it is a partial step forward. again, i think it helps us at least narrow the issues and focus that when we meet again, we can decide how we proceed. we do have up to 90 minutes of discussion on unemployment insurance. as we discussed in the last meeting, i look forward to the comments. i will yield to senator baucus to discuss the unemployment insurance. >> thank you. a few points before i turn to jack reid. he is leading the senate charge. we do, i think, want to address and help those people who are unemployment. unemployment levels are way too high. 8.5%. slowly coming down. clearly not coming down quickly enough. that leaves about 13 million people in america unemployed. 13 million americans unemployed.

some of these folks are neighbors. some i don't know personally. it is an individual tragedy that people are out of work through no fault of their own. they are stuck. they cannot find a job. it is hard to find a job in the new economy. it is just harder. these are people that, i think, deserve our attention. on a macro level, for every dollar spent on unemployment benefits, there is a multiplier effect. at least $2 positive effect on the economy. we get much greater bang for our buck, frankly, with federal dollars and state dollars spend on benefits than i think any other program. cbo issued the charts. nobody has disputed those

charts. it is very important to the economy that we continue these benefits. i just urge us to work through the more complicated issue. ui. some areas we can reach agreement on. the second tier issues and whatnot to get to the more difficult issues. while we are discussing other ui policy, hospitals have certain policies not in the senate bill. i think it is important for us to not only describe each side, but to ask questions. constructive questions of each other. try to see where we are trying to get with some of these policy changes. i often think that the assumptions behind some of the policies have more agreement than we realize. we have to ask the assumption

and what you are trying to get at. i would like to turn to senator reid and thank him for the work on this issue. jack, why don't you take it. >> thank you, senator baucus. mr. chairman, thank you. as many of my colleagues pointed out, we have seen over the last 22 months, the private sector job growth with 3 million jobs. it is insufficient to meet the demands of families throughout the country. indeed, i think we have to begin with the notion of the benefits that were available to american working families over the last several years should be continued. i would make the point that we have historically met emergency spending. in 1982, there was an offset or a tax on employers or those

receiving the benefits. at the time, we just agreed to reducing payroll taxes and adding to the taxes seems to be counterintuitive. we are at a point where history suggests that we have to provide continuous benefits in the last few years. we have to do it and i would urge to do it under the emergency basis that we also adopt it. one aspect of extending the benefits to the 99 weeks is the logic of this program. it is counter cyclical. if we trunkate the number of weeks, we may have 10% unemployment and people would be left without any support. if, in fact, we do have an extended program in the economy and we hope it improves, just the nature of the program, they won't be able to exercise the

weeks. the logic really is to go big, not go small. i hope we can pursue that longer. i know we have been talking, the staff has been talking in a collaborative and constructive way of reforms that are acceptable in the program. and some, frankly, would cause, i think, difficulties on our side, but also not be helpful to working families. one of the things that is important to stress, too, this really is as close to get to a working class/working person benefit. you have to work to collect. you have to have a record to work. we are talking about people who worked for years and who are now without employment. they need the help. their employers have paid into the system with the expectation

they would have the help. as senator baucus pointed out, we are in a job market that has four applicants for every one job. we are seeing record long-term unemployment. this all argues for continuing in the program and doing it in a way we have done over the last several years. one of the other aspects of the impact of the program is that it is helping our middle class barely stay an above water. one of the interesting points i found is the median income of the ui recipients, these households in the year before they collected, was $55,000. we are not talking about a program that was targeted to the lowest households in the country. we are talking about working people. i heard the stories and i am

sure you have, mr. chairman. in this economy, most households have two spouses working. one may be lucky enough to have their job. but without the benefits that the unemployed spouse is able to obtain, they are in danger of losing their home, of not being able to continue to do the things they have always done. this is a program that i think is hugely beneficial to middle income americans. it has to be continued. there has been some sort of talk about this program is really useful, but it provides disincentives to work. a $300 a week check barely replaces half of what people were earning before they lost their job. moreover, the academic studies and one that was just released two days ago by the federal reserve bank of san francisco clearly points out that the

critical issue here is the lack of aggregate demand. companies are ready to hire, but they are only ready to hire when more people want to buy their products. that's the problem. again, this program goes to that problem, too. there is, on both sides, economists from alan blinder to mark zander every dollar we put in, we get $1.67 return. that is probably the biggest bang for the buck of any of the programs. if we dilute that again, by offsetting it, we will just dilute the impact on the overall economy, on getting demand up and getting people back to work because we all do understand once the demand rises in the united states, employment will rise. for all of these reasons, i think, i hope we can move quickly to principled resolution of the issues. i think we already made real

progress on some structural reforms which both sides agreed to. there are programs. let me just point i would find difficult. the gd requirement. the terms of getting people back to work in drug testing doesn't help get people back to work. in most cases, particularly given this long episode of unemployment, people who are losing jobs now have been working through tough times and mostly they are very good workers who have been working for 30 years or more. the idea they don't qualify unless they sign up for school is not what was intended and not part of the program. there are a couple of issues. we talked about work sharing and some other incentives for

entrepreneurs. mr. chairman, i want to thank you for your thoughtful and collaborative approach to the issue. i think we can make progress. >> all right. >> mr. chairman, i think at some point we will discuss a potential progress of some issues. before we get to that, i would like to turn to senator. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i appreciate the comments by mr. reed. i took lots of notes. i found it very helpful. the nation has made some progress with getting people back to work, people across the nation are having a tough time because of the poor economy. the national unemployment rate in december was 8.5%. since june of 2008, the federal government has added about $180 billion to the nation at debt

for unemployment insurance. i support extending the program, but it does need to be done in a way that is in a fiscally responsible manner. as we work to extend, we must be mindful of the debt crisis that the nation is facing. i believe we need to fully pay for the cost of the extension and avoid adding money to the national debt. the cbo just announced yesterday that the budget deficit was over $1 trillion in 2012. this is going to be the fourth consecutive year with a deficit greater than $1 trillion. the cbo talks about the unemployment rate. while there may be new jobs created, they are likely to see unemployment rates rise to 8.9% by the end of this year and they say by the fourth quarter of 2013. the unemployment rate will be 9.2%. in light of these startling predictions, i think it is critical that the debate focuses

on more than just paying benefits checks. it needs to preserve each state's ability to provide job search assistance. we do that in my home state of wyoming. i know other states are doing it. when it enables them to design programs to help get unemployed people back to work. it is time to consider reasonable changes and reasonable reforms to the ui program. i think we should not forget pr tram is to provide temporary relief for those in need. the sooner we get americans back to work, the better off they are. it seems in terms of education and g.e.d., and things like that, the president said when students don't drop out, they do better. i propose that every state requires that all students stay in school until they graduate or until they turn 18.

this is a focus toward promoting the sorts of things that give the training and education that an allow for faster reemployment of people across country. those are the things that i look to as we want to extend the unemployment insurance and we do it in a way that it paid for and helps people get out and seek work. >> we know that those without high school educations have high unemployment rate. congress member levin. >> you want us to go before? >> yes. then i will recognize someone after. >> i think mr. bassacco will lead off and then i'll say a few words. >> we're trying to go one, one,

one, one. if you could keep it brief. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. levin. perhaps the thing that is most important to recognize is america is slowly pulling herself out of the tough economic times. we saw 2 million jobs added in the year of 2011. although 2 million may not be a lot compared to the 8 million that was lost in 2007, it is recovery. it is progress. we have to continue that. in fact, the 2 million jobs created last year were the most we have seen in any year since 2005. we all know we still have a lot to do. there are still four americans out there looking for a job for every opening that there is out there today. we know that there are some people who are still unemployed

and have been unemployed longer than we have seen in our lifetimes. we have enough to do just to try to work to get this particular extension taken care of. we have far more to do to make sure that folks don't have to reuse the unemployment insurance benefit that they paid for while they were working. i think most of us would agree this is not a common practice for us to have to continue to extend unemployment benefits. this is not something we hope to have to do again for a long time. but just as we knew back in 2008 that there was something going on when the financial world was telling us something is really bad. something bad is about to happen. congress went out there working with president bush and rescued the financial industry. at that point, there was no question about whether or not we were going to recoup our money at that particular time. we knew we needed to do

something. it wasn't just the banks, but americans as well. i think close to 6 million americans who are still out of luck and without a job through no fault of their own, would love to be back working again. over 4 million of them unemployed for quite some time. whether it's the economic policy basis for doing the extension which, whether it is mark zandy, the economist who worked with senator mccain during his presidential campaign who said each dollar for workers have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, that dollar would generate $1.55 of new economic activity or whether it is the study by the labor department which found that federal emergency unemployment insurance benefits boosted employment by up to 750,000 jobs which seems

contradictory, but it is true. if you put money in the hands of those in a tough time, they will buy the right stuff. if you have to grow more crops or build more appliances because people are still able to purchase some of the things they need. so, i don't believe that at this stage, this conference has an issue with trying to extend the benefits. once again, on what basis we do it. some have talked about the need to improve the program. i think every one of us is ready to improve the program. just as we found with the financial crisis we were confronting in 2008, we are not sent here, the 20 of us, to try to make the full-scale reforms to the unemployment insurance program that we can all talk about and hopefully work without controversy to get there. i would hope with can recognize

we have a month to go. just with the payroll tax cut for 160 million workers, the unemployment insurance benefits for workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, some 4 to 6 million of them would benefit from the extensions should not be put at risk because we can't figure out a way to get this done by february 29th. mr. chairman, my sense is that unemployment insurance benefits, we recognize both for policy reasons, but because we owe it to americans who worked hard and paid benefits while they were working and now they hope we remember them as well as much as we remembered the banks and we figure out a way to do this that doesn't cause other americans to have to carry the load of trying to make sure that those who are diligently looking for an opportunity to go back to work have the opportunity. with that, mr. chairman, i will

yield back. >> all right. congress member tom reed. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> why not say big reed and little reed. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i listened with intrigue to senator reed's comments and other comments. the one thing i hope we can set as a goal as we discuss this issue, we have a lot of discussion about unemployment and the benefit check itself. i hope we can do better than that. that we can lead to reforms that lead to paychecks for americans. that is why you see proposals in the house bill that was sent to the senate talking about reforming unemployment insurance by requiring people to get a g.e.d. or a high school diploma. to me, that's a common sense --

just being a country lawyer from upstate new york --york, a comme initiative that i would think we can all agree upon. because if you arm an individual with a diploma, the likelihood of that individual, my gut tells me, and i think every study tells me that higher educational success you receive, the better your chance of being re-employed into the marketplace. so as folks are in this unemployment status, and i empathize with those folks, why can't we come together and agree on reforms that are going to give individuals, men and women, additional tools such as a ged that will make them more marketable. will make them more apt to be re-employed? and so i'm going to follow up on one other point before i get into hopefully a question, senator reed, because i'm going

to follow the chairman baucus' recommendation of trying into up a dialogue through questions. there was a discussion when you talked about we should treat this as emergency spending and not pay for i. i have to say i disagree with that. as a member of the freshman class that came in in 2010, i'm very concerned about the size of our national debt and the attitude of washington that i think historically has been on display of, well, it's an emergency, it's too tough to pay for it. we'll just kind of kick it down the road and we'll pay for it later. i just have to say, i'm here to disagree with that sentiment. that attitude has to change in washington and my constituents back at home and when i was back this weekend told me we have to start paying for what we're doing out of washington. and again, that's a common sense

comment that i offer for everyone. so hopefully we can change that attitude and be an example of that changed attitude through this conference committee. but -- so i'm going to defer back to you, senator reed, if i could. if you could just please explain to me why you think that not obtaining a ged while you're in the unemployed status would be an obstacle or a hindrance or a burden or something we should support together? >> well, as i understand the proposal, it's not something -- we should encourage people to get as much education as possible. but making it a condition to collect, a condition that's never existed before in the program is going to i think miss the point of the program which is to provide support, financial support for people who worked many years, who thought as they

were employers were contributing to the system that they would qualify based upon the fact that they have lost their job through no fault of their own and now we have imposed another condition which never existed before, and then some very practical points. this revision would disproportionately affect older workers. it has been estimated that 35% are without a high school education are over the age of 50. so you would have a significant number of people who have worked literally for 30 years. might have more skills, even technical certificates and company training awards than anyone else, and then to ask them to go get a ged before they could collect on their unemployment i think is going to put a huge burden. the other issue, another practical issue, because i think being a mayor of a community like you are and you have been so thoughtful about, well, this is work.

well, the reality is in most communities there's a long, long waiting list to get into the ged waiting program. it would be terribly ironic, in fact, i think 50 states have reported that they have growing list of people trying to qualify for a ged training or other types of training. so it would be really ironic to force someone who's worked 30 years, who fully expects this is the only benefit that's going to keep them going, to be disqualified because they don't mind getting a ged. but they can't get into the program. and that's one of the realities. now, you know, if we're proposing to come up with resources to -- which they'd be substantial in terms of supporting state training and ged programs so that we can guarantee that they can walk right out of the unemployment office, sign over for a ged,

start working for a ged, that's something else. but i don't see that in the proposal. i just see this requirement, go get a ged even though it might be completely impractical to get one. and i think the other point i would make, too, you go back really to what is causing this lack of employment. particularly for people who do not have, you know, college, post college, whatever, and it's this lack of demand. that was the conclusion of the most recent report by the san francisco fed. that people aren't hiring because there's not demand. i would suspect for people without high school or post high school training, you know, what's going to get them back in the work force when they want to work i'm convinced is not that it's the two or three years it will take them to get the ged because again, you know, that's not something that you can -- some people turn around in two

weeks and get your ged. it could take several years. the companies are hiring again because people want to buy their products. >> i wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment to take care of the economy will take care a lot of in the unemployment. essentially this is not a good policy from your perspective because we never did it before. and there are practical barriers of people getting an education and a ged and high school program that prevent that. but i don't hear a fundamental disagreement in the philosophy that if people get a ged that enhances their lives and that enhances the ability for them to get a job down the road. i don't hear a disagreement with that. i hear an excuse as to why not to do it, but rather the fundamental philosophy of trying to rearm people with the education so they have an additional tool to be

re-employed. >> you know -- >> am i misinterpredating. >> i don't think you'll see someone who is more pro of urging workers training for all these things, but to link a social insurance program designed and for 70-plus years functioning to provide financial support when you lose your job to a requirement that you have to be in this training, i think first of all, won't work for some of the practical considerations. but second i don't think it is -- it contradicts the notion that you're suggesting that the more education you have today, the better off you'll be in this economy. there's nothing contradictory there. the question is is what's the vehicle we use, what is the vehicle we use to provide this training assistance? >> so we fundamentally agree.

>> congressman tom reed, if you can wrap up. >> yeah. in our bill that came out of the house, we did have the exception for undue burdens provisions in there. so the practical barriers that you're referring to can be taken care of by the proposal that came out of the house. we try to take that into to consideration. i believe it's a reasonable, common sense reform that i hope we can move forward. >> you were referring to the older worker issue with the hardship exception. senator baucus. >> yes, thank you, chairman. >> well, thank you very much. following in the chairman's -- i think we need to extend the unemployment insurance. i would urge it to be at the same length of time, and i think the current economic circumstances justify that those who are currently unemployed get the same type of help that those have gotten during the this recession and this recovery.

the current economic numbers are such with four people applying for every job opening indicate that we should do that. we would urge that we reach consensus on that point. i'm not going to belabor the emergency nature. i want to concur with senator reed, jack reed, on the circumstances of this big countercircular insurance program and we need to put it to a responsible and rational plan to deal with it, and i want to respond to the issue of the ged and also senator barrasso's points for the locals to be able to use the money for job training, et cetera. first on the ged, i think there's a huge difference between someone who's under 18 years of age getting their high school diploma and a 40-year-old