major issues are going in the fall, take a look at the blue dog democrats over the next month. take a look at democrats like mark pryor, and nelson, and the reception they get over the next month. if they get an earful from their constituents and many democrats in those states are not liberal democrats, they are old school, they would be moderate democrats, if they don't like was going on, they let everybody know. those members will not come back in a hurry to do anything. host: big question on another topic -- we did not total about foreign policy. the president has made the decision to grant up in afghanistan for the president who had a major block of supporters who wanted military operations in that region of the world to stop. when you talk about those

politics with his constituency and whether health care is eclipsing those concerns -- guest: there is a real discomfort on the left. it is about the increase in forces in afghanistan. it is in danger of becoming a forgotten war. there was good news on friday where we apparently killed one of the top taliban leaders in pakistan. that is a sign of success it will be interesting see if that gets the type of play that it should. the domestic front is a much hotter right now, economy, health care, it threatens to overcome very important divisions on the left over foreign policy. host: nice to see you both again. >> coming up next, portions of

the confirmation hearings for supreme court justice sonia sotomayor. that will be fall by the swearing-in ceremony. after that, the joint economic council on the latest unemployment figures and president obama's comments on those numbers. after that, a look at the return of two journalists held by north korea. >> tonight, frank rich reflects on 15 years of political columns for " the new york times." that encloses look on the internet that in 1989. that is " q &a" on c-span. >> a look at british politics tonight. that is 9:00 eastern, pacific and eastern on c-span.

host:c-spanc-spanthis is cspan'd the court's." there were nine republicans that joined the democrats for the confirmation of judge sonia sotomayor. highlights from that our next. >> today i will speak in support of judge sonia sotomayor's nomination. first, i will be joined by several of my esteemed fellow women senators, including senator shut in of new hampshire who is here already, senator

from michigan, and senator murray of washington state. we all know that this nomination is history-making for several reasons. one of them is that judge sonia sotomayor will be only the third woman to ever joined the supreme court of the united states of america. we know she is incredibly well- qualified richie has more federal judiciary experience than any nominee for the past 100 years. that is something that is remarkable. i do think it is worth remembering what it was like to be a nominee for this court as a woman, even just a few years ago. it is worth remembering that one justice o'connor graduated from law school, the only offer she got from law firms were for a legal secretary positions. justice o'connor, graduated third in her class, saw her accomplishment reduced to one question," can she type?"

the dean of the law school actually demanded that she justify what she deserved a seat that could have gone to a man. she was passed over for a prestigious part of despite her impressive credentials. nonetheless, both of these women persevered and they certainly prevail. ed. people sought to deny them opportunity. the women who came before judge sonia sotomayor, all those women judges, helped blaze the trail. although judge sonia sotomayor's record stands on its armed, mr. president, she is also standing on those of women's shoulders. >> what about our current nominee? what makes for qualified? first, i think we have a very historic moment and an opportunity. she will be the first hispanic to serve, highest court of this land.

it is a momentous and historic opportunity. that is not good enough. what mr. qualify? -- what makes for qualified? experience, knowledge of the law, temperance, the ability to apply law without bias, these qualifications should override all other considerations when the senate fulfills its role to lead by as and consent to the present's nominee as dictated by the constitutional chart we had. these are the standards which we should determine who is qualified to serve on any federal court, including the highest court in the land. these are the standards that have been used in evaluating judge sonya to us -- judge sonia sotomayor's appointment to the supreme court. her 17-year judicial record overwhelmingly indicates that she will apply the law without bias.

that is very important. we could find someone who is basically qualified but whose views might be outside the mainstream and so different than what the normal harter -- jurors prince would be that it might render them, whilefacially cç qualified that they could not be relied on to look at a case and apply the facts and evidence and apply the law to the evidence presented, that they would not follow the law and the faithful because their views to be sold outside the mainstream and completely beyond what would be the norm or considered to be the norm. here in this person, we have a 17-year record. she has written thousands of opinions. these opinions provide the body of law with what she does as a judge.

it is not what she said to a group of students, encouraging them in their lives. it is not what someone might deign from reading an opinion that they might not agree with. it is not whether we agree with her, it is whether her opinions were reason and had a foundation of law, whether they were reasonable decisions and she reached them on the basis all law and evidence that are supported by sound legal thinking. even her worst critics cannot cite a single instance where she strayed from sound, judicial banking. i believe that she will serve as an outstanding associate justice to the united states supreme court. i believe she will be a terrific role model for many, many young people in this country. i may have chosen someone

different than judge sonia sotomayor for that is not -- that is not my job. i don't get to select judges. i get to advise and consent recent times confuse the role of the senate. elections have the consequences. some of her writings and statements indicate her philosophy might be more liberal in mind. that is what happens in elections. when i was campaigning for john mccain, i knew it would be important because the would-be vacancies on the corporate i knew i would be more comfortable with a nominee that john mccain would nominate than president barack obama might nominate. the president has the prerogative, the obligation, the responsibility to choose his own nominees. our job is to give advice and consent. the president has chosen a nominee and my vote for confirmation will be based

solely and wholly on relevant qualifications judge sonia sotomayor is well qualified richie has been a federal judge for 17 years. she has the most experience of any person, judicial experience, on the bench experience, of any person nominated for the court in one century. in 100 years there has been no one was that on the bench with such a distinguished record for such a long period of time that is why her record -- we do not have to wonder or sit around and try to divine whether sunday she will enter the siren call to judicial activists on the floor of the senate for it you don't have to wonder. you can wander and might give you an excuse to vote against someone who's qualified. the fact is, with a 17-year record, you should have a pretty good idea whether that siren call would have been answered by now. in my estimation, it has not.

she received the highest possible rating for the american bar association. she has been a prosecutor. she has been an outstanding lawyer. as a prosecutor, she was very tough. with less than a handful of exceptions, a 17-year judicial record reflects that while she may be left of center, she is certainly well within the mainstream of legal thinking. for mainstream approach -- her mainstream approach is so mainstream that it has earned her the support of united states chamber of commerce. she also has the endorsement of several law enforcement and criminal justice organizations. she has been endorsed by the national fraternal order of police. also the national sheriffs' association and the

international association of chiefs of police. i daresay, she will be a strong voice for law and order in our country. i disagree with judge sonia sotomayor about several issues i would expect to have disagreements with many judicial nominees of the obama administration. i would probably have to work with her than some i might see in the future. we know she has a commitment to well-reasoned decisions, decisions that look to apply the law as written. i believe she will rule with restraint. that has been for judicial history and philosophy. i believe her view on maloney versus cuomo of whether the second opinion -- the second moment is contrary to the founders' intent. i also know there is significant and well-reasoned disagreement in the appellate

courts on this situation. it is not out of the mainstream. on this issue, i accept the idea that reasonable people may differ. this debate raises critical and difficult issues regarding the role of federalism in the application of fundamental constitutional rights. the confirmation process is not the proper place to read- litigate this question. i believe that her statements on the role of international law and american jurisprudence reflect the view that is too expensive. for judicial record indicates that in practice, she has given only limited foreign court decisions. in crowell vs crowell, an international custody case, judge sonia sotomayor wrote a

dissenting opinion which she concluded that the holdings of the courts of foreign nations, interpreting the same convention were not essential to reason. i believe that some of her statement she has made in her speeches about the role of one's personal experience are inconsistent with the judicial oath requirement that judges set aside their personal bias when making those decisions. there are several of my colleagues that say the statements demonstrate that she is a judicial activist in hiding. this assertion is not supported by the facts. we can throw it out there but it is not supported by the facts. the relevant facts, her 17-year judicial record shows she has not allowed her personal bias as to influence for jurisprudence. they can talk about her speeches but they cannot talk about a single, solitary open in in 17 years on the bench where that

type of view has been given life. where that type of the u.s. found itself into the pages of a single one of her opinions. i would rather put my trust and my expectations for the future on her 17-year record of judicial decisions then i would on one or two speeches she might have given over 10 or 15 years. those who approach judge sonia sotomayor have yet to present any evidence that she has personal bias to influence her decision making. in her testimony before the judiciary committee, she reiterated her fidelity to law and she would adhere to law regardless of the outcome is required. based on my review of her judicial record and her testimony, i am satisfied that judge sonia sotomayor is well qualified to sit on our nation's

highest court. i intend to vote for her confirmation. i intend to also be very proud of her service on the supreme court of the united states. i think she will serve a very historic and unique role to many people in this nation who i know will look to her with great pride. >> i would like to address the nomination of judge sonia sotomayor to be an associate justice of the united states supreme court, as well i've spoken about this nomination several times here on the senate floor and on the senate judiciary committee on which i serve. i have shared what i admire about judge sonia sotomayor, including her long experience as a federal judge, her academic background, which is stellar, and a record of making decisions which, for the most part, are within the judicial mainstream. i have also explained before why i would vote against this

nomination. i would like to reiterate and expand on some of those comments here today. all of us are stating our intentions before this historic vote, which i suspect will be held sometime tomorrow. based on her decision in the maloney case, judge sonia sotomayor, apparently does not believe that the second amendment right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. indeed, she held, in that case, that the second amendment did not apply to the state and local jurisdictions that might impose restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. based on her decision in the

port chester case, she does not believe that the taking calls of but that the amendment does not support private property. i am very concerned when the government's power to condemn property for a private purpose conflicts with the stated intention of the framers of the constitution that the right of condemnation of private property only extends to public uses and then, and only then, when just compensation is paid. and based÷b upon her compensatn in the -- and based upon her decision in a firefighter case, which calls into question equal treatment what applies to our jobs or promotions without regard to the color our skin. in that case, because of her

failure to acknowledge the seriousness and novelty of the claims being made by the new haven firefighters, she gave short shrift to those claims in an unpublished order and denied new haven fire fighters an opportunity for promotion, even though they excelled in a competitive race-neutral examination because of the color of their skin. fortunately, the supreme court of united states saw fit to overrule her judgment in the new haven case. millions of americans became aware of, perhaps for the first time, of this notorious decision and what a morass some of our laws have created when distinguished judges think they have no choice but to allow people to be denied a promotion based upon the color of their skin for fear of a disparate impact lawsuit, even when

substantial evidence is missing that such a disparate lawsuit would have any merit or likely be successful. mr. president, i cannot vote to confirm a nominee who has publicly expressed some very radical legal theories. wex all heard this during the confirmation hearings. judge sonia sotomayor's explanations were unconvincing. previously, she has said there is no such thing as neutrality or objectivity in law. there is merely a series of perspectives. boss, it undermines the very concept of equal justice in law. it's the law is not neutral, if the law is not objective, then apparently, according to her, the law is purely subjective and outcomes will be determined on which judge you get, rather than

a couple law says. she has said that it is the role of judges to make policy. that is on the court of appeals. she has said that foreign law can get the creative juices going as judges interpret the united states constitution. she has said that ethnicity and gender can influence the judge's decision and that judges of a particular ethnicity or gender can actually make better decisions than individuals of a different gender and ethnicity. third, i cannot vote to confirm a judicial nominee who testified before the judiciary committee that her most controversial decisions were guided by precedent when her colleagues on the second circuit and the justices of the supreme court reversed her said the opposite.

a person like her testified that she had no idea of what the porter weakened defense fund -- where to recant defense fund was taking. the hearings before the senate judiciary committee have a very important purpose. the purpose is informed by article 2 of the united states constitution, to provide advice and consent on nominations. it is not to serve as a rubber- stamp. i have heard colleagues say that while elections have consequences and the president won. elections have consequences and president obama wonder if that does not negate or erase the obligation that each united states senator under the same clause an article of the

constitution to provide advice and consent based on our best judgment and good conscience. in the case of judge sonia sotomayor, the question becomes ," what will she do with the immense power given to a member of the united sports -- united states supreme court? what influence will she have on our rights and liberties over the course of a lifetime? " what kind of judge will she be on the supreme court? her decisions will no longer be reviewed by a higher court, as the war as a federal district court or federal appeals justice, the question is," will she be the judge she has been as a lower court judge, making decisions which by and large, in the mainstream, with notable exceptions, or will she be untethered? will she be the judge sonia sotomayor of some of her more radical speeches and writings

which cause me concern? the answers to these questions are no clearer after the hearings than they were before. the stakes are simply too high to confirm someone who could read to find a lot of the land from a liberal activist perspective. mr. president, i respect different views of different senators on this nomination and i have no doubt that she will be confirmed. i am unwilling to abdicate responsibility i believe i have as a united states senator when it comes to voting my conscience and expressing reservations. the united states senate developed our confirmation process for a very important purpose, to learn more about the individual nominees. over the last several weeks, we have also learned more about the rising consensus with regard to what we should expect from a judge. i would like to highlight two

important lessons we have learned this summer. one, that is encouraging, and the other that is worrisome. let's start with the good news. i believe that republicans and democrats on the judiciary committee seemed to say that the appropriate judicial philosophy for nominees to the federal bench is one that expresses fidelity to law and nothing else. over years, we have debated whether we have an original understanding of the constitution or some evolving constitution, even though it can be interpreted in different ways, even though the words on the repair -- on the paper read exactly the same. we went back and forth on the merits or lack of merit of judicial activism that is just taking it upon themselves to impose their views as opposed to interpreting block -- the law. on many occasions, our disagreements over judicial

philosophy were anything but subtle. civil and dignified. the nomination of estrada was a native from honduras who did not speak english when it came to united states but graduated from a top university and law school in this country, he was filibustered it seven times and denied an up or down vote. one member of the judge's jury committee -- the judiciary committee called him a "stealth missile, with a nose cone coming out of the deepest silo." there was samuel alito who was an anti-american brought of his heritage who had to defend themselves against charges of bigotry, accusations which left his wife in tears.

there was clarence thomas, perhaps the one we all remember the best. he was an african-american nominee to the united states supreme court would described his experience before the judiciary committee this way. he said it is a national disgrace. these nominees, mr. president, were accused at various times of certain offenses even though the real crime was a crime of conscience. they dared to be judicial conservatives, a philosophy that the nominee that we are talking about here today and senate democrats appear to embrace. i hope these days of on fair and on civil and on dignified judiciary committee hearings are behind us. i hope our hearings are more respectful of the nominees as

was this hearing for judge sonia sotomayor she has proclaimed herself that she could not have received fairer treatment. i appreciated for acknowledging the fairness and dignity of the process. i hope that the thought crimes of yesterday have now become the foundation of a new bipartisan consensus, that the abuse that judge sonia sotomayor up front of her hearing that we affirmed as republicans and democrats. let me give an example of this new bipartisan consensus on the appropriate judicial philosophy for a nominee to the united states supreme court. judge sonia sotomayor, at her hearing, put it this way," the intent of the founders was set forth in the constitution. it is their words that are the most important aspect of judging."

i cannot think of a better expression of a modest and judicial restraint philosophy that i embrace other than what judge sonia sotomayor said at her. republicans and democrats seemed to be pleased with that statement. we agreed that foreign law has no place in constitutional interpretation. notwithstanding her earlier statements, judge sonia sotomayor said at the hearing," foreign law cannot be used as a holding or a president or to buy or influence the outcome of a legal decision interpreting the constitution or american law." notwithstanding her earlier statements, i agree with that statement that she made at the hearing. i believe both republicans and democrats were satisfied with that statement, as well. we agreed that empathy or what is in a person's heart should

not influence the decisions of a judge. i think we were all a little surprised when judge sonia sotomayor at the hearing, rejected president's obama standard. she said i would not approach the issue of judging the with the president does for judges cannot rely and was in their heart. she says they don't determinable law, congress makes law. the job of the judges to apply the law so it is not the heart that impulse conclusions, is the law. i agree with that statement. indeed, republicans and democrats appeared to embrace that statement of a corporate judicial philosophy. no one defended the statement that then-senator obama made it with regard to equity or what is in a person's heart. i was encouraged to see that. mr. president, supporters of judge sonia sotomayor appear to be willing to accept her statements that i have just quoted at the judiciary

committee at face value. i hope they are right. i really do. i certainly intend to take my colleagues' agreements at a study. i expect that future nominees to the federal judiciary that will conform to this new consensus articulated by judge sonia sotomayor at her hearing and embraced in a bipartisan fashion by the members of the judiciary committee. mr. president, i have no question about the outcome of this boat on judge sonia sotomayor. i regret, for the reasons i have stated, i cannot recognize her previous statements with her testimony at the judiciary committee. i wish her well. i hope the concerns i have raised and the uncertainty i have about what kind of justice she will play, she will prove those concerns are justified.

i told her tenure were strengthened the court. . mr. sessions: thank you, mr. president. when president obama nominated judge sotomayor to the supreme court i pledged we would treat her with respect and our questions would be tough but always fair. it's an important office. i believe we have lived up to that obligation. again, i would like to thank that obligation. again, i would like to thank chairman leahy and of the judiciary committee for their efforts. i think we it did help provide a basis for full debate in the senate. and i would like to thank judge sotomayor for her kind words regarding how the process has been conducted and the way she conducted herself. we've had a robust debate in the senate floor over these past few days and we've addressed many important questions and issues. the debate over judge sotomayor's nomination began

with president obama's radical new vision for the american court system. according to the president, all nominees to the federal bench would now have to meet an "empathy" standard which requires judges to reach their most difficult and important decisions through "the depth and breadth of their empathy," and "their billio billion"their brot america should be." this is a stunning ideology and turns law into politics. the president of the united states is breaking with centuries of american legal tradition to enter a new era where a judge's personal feel, about a case are as important as the constitution itself. the president's empathy standard is much more than a rhetorical flourish. it's a dangerous judicial philosophy where judges would base their rulings on social, personal, political, views. it's an attempt to sell, really,

an old discredited activist philosophy by marketing it under a new label. it is this activist philosophy now under the guise of empathy that has led judges to ban the pledge of a becaus of allegianct contains "under god," and to create a new right for terrorists who attack the united states -- rights never before found in our country or any other country, while robbing american citizens of their own rights to engage in activities like even a silent prayer. that philosophy also helps explain request judge sotomayor's panel on federal judges allowed the city of new haven to strip 18 firefighters of their elgibility for promotion on the basis of race and explains why judges have

permitted cities and states to ban guns despite the constitution's clear language "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." and it explains why judges have allowed governments to seize private property for private commercial development despite the constitution pos guarantee'e that private property may not be taken but for public use. the standard may sound nice but it's cruel, it is, in truth, a bias standard. the power to rule on empathy is the power to rule on religion disasand thprejudiceand the powf any or all and embraces empathy at the expense of objectivity and equality and fairness. 18 firefighters in new haven worked, studied and sacrificed to pass the city's promotion

exam but when the results did not fit a certain racial quota the city leaders just scrapped the results. the firefighters put their faith in the system and the system let them down so they took their case to court. but judge sotomayor summarily dismissed their case in a one-paragraph order that did not even consider their civil rights claims. but the judge sotomayor who testified before the committee did thought effectively explain her ruling to deny the firefighters their day in court. she also did her best to distance herself from the activists philosophy she has so long spoken and championed. but it was an unconvincing effort. i believe she failed to offer a critical explanation for her critically important rule uniteo eviscerate gun and property rights. she failed to offer a credit build explanation of her policy

role in a group that took extreme positions while, when pursuing racial quotas advocating that the constitution requires that the government fund abortions and opposing reinstatement of the death penalty. her effort to rebrand her judicial approach stretched the limits of credulity. nevertheless, i believe we have had a deeply valuable public discussion. by the end of the hearing not only republicans and not only democrats but the nominee herself ended up rejecting the very empathy standard the president has used when selecting her and this process reflected a broad public consensus that judges should be impartial, restrainted, and

faithfully tethered to the law and the constitution. it will now be harder, i think, to nominate activist judges. this is not a question of left v. right or republican v. democrat. this is a question of the true role of a judge v. the false role of a judge. it is a question of whether a judge follows the law as haven't or as they might wish it to be. it is a question of whether we live up to our great legal heritage or whether or not it is abandoned. empathy-based rulings no matter how well-intentioned do not help society but imperil the legal system so circumstantial to our freedoms and so fundamental to our way of life. we need judges who uphold the rights of all, not just some, whether they are new haven firefighters, law-abiding gun

owners or americans looking for their fair day in court. we need judges who put the constitution before politics and the right legal outcome before their desired personal, political, social outcome. we need judges who understand that if they truly care about society and want it to be strong and healthy, then they must help ensure that our legal system is fair, objective, and firmly rooted in the constitution. our 30th president coolidge said of the constitution "no other document devised by the hand of man has ever brought so much progress and happenness to humanity, the good it has brought can never be measured." i certainly believe he is correct. that document has given us blessings no people of any country has ever known which is why real compassion is not found in the empathy standard but in following the constitution.

judge sotomayor, however, has embraced the opposite view. for many years before her hearings she has bluntly advocated a judicial philosophy where judges ground their decisions not in the objective rule of law but in the subjective realm of personal "opinions, sympathies and prejudices." a supreme court justice wields enormous power over every man, woman and child in our country, the primary guardian of our magnificent legal system because, i believe, judge sotomayor's philosophy of law and her approach to judging fail to demonstrate the kind of firm, inflexible commitment to these ideals, i must withhold my consent. mr. president, i see my colleague, senator leahy, is here.

he has handled many of these cases over quite a few years. we didn't agree on a lot of the things that came up in the hearings but he committed to giving the opportunity to the minority party to have a full opportunity to ask questions and to raise issues and speak out. thank you for that. i think you did credit to the in our hearings. some critics have attacked president obama's nomination of judge sotomayor by contending the picture for the supreme court to substitute "empathy" for the rule of law. these kittic critics are wrong t the president, they are wrong about sonia sotomayor. let's leave off the rhetoric and go to the facts. when the president announced choice of judge sotomayor ten

weeks ago he focused on the qualities he sought in a nominee. he started with rigorous intellect, mastery of the law. we should all agree with that. he then referred to recognition of the limits of the judicial role when he talked about an understanding that a judge's job was to interpret not make laws; to approach decisions without any particular ideology or agenda. but, rather, a commitment to impartial justice, a respect for precedents, a determination to faithfully apply the law to the facts at hand. that's what president obama said. and then he went on to mention experience. he said "experience being tested by those suffering barriers and hardship and misfortune, experience in persisting and ultimately overcoming the barriers." it is the experience that can give a person a common touch and

a sense of compassion and understanding how the world works and now ordinary people live. that is request it's a necessary ingredient in the kind of justice we need on the supreme court. and then the president concluded by discussing how judge sotomayor has all these qualities. the president was looking not just for lawyerly ability but for wisdom, for an understanding of how the law and justice work in the every day lives of americans. in a subsequent radio and internet address the president reiterated the point when he said -- and i quote -- "as a justice of the supreme court she will bring not only the experience acquired over the course of a brilliant legal career, but the wisdom accumulated over the course of

an extraordinary journey, a journey defined by hard work and fierce intelligence and the enduring faith that in america all things are possible." now, president obama did not say that he viewed compassion or empathy as a substitute for the rule of law. in fact, he has never said he would substitute empathy for the rule of law. that's a false choice. in that opposition -- and that opposition to this nomination is based on a false premise. when she was first named, judge sotomayor said, "i firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all our basic rights." judge sotomayor reiterated time and time again during her confirmation hearing her fidelity to the rule of law. she said, "judges can't rely on what's in their heart. they don't determine the law.

congress makes the law. the job of the yuj is to apply b of the judge is to apply the law. it is not the heart that compels in cases. it is the law enforcementhe judge applies the law to the facts -- the judge applies the law to the facts of the case." those who ignored her testimony should at least take heed of her record as a judge. judge sotomayor has demonstrated her fairness and impartiality during her 17 years as a judge. she has followed the law. there is no record of her substituting her personal views for the law. the many independent studies that have closely examined judge sotomayor's record have concluded that it is a record of applying the law, not of bias. what she has said and what we should all acknowledge is the

value of her background shall the value her background brings to her as a judge and would bring to her as a justice, our first latina justice. judge sotomayor is certainly not the first nominee to discuss how her background has shaped her character. justice o'connor has acknowledged we're all creatures of our upbringing. we bring whatever we are as femme a jobpeople to a job, liee suprem-- like thesupreme court. everybody knows that. all 100 of us bring what we are to the united states senate. many recent justices have spoken of her life experiences as influential factors in how they approach the bench. justice alito and justice thomas nominated by republican presidents did so famously at their confirmation hearings, and then they were praised by the

republican side of the aisle for doing so. indeed, when the first president bush nominated justice thomas to the supreme court, he touted him as an intelligent person who has great empathy. some of those choosing to oppose this historic nomination have tried to justify their opposition by falsely contending that president obama is pitting empathy against the rule of law. not so. not so. this president and this nominee are committed to the rule of law. they have recognized the role of life experience not has a substitute for the law or in conflict wits mandates but as -- with its mandated but as informing judgments. the question is whether there is a double standard being applied by those who supported the nomination of justice alito and

justice tom moss but choose to oppose the historic nomination of judge sonia sotomayor. judge sotomayor's career and judicial record demonstrate that she has always followed the rule of law. the point is, mr. president, we don't have to guess what kind of a judge she's been. she's had more experience on the federal court, both trial level and appellate level, than any nominee in decades. she will be the only member of the u.s. supreme court with experience as a trial judge. we don't have to guess. there are well over 3,000 cases. we don't have to guess. attempts at destroying that record by suggest that is her eth nighs tirks her heritage will be the driving force in her decisions as a justice of the supreme court are demeaning to women and all communities of color. i have spoken over the last several years about urging

presidents from both political parties to nominate someone from outside the judicial monastery. i believe that experience, respect, and understanding of how the world works and people live and the affect decisions will have on the lives of people are very important qualifications. by striving for more diverse bench, drawing from judges a wider set of backgrounds and experiences, we can better ensure there will be no prejudices and biases controlling our courts of justice. all nominees have talked about the value they will draw on the bench from their backgrounds. that diversity of experience is a strength. it is not a weakness in achieving an impartial judiciary. mr. president, i have voted on every member of the united states scosht. i've been on the hearings of all

but one. and that one i voted on the nomination. i sat in the hearings of judges -- justices no longer there either because of retirement or death. i have conducted thousands of nomination hearings, everything from courts of appeals judges, federal district court judges, members of the department of justice, the rank and member of supreme court nominations and conducted this one. i mention that to thank the senator from alabama for his cooperation during it. you know, after those thousands of hearings, you get a sense of the person you are listening to.

now, i met for hours with judge sotomayor either in the hearing room or privately. you learn who a person is. you really do. you really do in asking these kinds of questions. you have to bring your own experience and your own knowledge to what you're hearing. there's only 101 people in this great nation of 300 million people who get a say who's going to be one of the nine members of the u.s. supreme court. first and foremost, of course, the president, who makes the nomination. but then the 100 of us who must follow our own conscience, our own experience, our own abilities in deciding whether we'll advise and consent to that nomination. mr. president, it's an awesome responsibility, and we should do it not because we are swayed by

any special interest group of either the right or the left. in fact, i have a rule -- my office knows this very well -- that in supreme court confirmations, i will not meet with groups of either the right or the left about it. i'll make up my mind signature through hours and days -- sitting through hours and days of the transcripts and hearings. i would urge all senators to do that. i think it is unfortunate if any senator of either party made up their mind on a supreme court nominee based on the whims or the ideas of special interest groups or special pressure groups from either the right or the left. that's a disfavor to those hundreds of millions of americans who don't belong to pressure groups of either the right or the left.

they expect us to stand up. that is what we should do. that is what we should do on judge sotomayor. this is an extraordinary nominee. i remember when president obama called me a few hours before he nominated her. i was out with our troops in the fields in afghanistan. and he explained what he was going to do in just a few hours. he talked about that. we talked about asmg we talked especially about-- --we talked about afghanistan. we talked especially about her. he said, they are web sites already developing opposed to her. within hours we had leaders calling her the head of the ku klux klan or being bigoted, senators on neither side joined with that. it would be unfortunate.

mr. president, we're almost at a time for the vote. i would hope every senator would search his or her conscience and say, are they voting for this based on their oath of office, based on their conscience? or are they reflecting a special interest group? when the judiciary committee began the confirmation hearings on this supreme court nomination and when the senate this week began its debate, i recounted an insight from dr. martin luther king jr. which is often quoted by president obama, "let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. it is distinctly american to continually refine our union, moving closer to our ideals. our union is not yet perfected, bu"but with this confirmation we

will be making progress. years from now, mr. president, we will remember this time when we crossed paths with the quintessentially is american journey of sotomayor seentdz when our nation took another step forward through this historic confirmation process. i urge each senator to honor our oath, our constitution, and our national promise by voting his or her conscience on the nomination of sonia sotomayor to serve as a justice of the united states supreme court. i will proudly for for her. i see the republican leader, and i ?xxúú

i want to thank the senate judiciary committee for giving judge sotomayor a civil hearing and i think them for doing so in a timely manner so she can be fully prepared to take her seat when the court's work begins in september. the members of the supreme court are granted life tenure. they have gauged hurt respect for the proper role of each branch of government, her commitment to faithfully applied

balad to the facts at hand, and her determination to protect our rights and freedoms. with this historical vote, the senate has a firm that judge sotomayor has the temperament, the history, the integrity, the independence of a mind to ably serve on our nation's highest court. this is a role that the senate has played for more than two centuries, making sure that equal justice under the law is not merely a phrase described above our courthouse door. this is a description of what happens every day inside the courtroom, the promise whether you are a mighty corporation or an ordinary american, you will receive a full hearing. at the outcome of your case, it will be determined by the the strength of your argument and the dictates of the law.

the score american ideals, justice, equality and opportunity are the very ideals that have made judge so to myers own journey possible. the senate has broken yet another bearer -- barrier in moving a step towards a perfect union. our nation is filled with pride with this achievement and great confidence that judge sotomayor will make an outstanding supreme court justice. this is a wonderful day for judge sotomayor and her family, but i also think it is a wonderful day for america. thank you. >> yesterday, judge sonya sotomayor was sworn in. she replaces justice david souter who retired this summer after 19 years on the supreme court.

judge sotomayor was confirmed by a vote of 68-31. she becomes the court's third female justice andát first hispanic justice. >> we are administering the oath this morning, so that she can begin work as an associate justice without delay. i would like to invite the judge's mother and judge soth sotomayor's brother to join her. are you ready to take the oath? raise your right hand and repeat after me. i, sonia sotomayor do solemnly swear that i will administer justice without respect to persons. >> that i will administer

justice without respect to persons. >> and do equal right to the poor and rich. >> that i will faithfully and impartial way discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as associate justice of the supreme court of the united states. under the constitution and laws of the united states, so help me god. congratulations, and welcome to the court. [applause]

>> for more on the confirmation, go to our web upset -- website at c-span.org. you will see individual statements by centers about the confirmation.

enter the home to america's highest court, from the grand public places to those only accessible by the nine justices. the supreme court, coming the first sunday in october on c- span. >> today on c-span newsmakers, conference chaired lamar alexander on health care, the economy and his party's legislative priorities when congress returns, as well as recent protests at town hall meetings across the country. >> the democrats are feeling the fire. they are calling protesters names. i think people need to settle down. good manners are a good thing. first amendment rights are important, but if you shout someone down you are destroying

that person's first amendment opportunity also. town halls are a very important part of the american fabric. we should not be calling these protesters names, just because they don't like the idea of being dumped in a government program. they are worried. they saw congress tried to ram through a bill that they did not like, and they want to find out about it. i think a good manners are important. we have the right to say how we feel. most of us in public life are used to vigorous exchanges back and forth. newsmakers with lamar alexander, today at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c- span. on friday, the joint economic committee was given the latest monthly unemployment figures. keith hall, detailed the numbers for july.

this last about one hour 25 minutes. >> evidence that the stimulus bill is taking hold is starting to emerge. the economy dramatically improved during the seventh quarter of the share, and the pace of job loss has moderated in recent months. but the trend is toward recovery. i am optimistic that more americans will be heading back to work, as more stimulus projects get under way. while we welcome these signs of improvement, this morning's unemployment report reminds us of the height told that the recession has had in millions of working americans. this recession which began in

december, 2007, is now the longest and deepest in the post world war ii. . the duration has led to long spells of unemployment for law -- for workers. with six unemployed workers for each opening, people are finding it difficult to find jobs. more than one-third of the unemployed, 5 million americans, have been without a job for at least six months. it is the highest on record. in both% and sheer number, over two 0.3 million workers have been unemployed for one year or longer. the national employment law project estimates that by the end of september more than 500,000 workers who lost their jobs will exhaust their federally funded unemployment benefits before finding a job.

by the end of the share, the number could grow by 1.5 million. -- by the end of this year, the number could grow by 1.5 million. congress and the president worked swiftly to expand and -- the unemployment program for the thousands of workers losing their jobs each month. refunded up to 20 weeks of additional benefits. the emergency unemployment compensation program also provided an additional 20 weeks for workers in all states, and an additional 15 weeks for laid off workers in states with exceptionally high rates of unemployment. many jobless americans are receiving an additional $100 each month, do to the recovery

act. for many of these unemployed workers, it is not just the income they have lost, for millions of jobless americans and their families, health insurance benefits have evaporated or mate stop. the joint economic committee released a report, estimating that 1.4 million women and 2.7 million men have lost their employment base health insurance because of job losses during this recession. today's jobs report makes it clear that we are making progress, but it will be a long road to recovery. by extending unemployment benefits, we would give out of work americans some peace of mind as they continue to search for work. by passing health care reform, millions of uninsured americans will have access to affordable health care insurance. i look forward to working with my colleagues in the house and

the senate to act swiftly on behalf of the millions of unemployed americans across this country. i now call on my colleague, mr. cummings, for five minutes. >> as we continue to emerge from this depression, it is sobering when the loss of two hundred 47,000 jobs qualifies as good news. secretary geithner and alan greenspan suggested that the economy may have turned a corner. both men point to the forecast that portends a possible growth in the second half of 2009. the new york times yesterday reported comments by another economist that said the stimulus has driven the recovery adding some two percentage points to the economic activity.

unemployment is a lagging indicator. as white house adviser dr. larry summers noted, it will be sometime before economic growth produces consistent job growth. one of the reasons why i wanted to be here this morning is because i consistently heard that before this administration did the things that it did, people were saying that it would do no good. i expected to hear as i heard from former senator fred thompson from tennessee that some folks are giving no credit to this administration for the effort. i wanted to make sure that the record is clear, that while we may not see the very end to this strong tunnel, the things we are doing is making a difference. loss of 67 million jobs since the recession began, the effect

has ben felt severely. today's data tells us that the number of long-term unemployed continues to climb. 5 million americans have been unemployed for over six months and two 0.3 million for over 12 months. americans struggle to pay their rent and put food on the table. state coffers continue to be empty. long-term employees in state and local government, crucial services are put at risk. not only are hard working americans not funny at employment, but the unemployment safety net has been stretched dangerously thin in some states. this congress has previously

taken dramatic action in this session to reduce the burden of unemployment in the family spirit the stimulus bill included funds to increase unemployment benefits. this continues to be essential for those who are struggling. now, we find that the weight of the cumulative job losses forced 18 states to borrow billions of dollars from the unemployment trust fund just to keep benefits available to residents. facing the potential exhaustion of this fund i was proud to join my colleagues last week in supporting emergency funding for the federal unemployment emergency trust fund. this will ensure that 4.6 million workers will have vital unemployment benefits in august and september. however, i also hope that upon our return from recess that we are able to move another

extension of unemployment benefits through the house. while the recession has provided its share of bad actors, it remains our responsibility. i am proud of what we have accomplished but i know that we can and will do more, and that we will do better. i look forward to the testimony of the commissioner. i yield back. >> thank you for being here today. it does seem like we have all little stability going on here. i am looking forward to asking questions of all of you. we know we are not out of this. we still have incredible challenges. being in the minnesota up for --

not for the last few weeks, we have a 20% increase in home sales from june of last year to june of this year. they attribute that to the $8,000 first-time home buyers tax credit. then there is the and don't -- anecdote. one fellow told me that he is a mover, and he has been doing a lot of moving people out of apartments into their first-time home. the cash for clunkers program, our state was fourth in the nation for people using that program. i think you see people starting to believe that there is hope in this economy.

i can tell you that we are still not where we should be. i have talked to so many people in our state. people say they put their kids to bed and go sit at the kitchen table, wondering how they will make ends made -- meat, while they tell their children everything is ok. the iron ore miners in the northern part of our state, until the recession hit, it had been going better than in decades. suddenly the rug was pulled out from underneath them. suddenly, they were unemployed. in the past, it tended to be

older workers to be laid off. these were younger workers this time. the unemployment extension is very meaningful to these people. i am looking forward to seeing commissioner hall to get your view of this whole polls figures and what that means as we go forward. thank you very much. >> now i would like to introduce commissioner hall. dr. keith's halt is the commissioner of labor statistics for the united states department of labour. -- department of labor.

dr. hall also served as chief economist for the white house council of economic advisers. prior to that he was chief economist for the u.s. department of commerce. dr. hall also spent 10 years at the trade commission. dr. hall received his b.a. degree from the university of virginia and his ph.d. from purdue university. welcome. >> non-farm payroll employment decreased by two hundred 47,000 in july and the unemployment rate was little changed to 9.4%. job losses have averaged 331,000, compared to an average of four and 45,000. employment has fallen by 600-6

million. construction employment fell by 76,000 over the month with losses inside the industry. job losses have averaged 73,000 compared with 117,000 over the past six months. employment construction has fallen by 1.4 million since december 2007. d to decline with the loss of 52,000 in july. tractor employment fallen by 2 million since the start of the recession. the seasonally adjusted employment estimate for motor vehicles and parts rose over the month by 28,000. because layoffs in auto manufacturing already had been so large, fewer workers than usual were laid off for seasonal shutdowns in july, thus the seasonally adjusted gain does not necessarily indicate

improvement in the industry. employment and motor vehicles and parts manufacturing has been on a long-term decline. the number of jobs in the industry, 661,000, is now half of what it was in early 2000. in july, job losses continued in wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing and financial activities. however, these industries have lost fewer jobs on average since may than during the prior six months. similarly, job losses have less than substantially in temporary health services. employment and leisure hospitality has been little changed over the past three months, and health care employment grew about in line with the trend thus far in 2009. average hourly earning for production and nonsupervisor workers were up in july to $18.56, the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.5%. from june, 2008, to june 2009 the consumer price index for

urban wage earners and clerical workers continued to decline by 1.7%. turning now to measures from our household survey the unemployment rate in july was 9.4%, little change for the second consecutive month. the rate it had been 4.9% when the recession began. there are now 14.5 million unemployed persons in the country. the number of long-term unemployed continue to rise. in july, 5 million people had been unemployed for more than six months accounting for one in three unemployed persons. the employment-to-population ratio was 459.4% in july. among the employed, there are 8.8 million persons working part-time in july who would have preferred full time work. after rising sharply last fall and winter, the number of such workers has been little changed for four consecutive months. in summary, nonforeign payroll employment fell by 247,000 in july and the unemployment rate

was little changed at 9.4%. my colleagues and i would now be happy to answer your questions. >> well, thank you very much, commissioner hall. i usually ask you, are there any bright spots in the labor report. are there any green chutes or glimmers of hope? but today i can ask you, what are the bright spots and the glimmers of hope? >> this report, there's still substantial job loss, but the last three months, there's been clear moderation in the job loss. and the moderation has been, has been pretty broad, which i think is a good sign. while i would say that we're not in recovery yet, this is the path that we have to go to get to recovery. we expect to see moderation first, before we start actually getting improvement in the labor market. a couple things i'll mention, which are indicators of maybe future conditions in the job

market. temporary help services, the job loss there has slowed substantially and that oftentimes is a leading indicator of a recovery. and we had a tick up in hours worked. while one month, i wouldn't read too much into this, but sometimes it took up an hour's work, as an indication of a labor market that is strengthening and may sometimes lead to job gains down the line. >> do you believe we've seen the worst or is there more pain ahead? . >> we're still getting substantial job loss. but it moderated going forward. it's hard to say. it's hard to estimate or good sign. >> are there any sectors experiencing more job creation thanksgiving job losses

currently or any signs in a any sector will start expanding in the near future? housing sales are up. and there are other areas. >> across the board, the jobs moderate. a few sectors like health care has continued -- they continued to increase employment all along. a few sectors like the financial activities, the job loss there moderated quite a bit and getting fairly -- if that trend were to continue, it is getting close to getting job gains in some of its service areas. and a few of the industries -- the job loss is not significant. in other words, it is around zero. >> all right. are there any indicators that overall job losses will continue to slow in coming months? >> i don't want to speculate too much. 227,000 jobs, that's a lot of

jobs. and that's a big loss. but given context of the sort of job loss that we've been having, again, this is a good trend at the moment. >> and what is the typical amount of time after a contraction ends before labor markets start showing signs of recovery? >> in one sense, the signs come right away. in the past two recessions, there's been significant period between consistent job loss and consistent job gain. there's been a bit of a lag. in the last recession, consistent job loss ended and we were in the middle ground where there wasn't consistent job creation for almost two years. this is one of the reasons why people talk about the labor market being lagging indicator. the 1990 recession, the lag was about a year. but prior to that, the lag was not so much. it was only a month or two before job increases started. so i say it's hard to say.

recent recessions have been slow to see -- we've been slow to see job growth. >> thank you. any other comments? >> thank you very much, madam chair. i was just looking at page two of this report. i was looking at the african-american figures, mr. hall. and from what i can see here, in july, the unemployment rate for african-americans, 14.5%. is that correct? july 2009? >> 14.5, thank you. >> and that compares to when we go back to may it was 14.9 and then in june, it was 14.7 then coming down to 14.5. that, as usual, is substantially

higher than the average rate for the country, is that right? >> that's correct. >> and while there is an improvement there, does that improvement, does that surprise you? is that pretty much the way you expected it to be? >> it's actually kind of the way i expect it to be. the unemployment rate for minorities such as african-americans, it runs higher than the average unemployment rates. and it goes up more during recession. but the actual change, the pattern of changes do sort of match the overall unemployment rate. so we've had a pretty flat unemployment rate the last couple months. and it's been fairly flat for african-americans. >> moving on to another subject. you mentioned that we're going through, with regard to the job situation, moderation. what does moderation mean? and has that -- you said moderate has been broad. can you give me the significance of the broadness that you talked about? >> sure. i think this recession in

particular that the job loss is being very broad in a lot of different industries. that doesn't always happen that way. and it's been very deep. and we're backing out the same way so far. the job loss has moderated in a very broad sense. so we're not seeing just particular sectors of the economy that are starting to improve a little bit. we're seeing sort of broad improvement in term of job loss moderation. >> so i take it, is that a good thing? >> yes. >> and why is that a good thing? >> hopefully because it's a matter of, at least in my mind, a sign of consumer confidence and spending coming back. more than anything else, that's at the heart of a recession. consumers don't spend, things don't go well for the economy. >> on another subject, yesterday the committee reased a report to the chair that discusses comprehensive health insurance and impact on women. the report showed us that there

are specific economic and health risks for women regarding their ability to obtain key health insurance. for example, women are more likely to rely on their spouses' employers to provide them with health insurance. more often, this is due to the fact that women are more likely than men to work part time. and, thus, being eligible for employer health benefits. what is the unemployment rate for women? >> unemployment rate for women is 8.1%. >> how much? >> 8.1. >> and what is the underemployment rate for women? >> we don't break out the broader ubroad er under utilization numbers by gender. >> young women are facing high unemployment, 15.7%.

and, thus, less likely to have employer-based health insurance. by what industry is the segment of the population typically employed? that is a younger female worker? you wouldn't have that information either? >> no. i don't really know. we have a lot of demographic information. >> so you wouldn't know the current unemployment rate -- you wouldn't have that information? okay. the average length of unemployment is increasing as unemployed workers are having problems finding employment during a time when the economy is shedding jobs. how is this impacting women? do you know? do you have that information? >> yes. do we have it broken down by agendaer? >> i don't think we have the long time broken down by demographic information. you know, women have slowly participated generally in the job loss during this recession.

so obviously they're probably well represented in the long term unemployed. >> i see my time is running out. i want to ask you something about this cash for clunkers. i hope we'll have another round. >> thank you very much, madam chair. thank you very much commissioner hall. i want to focus first on broad figures and just go back to what you were talking about at the beginning about the hardest hit sectors. i know you mentioned construction, manufacturing and then on the other hand sectors that seem to be getting better more quickly, health care. i know you've always mentioned health care as doing fine. since my state is a health care mecca, maybe that's the reason we're beneath national unemployment rate. but what do you see as the hardest hit sectors and what are the ones that are the ones you're seeing improvement? ? >> i think through this

recession, some of the hardest hit sectors are construction and manufacturing. >> uh-huh. >> and i think broadly, services have been hit harder than normal. but services typically are not hit as hard during recession. >> and would construction manufacturing, has there been any -- is that slowed the unpolice departmeu unemployment rate there? >> there is improvement in construction and manufacturing. >> but you mean improvement, a slowing of the -- >> moderation of job losses, construction. manufacturing picture is a little less clear. there may be moderation. but it's coming -- if it's there, it's coming later than the other sectors. >> okay. and how about the areas of @@@@ >> temper health services is 0

as a sign that there could be an improvement or not? >> daystar shedding jobs before the recession started and it typically elite -- typically starts to gain jobs. >> is that why people take one step at a time so we will get temporary services first? >> that is the advantage of tem first? >> i think that's exactly right. to a large degree that, is the advantage of temporary health. that they're there for the flexibility. they're there -- sometimes the first ones to be let go and the first ones to bring back. >> okay. all right. then i was going to ask you about geographic areas. one of the hardest hit states and what are the states that are doing better. and i remember when we were asked the worst of this at one of these hearings, you were saying how really couldn't really even point out a geographic area because it was bad all across the country. i wonder if that's changed at

all f there is dramatic improvement or dramatic decline? >> yeah, i'm not seeing any real big change in the pattern among states. the unemployment rate, the unemployment rate has moderated. it hasn't grown much. i think that's been roughly the same pattern, i think, throughout the states. i'm not seeing a big change. there might have been individual there might have been individual states still having troubles. he states hardest hit? >> largest losses -- >> or just the largest enemployment rate. >> these losses are states like michigan, arizona, nevada, florida. turns out overall numbers in california is the hardest hit. but that is also a large state. not quite so bad. >> and which ones are doing the best? you could come back on the second round and tell me. >> i do have the numbers.

i just need to find them. >> i thought i just ask one or two questions that actually got asked from our citizens recently. this is from a woman in lake shore, minnesota. and she says, "dear amy, i'm sitting here watching the president's news conference and realizing that my husband and i do not fit into any of the categories." this is a question for you, commissioner hall. "do not fit into any of the categories of families unemployed that he is speaking about. my husband and i own a small construction company. we don't have the option of filing for unemployment because we're self-employed. some of our friends are in the same position. my comment is that all of the figures and stats that are out there regarding housing and unemployment rraren't counting those of us that conditioned file unemployment and are on the verge of losing our home because no one else is building. i just need to get that off my chest." that's her talking. "there are people unemployed that at least can get unemployment. yet, there are a lot of us that don't have any income at all.

are there statistics" -- this is from a woman in lake shore, minnesota -- "on how many are not getting unemployment and are unemployed." she means that people that don't qualify to get unemployment but have lost their businesses or lost their income. >> we actually do collect information on people who are self-employed. in particular, the health club survey, the unemployment rate includes everybody. that's a phone survey to households. so -- >> and what do you see from the small business owners that are self-employed? >> sure. the self-employed have certainly struggled the same way that the others -- the nonself-employed have. that's been one of the remarkable things about this recession. it has been very, very broad. i think it's been broad with respect to the type of employment and small businesses. >> all right. so when we look at this, when we look at these numbers, when we

look at the 9.4% unemployment, that does not include -- we've already talked about the discouraged workers in the past. and people's hours have been reduced. it also doesn't include some of the small business owners who may be self-employed that have lost their businesses or -- >> actually, it does include this. >> so this doesn't include the people that lost hours? >> exactly. the class of people, for example, they're part time for economic reasons. we collect those. that data is not part of the unemployment rate. and then we have a whole category of discouraged workers. people who stopped looking for work who want to work. >> so the answer to this is while she can't collect unemployment, they do -- you do look at including her kind of numbers in your statistics? >> thank you very much.

>> we hear this is the greatest recession since the great depression. how does it compare to past down turns in terms of the impact on the labor market? >> right. with this recession, it has been a long recession. it's been the longest recession since we've been collecting data on the labor markets, 19 months. we've now lost 4.8% of our payroll jobs which is a lot. that's the biggest loss since the 1948 recession. >> manufacturing has been the hardest hit since 1945. we've lost about 15, 14% of

manufacturing jobs. and financial activities and professional business services, those are hit harder than any other recession. >> so this is the longest jobless period we've ever had? >> yes, since around 1940. >> in the last four recessions, how long did it take for employment to recover to the prerecession plan or peak? >> yes, see, the last recession it took a really long time. it took 39 months. the prior recession to that was 23 months. it's been getting longer and longer, actually, each of the last four recessions. the average has been about 17 -- about a year and a half. the average has been going up. the last two recessions, it was particularly long time period for the recovery.

>> one of the green shoots that's been reported is that new home sales rose last month. but there are still almost nine months supply of new houses in the market. and do you have any sense of what level and inven tore yif new home will lead to an increase in construction employment? >> sure. first of all, i got to say that the month supply of houses is not -- doesn't turn out it's not a very good predictor of construction employment. in large part because not right now we have nine months supplies and sales are very low. nine months of supplies is not very many houses compared to nine months, say, when sales are much, much higher. the good predictor is the number of sales. construction employment does pick up fairly much at the same time. i can tell you a little bit

about housing starts. once housing starts bottom out and right now housing starts have been level now for several months, it can take anywhere from a year to a year and a half for construction employment to pick up after houses hit bottom. so it could be a little while. >> how much of the economy is real estate and housing construction? and you are tracking how many of these new housing sales are tied to the program of a subsidy for new housing purchases? >> you know, we actually don't collect the housing sales data since the studies. in our data on construction employment and maybe on real estate employment might give some indication of how these industries are doing. there's really no way for us to sort of connect that, at least not the way we measure data, connected to any sort of policy in particular. >> thank you very much. mr. cummings?

>> thank you very much. what is the trend for hours worked and what does that mean for families that rely on overtime in addition to, say, base salary? >> sure. one of the things that happens with labor markets is the hours worked go down as well as employment rate goes down. and it's -- we have yet another burden on families, to be honest. that is a cost. and lately, it's been fairly flat and now it's kind of going up. and that's a good sign. and if it -- we start to see some substantial movement upwards, that can sometimes show an excellent improvement in the labor market. >> yesterday, i had the occasion to visit two auto dealers in my district. both of them had a lot of people trying to take advantage of this

cash for clunkers. i want to thank the senate for acting on that. they said watz realit was realla difference. do you expect to see the impact of a program like that, when we put $3 billion into a program and you had some comments with regard to the auto industry. but do you expect to see anything, say, in the future with regard to that? >> i can say something. >> oh, wonderful! i'm always careful about what i ask you. >> i appreciate that. let me put it this way, if automobile sales are stimulated, i think probably what's happened right now is a lot of the sales come out of inventory. because they're coming out of inventory, that is not going to show up in employment in the

factories, et cetera. but if that's going to have an effect, it's going to have an effect going forward because it means factories are going to come back online with the new models. hopefully they'll come back online quicker and we'll see employment impacting automobile manufacturing later on down the line. if it has -- as it has a big impact. >> as you probably know, the obama administration with regard to this stimulus is going to be a lot of money, a huge percentage of the stimulus money will be going into the economy in the next six months. and do you expect to see anything resulting from that? and a lot of it is going to infrastructure. and so i guess what, if any, areas -- what areas might be affected by that?

are you following me? >> yeah. yes, i do. that's actually a really difficult question in a period when the labor market is declining. when we do our surveys, we're asking how many people do you have onboard right now? we're not asking them to -- >> right. >> -- to speculate on what the impact has been on any other sort of policy. but if -- i don't know where the stimulus money is going to be spent, what industries. but if -- would expect going forward if you look at those particular industries and look at how the industries are performing going forward, that might give you insight on the effect of the stimulus. >> you know, you talk a little earlier and you talked briefly about it, about consumer confidence. and how significant that is. from all that you have seen, what can you glean from your report, are you -- i take it you

get a hint, at least, that people are feeling a little bit better about things? is that a reasonable statement? i don't want to put words in your mouth. >> yes, i think it is. >> okay. if that were to continue, do you think that you would see this broad moderation that you talked about continue or do you think that it would -- you would see, say, in certain areas like manufacturing or auto sales or whatever? do you follow me? >> yes. that's a little bit tough. because of losses are very broad, i think probably the impact will be broad. so i would hope to see that the moderation continues until we get actual job growth. >> and so will you -- when you got this report today, how did you feel? i'm just curious? you always try to get anything out of you sometime. i'm just curious. >> well, it's -- right now it's

a strange feeling. because 250,000 jobs, that's really hard on people. but given the context of things, this is good news. >> thank you very much. >> all right. thank you. i was looking at%#da)@ @ @ >> okay. the past hearings i've asked you, i told you to keep me owe prized of what is happening with our men and women in uniform. one of the things i found most distressing is that those who have gone over to serve our country, especially in iraq and

afghanistan and have really gone over since the 9/11, we call them the gulf war era veterans that their unemployment rate is usually significantly higher because they left jobs behind. i think in minnesota our guard and reserve they left jobs behind and then they come back and those jobs are no longer there. what is the unemployment rate now for gulf war era veterans, those veterans that served in the arms services since september 2001? >> right now, it's 9.8%. >> 9.8%. so that seems closer than it was in the past. what was the last month? >> actually, i don't have that one -- i do. it was 9.3% last month. but in may it was 11.4%. >> that's when i last talked you to about this. in may, it was 11.4%. so that's a significant change. >> yes. >> to go from 11.4% to either to

9.8%. do you have any reason to know why that happened? >> i don't. i don't. we might be able to look at it a little bit and see if we can see a pattern there. >> yeah, if you could -- maybe it's because my question about this every month. and all the c-span viewers see that and then hiring gulf war veterans and people who are serving. i mean i just find so it disturbing that people have done that and then they serve and then they come back and they don't have a job. so we're going to continue pushing on that issue. but we have seen some improvement. so it is still above the national unemployment rate of 9.4%. and that is 9.8%. but that gap can decrease, is that right? >> yes. >> it's a fairly small sample of veterans. so the variability in that number can be fairly high. >> all right. >> kit go up and down for no real reason other than statistical. >> thank you. we've also discussed the

importance of education and its impact on unemployment. what is the unemployment rate, commissioner hall, for college graduates and the high school graduates and those that do not -- have not completed high school? >> for college graduates, the unemployment rate is 4.7%. for people with high school degrees but no college, the unemployment rate is 9.4%. >> so they're at the national average then? >> yes. >> they're double -- the unemployment rate is that of those with college degrees. >> so what is the unemployment rate for people who haven't finished high school? >> 15.4%. >> you can see why the president made it a priority to try to get people to not just finish high school but to finish some, at least a year of college. so we go from 4.7% for college degrees to 9.4% for high school graduates to 15.4% for those who haven't finished high school. how has that changed the trends?

what are the trends in this area? >> well, the recent trend -- the recent trend is like the overall rate. they've been fairly slack all these unemployment rates have been fairly flat over the last month or two. but the growth since the start of the recession, for example, those without a high school degree, the unemployment rate has gone from 7.9 to 15.4. they had a fairly dramatic increase. >> and that's from what time? >> start of the recession. >> so they've seen a bigger hit percentagewise for people that didn't finish high school even though the other group started lower. they haven't seen as big a spike in unemployment. >> yes. >> okay. just to conclude with my round here, my colleagues were asking about the stimulus package and the effects of this.

we know 5% of the stimulus package money is out of investment piece of it. and so obviously you'll see more effects of that as we go forward. i think the other piece that people don't always think about is that the stimulus -- the recovery act was one-third of the investments. but the other one-third is showing state budgets and unemployment. but the other third is the tax cuts. a third of the stimulus package is actually tax cuts. many of them going to the middle class and tax credits. so what i think is interesting is that you can see the effect of that immediately in the home buying rates i talked about in minnesota and again i'm basing this on our minnesota stats. but also what the realtors have told me in term of what they're seeing. and the tax credits with the cash for clunkers program. do you see them ripple through the unemployment rates than do you with the spending just because it takes longer to get that money out there? >> well, that's -- yeah.

that would be my anticipation. my notion is that payout rate is an important thing on these things. >> okay. >> when they occur and so forth. >> all right. thank you very much, commissioner hall. >> thank you. commissioner hall, how have women fared in this economic down turn and what industries have women lost the most jobs during this recession? >> women have lost about 25% of the jobs during this recession. that means men are losing jobs 3 to 1 compared with women. but that's not -- in a sense that's normal. the last recession women lost a lot of jobs. but prior to the last recession, women often wouldn't lose jobs at all during the recession. so one thing that happened is while men are bearing the bigger brunt of the job loss, women are participating more in the job loss than in the past.

so women have lost, at this point, women have lost about 1.7 million jobs so far. >> certainly the equality in job loss is not something that we're working for. but are women moving towards equality in job loss? gaining in job loss during the recession? you could elaborate a little more? >> my guess is that the women's participation rates in a number of industries has gone up. you know, for example, on construction and manufacturing, they're underrepresente edunder. so when they're hit by the recession, women don't participate so much in the job loss. women representation in other industries can be fairly high. so they participate in the job loss. >> you could comment on the trends of unemployment for minorities? specifically african-americans and latinos?

have they leveled off or is it still rising at a fast clip? what is happening there? and in what industry are latinos and african-americans losing the most jobs? >> lately, the unemployment rate rise has flattened out the last couple months, pretty much like the national numbers for minorities. and i think for the most part, the changes to the unemployment rate, while they mirrored the overall unemployment rate, they just mirrored it to a bigger degree. so the overall unemployment rate goes up, it goes up by more for minorities. so the trend is much the same. >> you could comment on the difference between men and women, african-american women and african-american men and latino women and latino men and differences between african-americans and latinos in terms of unemployment?

>> right. the women's unemployment rate is 8.1%. >> for what? women -- >> just total women. 8.1%. men, 10.5%. put that in perspective. for african-americans, unemployment rate is 14.5%. for female head of households, african-american women, 17.8% unemployment rate. >> so there are more unemployed? >> yes. >> what about latino women? >> female head of household hispanic, 12.8%. and that's actually fairly much in line with the overall

unemployment rate latino unemployment rate of 12.3%. >> so latino women are 12.8% and men are -- >> 12.5% so men are probably around 12%. >> okay. and do you sthee leveling offeef or rising or what is the trend with minority unemployment? >> the recession trend lately is leveling off. and i think typically what happens is when things rise, they rise by more for the minorities and things decrease by more for minorities. >> and a gain of what industries are latinos and african-americans losing most jobs, you know, the sense wrf that job loss is? is it construction? >> the one pattern that jumps out is hispanic representation in construction is fairly high.

the -- there is overrepresentation there. construction has been hard hit by this recession. so hispanic unemployment rate has been -- has gone up quite a bit. there's a less simple pattern for african-americans in terms of industry representation. >> and why do you -- why are the numbers telling us that the women minorities are more likely to lose their jobs of the unemployed than men? >> i don't know. i mean that's kind of a big question. it's kind of a research sort of question. obviously certainly industry representation has an impact. but that will explain some of it. i don't know what else explains it. >> thank you very much. mr. cummings for five minutes. >> thank you very much, madam chair. i want to go back to the question when asking about the

military and this whole issue of how much education a person has and i had a town hall meeting the other night, mr. hall. this is a commercial, by the way, and i was meeting with some vetera veterans. and they did not know about the new gi bill which will allow them to get their tuition paid in some instances their housing and fees at colleges. so i just want to let folks know that it appears from what you said on the stats that the more education one has, the better their chances of being unemployed even during these times s that right?

>> yes. >> so veterans should find out about this new gi bill. it is something that went into effect august 1st. i want to thank you for bringing up that issue of education and the military. i think it's one thing to have these opportunities. it's another thing to know about them. it's another thing to take advantage of them. let's talk about health for a moment. it seems like health care stays pretty steady, doesn't it? in other words, it doesn't seem -- it seems to always -- it doesn't seem to go down very much. does it seem to suffer as much as far as unemployment. is that right? >> that's right. >> why do you think that is? do you have any idea? and why you think that might be? >> i don't. i mean there is some evidence that early in a recession there are shortages in certain occupations within health care.

more people are looking for work and willing to move over to health care. beyond that, i don't know. >> you know, on another note, yesterday during our press conference with regard to women and health care and i think we may have spoken about it earlier, we learned something that is very interesting. that you is have a situation where a lot of women during the babyboomer age were older than -- i mean the men were older than women they marry. and what happened, what is happening now is that as they go into medicare with their wives being younger and if the wife is dependent upon the husband for their insurance, when he goes into medicare, she doesn't have any insurance. and so i was just wondering, do you know the unemployment rate

for older women? let's say -- i didn't say old, i said older. you may even have a definition for older. i don't know. i want to be very careful. >> that one hasn't seemed to level off.

someone can lose a job and stop looking when they're 55 or over or take retirement. it may underestimate the issue. >> there is no way you have the breakdown? a person who says they retire. you would not have the kind of information? says, you know what, i retire? you wouldn't have that kind of information in these stats? >> no, we don't. >> so there's one other thing that i'm concerned about. and that is the states -- these states running out of money. do we see any impact with regard to those unemployment rates because almost every state is going through a lot of problems right now. and i'm just wondering, what do we see there?

>> the recent trend is they're starting to lose jobs. for a while, state governments were hovering around no job growth, no job loss. so the last three months, we've averaged -- government averaged declining 6,000 jobs a month. so it seems like the employment at the state government level has worsened a witt. >> i see my time has run out. thank you. >> thank you chairman. and commissioner, i was just reading the report here. we have the stock gain -- this is as of two minutes ago. stocks gained early friday after the government, that's you, commissioner hall, reported a surprise drop in the unemployment rate and a smaller number of job cuts than expected raising hopes that the economy is stabilizing. the dow jones industrial average gained now 75 points. the s&p 500 rose now 7.3 and the

nasdaq composite added 14 points. so my question of you is, is this a little bit too exuberant over this news? what do you see in the long haul as we go forward? >> well, first of all, let me say -- i've been -- i've been a very bad predictor of the stock market. >> now that may affect these numbers that you said that. mr. hall! >> and i'm even a bad predictor of how the stock market is going to react to our data. it is very hard for me to see that. so much of it i think winds up being what were people expecting. and that's hard to know. as to whether -- you know, i have -- i don't know. >> can you compare this to other recessions that you and i have talked before about this? it is so much longer than the temperatuorary recessions we've before. and what you think of these signs of recovery compared to other historical recessions? >> yeah.

i mean we're still having significant job loss. but we're not having job loss at sort of historic levels. for a few months we were having job loss at nearly historic levels. over half a million jobs lost per month. so, you know, we sort of settled into what maybe -- i don't want to say more normal. every recession is different. maybe a more normal recession level of job loss. so we still got improvement to go. but the trend sen courais encou >> all right. i want to follow up on the questions about health care and women and unemployment and clearly they've done some ground breaking work with health care with women and children and how it has a lack of health care has been an impact on them. but i'm getting back to the employment rates. because the first lady of california was out here a week or so ago talking about at some point here more women are going to be employed by men in the

workforce. maybe you don't have the numbers at your finger tips because it's not unemployment numbers. it's employment numbers. is that -- maybe it was just in certain areas. >> yeah. actually, i do have that data. >> okay. >> right now men are losing jobs 3 to 1 versus women. and there's been a large job loss. so that means that women's share of payroll jobs is growing pretty steadily. and it's now up to 49.8% of jobs are now held by women. >> right. >> which means that 435,000 more men are currently employed than women. >> is that why one of my letters that i won't read you to referred to this as a manseccion? so you have -- while women have taken an inordinant amount,

there tends to be more women with kids and lack of health care suffer more because of it. we still have seeing growing employment rates of women. and you see more men losing their jobs out of this? is that what you're saying? >> yes. yes. >> okay. >> all right. and why is that, do you think? >> you know, it's probably got to start with representation in particular industries that are hardest hit. you know, construction and manufacturing are particularly hard hit this recession and men are over represented there. >> and so that's where we have a lot of the stimulus money going of which only a quarter of that money has hit yet. so presumably that could help with that particular sector? is that right? >> potentially. >> i could have it come from a question from one of my constituents. it will be easier. the last thing i'm going to ask about is the importance of discouraged workers. you talk about that in your opening a little bit. these are people who want to work full time but can only find

part time work or people who want to work but haven't been looking lately for whatever reason, are those both of those categories in the discouraged worker groups? or it is just people that haven't been hit -- have given up looking for unemployment? >> yeah. well, we have -- something called marginally attached which are people who -- who want to work and that looked within the past year but haven't looked lately. >> and how are their numbers going? >> that number has gone up quite a bit. there are now something like 2.3 million people who are discouraged workers. so they're not counted in the unemployment rate. >> right. and have their numbers gone up each month? what was the number last month? what what was the percentage increase from the month before? >> yeah, that's tough. those numbers are not seasonally adjusted. there are seasonal things that change it. >> i'm wondering if maybe a number of these people have become marginally attached.

they have tried to work but they have tried to look for employment. they've given up and they're out of unemployment numbers s that right? >> that's right. although we do catch them. we have a very broad measure of labor utilization which includes that. >> okay. very good. well, i want to thank you. i'm going to have to head out to do some other things. but, again, just wanted to remind people of the -- what people are still despite this some good news here this month still continue to suffer. i just want to end with a letter we just got this week from a guy in minnesota. he says, my wife lost her job last august as her company shut her building down and moved all the jobs to boston. she was the major breadwinner in our house and has not been able to find a job since. she's applied numerous places but can't find anyone to hire her. we got a statement in the mail saying our house value dropped

from 194,000 to $174,000 yet we still owe over $190,000 on the house. we have a 14--month-old daughter and soon unemployment will end and we're really scared about what's going to happen. i continue to be reminded that while we have seen some stabilization and there is clearly glimmers of hope in this and people have been incredibly determined in my state to start businesses and keep going, we still have a lot of people in our country that are hurting. thank you very much, commissioner hall. >> thank you, senator. some of my colleagues have talks about the report that joint economic committee released yesterday showing that 1.4 million women have lost their health insurance during this economic down turn due to losing their jobs or their spouse losing his job. and we know that employers are looking at ways to cut costs and many of them are eliminating health insurance coverage. and i'd like to know,

commissioner, do you have any idea on the loss of employer based health coverage during this resnegs. >> we don't collect direct data on very often. there is an annual benefit to the release once a year that does talk about that. right now the most recent data is i think for 2007. we won't get 2008 until this fall. and this is -- >> when will you have this? >> it is a report that the census puts out in the fall. i think it is september or october. when they talk about health care coverage. we have data by industry. that doesn't really tell you how many people have lost their health insurance, et cetera. >> but can it tell you if certain types of employees are more vulnerable than others

because they are employed in certain business that's are losing jobs or, for example, are part time workers and lower wage workers at higher risk due to the cost saving measures? >> yes. our details are going to come out fairly shortly for march. but in general, i can tell you that right now 85% of full time employees have access to health care. so i think you see the shift from part time to full time work. we have health care issues there. and full time employment, so far this recession is falling by nearly 9 million people. so this is pretty significant.

>> mr. employers told us the rising cost of health insurance is unsustainable. do you think they're contributing to the flat labor market? >> i would imagine they are. the most obvious impact is on wage growth. and -- >> do you have any data on how that might impact on wage growth. >> it's pretty consistent in showing that when health care costs go up, wage growth slows. so it takes away from wage growth. we have lots of data on benefits. >> uh-huh. >> but we don't do that much on what's causing benefits to -- benefit decline. >> could you give to the committee the reports that have come out on that particular area

so we could study the impact on wage growth and the high cost of employer based insurance? and i'd like to get back to one of the questions from mr. cummings. is there a positive feedback in labor markets? is there a positive feedback in labor market because of the moderation and decline in unemployment? and does that increase consumer confidence and, therefore, lead to more sales and spur businesses to hire more workers? what is the positive feedback? >> it is sort of what i would -- what you always see. you know, when the economy turns bad, consumers start to lose confidence, stop spending. and then the lack of spending means people lose jobs and people lose jobs and they stop spending. so what we're talking about now, hopefully, is the reverse.

is spending starts to increase, job losses decline, job loss declines will increase confidence and we'll have this speed back. >> my time has expired. >> thank you, mr. hall, thank you for your testimony and just one question and then a comment. we know during a recession people will turn to higher education. to get graduate degrees and what have you. does this show up in any of your data in any way? for example, young college graduates who couldn't find work so they decide to stay in school and to -- would you have that data? any kind of data like that?

>> the trend is rising as more and more people are going to college partly@@@@@@s@ @ @ @ @ r >> it is probably the case when the job market is this bad that there are people who might otherwise have worked google on to college or some other type of formal training because they are not really doing anything. the participation in college, both two and four colleges are at a record high now. >> the gi bill that i talked about a little while ago is important. that is another thing that people don't seem to realize that we have a lot of colleges

that sit on the board of morgan state university in baltimore and what we found is that there are a lot of students, because of the economic situation, that don't have the money to go to school. they don't have the money. when you have a gi bill which will pay tuition fees and board, the schools can appeal to the gis the company back to school. those are people that come walking in the door with a tuition checks. ome back to schools. those are people that come and walk in the door with the tuition check and board-check right in their hand. so -- and, of course, that keeps your -- what we've found is we have -- just about all of our schools now have had to cut back with regard to employment of our

professors and workers because of the fact that the money is beginning to simply dry up. because of the problems and because of the recession, that does not help matters. did you have a comment, mr. hall? you looked like you needed to say something. >> i'm disagreeing with you. >> thank you. thank you very much. >> i think what we're seeing is a lot of things are beginning to slowly but surely work together. we haven't seen this since 2008. is that right? would this -- would this downward trend, mr. hall, with regard to the unemployment?

>> right. is that right? >> yeah. although, i would say it's a flat -- we haven't seen a flat unemployment rate since early 2008. >> early 2008. >> so it's been a while? >> you know. i guess what i'm trying to say is it's so easy for us to look at the glass half empty as opposed to half full. we have to say we're not overly optimistic. but at the same time when we're talking about consumer confidence, when we're talking about giving people hope and we're praying that they'll go out there and, you know, spend, if they can. we want them to save but also spend. that keeps the economy going. i think it's very important that we look at these things and say, you know what? we are going in the right

direction. we're not -- we're definitely not seem like we're falling backwards, we're going forward. an although we may be going forward very slowly, we may be inching along. it reminds me of an insect i saw in my house the other day. it is a little tiny insect. i look at one time on one wall and the next time it was over there on the other wall. it somehow got all the way around to the other wall. my point is that we may take small steps but as they say a journey of 1,000 miles. we begin with the first step. i want to make sure that, you know, we just don't poo-poo what we have been able to accomplish thus far. because i think we in leadership, if we're not careful and help people not feel the optimism that perhaps they might want to at least begin thinking about it. and so with that, mr. hall, i want to thank you. i want to thank both of you

gentlemen for your -- and your department. we rarely thank all the people that back you all up. but we thank you also. have a good month. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. cummings for your participation today and your insightful comments. commissioner hall, in my home state of new york, the unemployment rate was 8.7% in june. a jump of 3.4% from last june. and in new york city, unemployment rate jumped from 9.5% in june. and are these changes similar to the changes in the national unemployment rate? >> yes. they are. >> and on the national level, we've seen a deceleration in the pace of job losses in recent months. and how does that compare to the pay rolls of new york state and the pay rolls of new york city? >> i think, especially the

state, for a number of years now, it's followed very closely with the national numbers. i think new york state has a very diverse economy, like the u.s. economy. so the patterns are very similar. >> and what have been the largest declines in new york state? >> in terms of what industries? state? >> in terms of? >> job loss. >> i'm afraid should i have that, but i don't have that in front of me. >> you'll get it to me later? >> yeah. >> and how has new york state fared compared to the nation as a whole during recessions? >> again, lately it's been fairly close to the national numbers. last couple of recessions have been sort of jobless recoveries where the delay in the labor market took -- created a problem

when they wanted to recover. it's been pretty much the same for new york. >> and do recessions typically last longer at the state level? you can use the example of new york or any state. are recessions longer? >> it depends on the state. some states especially smaller states can look rather different than rational numbers over time. >> in fact, i would say during much of the 2000 there is a state or two that has probably been in recession for quite a while. >> what about new york? >> new york is not. new york is followed closely with the national numbers. >> could you give us insight on trade jobs? there's tremendous concern about the outsourcing of jobs to other countries and other reports that say trade builds jobs in our country. are you tracking the connection between trade and the job loss or job gain in certain

industries? do you have any reports on that? >> we don't and it turns out that's a rather difficult thing to do because at the factory level when something's produced, quite often that establishment doesn't know where it goes and in respect to imports, for example, as well, when a product hits the u.s. shores and customs we actually lose track of where it goes so we don't know how it impacts or how it's used inside the united states. it's very difficult to connect job growth and loss with trade specifically. there are studies that will do that. i know the department of commerce has done a couple of studies on that. >> we would like to see those study, and i would like for you and your staff to look into how we can track that and how we can see whether jobs grow or loss. >> i am told that one of my financial industries just built

a financial services item in another country and yet they were saying it is creating over 500 jobs in the u.s. due to the support services and the data collection. the fact that we are -- the world is flat and we are in a world of global economy, i believe we have to move to the 21st century and start tracking how those trade jobs are growing, are being lost and specifically you can track if a plant closes you lose those jobs. that's very clear, and i would think that with the changing economy you would look in this new direction. do you think you'll be able to do that? >> i'll take a look and see what we can do. i think it doesn't do enough to collect data related to trade to get the issues like offshoring and that sort of thing. i'll take and look and see what

we've got. it's going to be -- it would be difficult. >> often temporary help is often a leading indicator of abemployer's willingness to hire and how many jobs have been lost in the temporary health industry since the recession began and do you see any indications that job losses in temporary help industry are slowing and when was the last time that the temporary help industry saw this level of job losses? >> so this recession so far temporary health services has lost 844,000 jobs. so it's pretty significant. there has been substantial improvement in the job this last month and temporary services lost 10,000 jobs compared to 844,000 since the recession began. we've never seen job loss like this before, but the temporary help industry's changed quite a bit. it is now something on the order of nearly 2.5 million people are

in temporary help now and in 2000 it was at the peak. we dropped from that, but as little as say 1990 it was a 1 million person industry. it's changed a lot. that's a long way to say we've never seen a drop like this before and temporary help has never been as big. >> with the financial indicators indicating we're heading in the right direction, do you think we have seen the worst in this -- whatever you want to call it, recession, depression or compression. i think i'd call it the great compression with the job losses and shrinking of leverage. >> certainly the trend is encouraging. i don't want to sort of predict because it's like anything else, things can change going forward, but the trend right now is encouraging. >> listen with positive news. the trend is encouraging. thank you for your testimony and

your hard work. this meeting is adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> and later friday, president made comments on the unemployment report which showed a decrease for the first time since april, 2008. the president spoke to reporters in the rose garden.

>> last week we received a report on america pause gross domestic product, a key measure of our economic health and it showed marked improvement over the last few months. this morning, we received additional signs that the worst may be behind us. though we lost 247,000 jobs in july, that was 200,000 fewer jobs lost and in june and far fewer than the nearly 700,000 jobs at the beginning of the year. today, we are pointed in the right direction. we are losing jobs at less than half the rate we were when i took office. we polled the financial system back from the brink and the rising market is restoring value to those 401k's that are the foundation for retirement.

we allow families to reduce the payments on mortgages, making payments more portable, and reducing number of foreclosures. we helped revive the credit markets and open up loans for families and small businesses. while we have rescued our economy from catastrophe, we have also begun to build a new foundation for growth. that is why we passed an unprecedented recovery act, less than one month emperor took office. we did so without any of the earmarks or pork barrel spending that is so common in washington. there is a lot of misinformation about the recovery act. let me repeat what it is and what it is not. the plan is divided into three parts -- 1/3 of the money is for tax relief that is going directly to families and small businesses. for americans struggling to pay bills with shrinking wages, we have kept a campaign promise to keep a middle-class tax cut in the pocket of 95% of working