Labor Secretary Hilda Solis Calls for Congress to Extend Jobless Benefits, Create Jobs
Feb. 26, 2010
By Rob Kuznia, HispanicBusiness.com
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Speaking at a center for the unemployed in California, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis chided Congress Friday for failing to pass an extension for unemployment benefits before recess today, warning that hundreds of thousands of people will stop receiving unemployment checks if no action is taken soon.
The cut-off date is Feb. 28, if lawmakers do not extend the benefits.
She took specific aim at Sen. Jim Bunning, R- Kentucky, who today initiated a one-man filibuster blocking the vote.
"We have a Senator that's holding up the extension of the unemployment benefits and COBRA (health insurance) benefits as well," she said, during a roundtable discussion on the effectiveness of the stimulus programs in Oxnard, just north of Los Angeles. "It's crazy that people would do that and somehow jeopardize communities like this."
For his part, Sen. Bunning said he's holding up the bill because it isn't paid for. Bunning is urging his 99 Senate colleagues to pick up the tab by re-directing $10 billion from programs slated to be bankrolled by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
"When 100 senators are for a bill and we can't find $10 billion to pay for it, there's something the matter, seriously the matter with this body," he said on the Senate floor Friday. "There are going to be other bills brought to this floor that are not going to be paid for, and I'm going to object every time they do it."
In California on Friday, Solis, speaking at the West Oxnard Job and Career Center, said if no action is taken, about 400,000 people will lose their benefits in the next week.
"And by May if it doesn't happen, it will be millions of people," she said. "That's just really going to be a profound disaster, unless we move quickly."
Friday's event in California was also an attempt by Solis to highlight stimulus program success stories.
It featured a roundtable discussion with young adults who were able to find jobs through the help of a stimulus program that trains youth on how to perform well in job interviews and write a stellar resume, among other things.
Alberto Ortiz, 22, said although he'd been a standout student at a high school and community college in Santa Barbara, he found himself unemployed and losing hope.
"I found myself, 22 years old, sitting at home," he said, speaking to a delegation that also included Congresswoman Lois Capps, D-California. "I have my AA (Associate of Arts degree). I feel like I've never done anything wrong. I've done everything I could, you know, to make myself more successful, and honestly I felt like I had no value."
He added, "I looked at my friends, and I saw the same expression in their faces. ... There's lots of qualified people out there, there are just no jobs."
Ortiz was one of about 500 young adults who found a job in the Oxnard area through the program, which was a partnership between the stimulus package and other local agencies.
He now works at Anchor Blue, a retail clothing store. His manager, Karen Bernard, was also on hand.
"He excelled on his first day," she said. "After two hours he was giving some of my current employees a run for their money."
Another job recipient, 19-year-old Miguel Mesa, said he had a rebellious streak in high school that eventually led to his arrest for vandalism.
"I never was a man of structure," he said.
Mesa said he signed up for the program only to get his mother off his back.
He found a job at Coastal Marines Biolabs, a non-profit science education organization that provides field and laboratory-based learning experiences for high school students in the harbor in Ventura, Calif.
Mesa was wary at first. But after a week, "I didn't want to leave."
"I realized there is so much potential within me that's positive," he said.
Solis said such stories serve as an important reminder to the Obama Administration that behind the abstract unemployment statistics are millions of human lives.
"These stories ... are giving me more energy and information that I can bring back to the Cabinet, and back to the president," she said. "He often asks me, 'Hilda, how are these training programs working?' Because we get a lot of criticism from people who don't understand how you are impacting real people's lives."
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