee high school principal who set up a successful institute to inspire students to pursue higher education and help curb the dropout rate. He said that high schools are only graduating about 70% of their students each year and unless that rate improves, the nation will lose $3 trillion in unearned income. He concluded by saying that a large number of those who graduated high school still have not met the educational requirements to pursue higher education or work and said that there is a need to put a system in place for longterm education, training and retraining.

The New York State commissioner of the Department of Labor Patricia Smith told the committee that her city’s rate of longterm unemployment rate is higher than it has been in recent times and that the rate is expected to continue rising. She said that youth unemployment is the highest of all age groups as nd urged Congress to modernize the unemployment system by closing gaps. She complained of the long time period that workers must wait to access their benefits and said that she agree with Pres. Bush’s FY2009 budget which calls for reduced funding and services for employment.

Princeton University professor of Economics Alan Krueger cited a rise in the unemployment rate from 4.4% in March 2007 to 4.9% as of January 2008. He said that the average duration of unemployment for an unemployed worker was 12.7 weeks in January 2001. Today, he said, the average duration has climbed to 17.5 weeks. He said that polls conducted reveal that both low and high-income Americans feel that it is currently a bad time to find a job and said that losing a job often has a “scarring effect” on workers, even after they find a new job. Krueger also said that it was “unfortunate” that Bush’s new budget calls to eliminate funding for research projects to study the employment and economic situation.