Welcome, everybody, to our hearing. Both those in the room and those that arent in the room. Before we start, i think its important, again, to note whats going on all around us, and that is the acknowledgement of Racial Injustice that has gone on for far too long in our country. I certainly support those who are speaking out and making their voices heard in a peaceful manner to bring about change. While change does not always come easily, i want to remind those watching this hearing today that change is possible. In december 2018, the first step that i first introduced became law. And i worked in partnership with several republican and democrat senators. Senator durbin was the lead person for the democrats. This law is the most significant criminal Justice Reform in a generation. A lot of people didnt think it was possible but we did it by working together, in a bipartisan way. But also working together in other ways to address racial disparities. Such as in health care, the c. A. R. E. S. Act and other Covid Response efforts aimed to help all, but especially minority populations have been hit hardest by the virus. Weve knocked down financial barriers of receiving care through the pandemic and provided support to our front line providers to ensure access. We continue to focus attention on the devastating effect that covid has had on nursing home and the need to do better for resident staffs. The Trump Administration has announced a number of efforts to address the desperet impact of covid19 on others. I ask for unanimous concept to insert a document along those lines in regard to those efforts. I hear no objection, so ordered. Were also taking action beyond coindividua cov covid. Were working on a bipartisan issue to tackle Maternal Mortality and improve outcomes for mothers and babies. All americans want lower Prescription Drug costs but our efforts are especially important as minorities suffer from the high rate of common disease such as diabetes and hypertension. Were exploring improvement for those with Kidney Disease and patients in need of organ transplant and more beyond that. Were also in the middle of a transformation of our Child Welfare system. We know that too many children end up in foster care and that black children are overrepresented in this system. And thanks to bipartisan effort states are transforming the way they operate to keep more kids safely at home instead of placing them in foster care. Theres obviously much more to be done. And i look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to continue nose efforts. Now, id shift to my remarks to focus on our topic of our hearing. As a result of covid19 and related stayathome orders, millions of americans across the country have lost work. Congress passed the c. A. R. E. S. Act to provide help to those affected by in many different ways, including by temporarily expanding Unemployment Insurance. These increased ui benefits have played an Important Role in helping those who lost a job. Or who couldnt work as a result of the pandemic. Given the need to act quickly to reduce the spread of covid19, providing extra help through the unemployment system made sense as a way to reduce the Economic Impact of stayathome orders. But now, were facing a much different situation than we were in midmarch. States are reopening. Employment recently turned positive. We need to shift our focus to helping people safely return to work. Making sure businesses are able to come back quickly and to put the country back on a path to economic growth. Weve also learned a few things since the c. A. R. E. S. Act became law. The c. A. R. E. S. Act provides an additional 600 per week to those receiving ui, representing the gap between the u. S. Average weekly wage and the average weekly ui benefit. One thing weve learned is how poorly targeted the additional 600 per week was. As it appears most recipients are being paid more on the Unemployment Insurance than they were when working. This, of course, discourages people from returning to work or taking a new job, thus delaying the recovery. Recent Research Published by the university of chicago estimates more than twothirds of the ui recipients may receive benefits that exceed lost earnings with more than 20 potentially getting double what they used to earn, as long as they dont work. Some will say this is just an academic paper and that these extra payments arent really an issue today. Those folks saying that havent been reading the many letters that i get from iowans each day. And im sure every member of the committee is hearing the same thing, businesses having a hard time bringing people back to work or from hard working constituents earning less than others they know who are getting unemployment. Let me share a few stories from letters ive received. Letter number one, my daughter went back to work voluntarily because she wanted to help ensure the company would still be around after covid19. Many of her coworkers chose to stay at home and due to the 600 extra dollars per week are making more than she is. This isnt right. Now, letter number two, senator grassley, im a Small Business owner whos in desperate need for additional employees yet i receive very few applications when i post jobs. The issue is the additional unemployment. With the additional 600 per week, my potential employees make more on unemployment than they would working. Letter number three. Were trying to hire back laid off covid19 related employees or anyone else as well. For 15 an hour, and we find that theyre receiving equivalent of 20 an hour in Unemployment Benefits. Suddenly, the government became our competitor. The question to me then from this consti stistit stistitcon could that happen. Based on the letters that weve received, you think we would need to find a better way to those who lost income but youd be wrong. Despite the mounting evidence that these extra payments are causing, the house passed a bill recently to extend them not just for a month or two. But for another six months. Through january 2021. Given this, i ask the Congressional Budget Office, what impact these additional payments might have if continued. Heres what they said, roughly five of every six recipients would receive benefits that exceeded the weekly amounts they could expect to earn from work during those six months. Employment continuing to, quote, employment would probably be lower in the second half of 20 than it would be in if the increase was not extended. In the calendar year 2021, employment would be lower than it would be without extension. That doesnt sound like a recipe for economic growth. Especially given last weeks jobs report which will shows people are returning to their job and that millions more expect to return soon. I know everyone is focused on these extra 600 checks, but let me remind everyone of the other c. A. R. E. S. Act policies that continue past july. First, the c. A. R. E. S. Act allows those out of work as a direct result of covid19 to get ui benefits through december. This includes people who are infected or caring for someone in infected. Those who cant go to work because the workplace is closed due to covid19. And those who rely on day care thats not available as a result of the pandemic. Second, individuals get an additional 13 weeks of unemployment if theyre still unemployed after state benefits run out. And in states where Unemployment Rates remain high, further weeks of benefits will also be available. And most importantly, the c. A. R. E. S. Act provides funding for what is called work share programs. Under these programs instead of laying out employees, business with reduced hours can pay employees a partial ui check to offset lost income. States can also use it to bring back workers on a parttime basis if they cant fully reopen for a while. And dont forget, ui is the only game in town here or its not the only game in town. The c. A. R. E. S. Act includes many policies to help those affected by the pandemic. Including the Employee Retention tax credit. The Paycheck Protection Program, direct payments to individuals and other policies designed to help businesses reopen and people to return to work. The ui system will continue to play a very Important Role in addressing the impacts of the pandemic. However, our efforts must be coordinated to help workers and businesses in a way that is most productive. I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses Today to learn whats worked. What hasnt. And discuss how we can make sure our efforts in congress can best support a strong economic recovery at the same time were trying to help people who are hurting. Now, i call on Ranking Member wyden, thank you for being here. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you, mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. There is lots to discuss today. And id like to start with fridays jobs report. The president celebrated like it was the greatest victory in america since the end of world war ii. And i want to start by trying to give this a little bit of perspective. Speaking conservatively, more than 20 million americans are still out of work today. And my guess is, theyre not doing a whole lot of celebrating. If youre among the many people who dont know how theyre going to pay rent or put food on the table this month. Watching the president celebrate in the midst of this jobs crisis is yet another sign that donald trump just doesnt understand what its like for people born without a real estate portfolio. First, i want to walk through how the senate got here, starting in march. The pandemic hit, the economy went into lockdown. And unemployment shot into the stratosphere. So when the c. A. R. E. S. Act negotiations began, democrats made our bottom line an expansion to Unemployment Benefits that would bring more workers into the system and fully replace peoples lost wages. Throughout the negotiations, and they went on for days, secretary scalia said that couldnt be done because the states run Unemployment Programs on bronzeage technology that cannot crunch the numbers for individual workers. Senate democrats said that doing nothing is just unacceptable. When you have this hurt from sea to shining sea. When secretary scalia failed to offer a plan to get benefits out in a timely way, democrats proposed a slap sum solution. 600 per week, across the board, on top of traditional benefits, adding up the full wage replacement for the typical worker. So, lets fast forward now to this afternoon. The pandemic is still killing thousands of americans each week. The nearly 2 million new unemployment claims filed last week tripled the highest number of claims made in any week during the Great Recession. It is a National Scandal that africanamericans are not only dying of covid19 at much higher rates, theyre also suffering vastly more economic pain than virtually anybody else. Black unemployment is disproportionately high. And because black people have systematically been excluded from opportunity and wealth in america, its a lot less likely that they have the Financial Resources to weather the storm. For the president to say the recovery has arrived. And everything is turning into sunshine is just going to perpetuate the economic injustice. The bottom line is the crisis is going to go on a lot longer. If the Trump Administration and Senate Republicans start yanking out these key pillars of economic support like super charged Unemployment Benefits, much of which go to the lowest paid folks in the work force, main street businesses nationwide, so many of them hang on by a thread. Workers could lose their homes and fall through the cracks if the senate is not in their corner. So like the chairman, i want to respond to a few arguments that ive heard coming from the otherwise, arguments against super charged Unemployment Benefits. First is the idea that americans who have lost their jobs in the pandemic are just plenty happy to sit around instead of going back to work. In my view, that is dead wrong, and its an insult to american workers. Its also a misunderstanding of how the system functions. Ive been talking to out of work oregonians throughout this crisis, and what i hear overwhelmingly is they want to work. They want to work. They want to get back to their jobs. They believe deeply in the dignity of work. They want to earn their pay, support their families, and return to their lives, lives they had before this pandemic, and most importantly they know that the path to getting ahead in america is moving up the economic ladder rather than being on unemployment. Second, members of this committee have said its somehow unhealthy for people to get Unemployment Benefits during the crisis. I sure think this is out of touch with the realities people are facing in this crisis. These benefits are saving millions of jobless people from hunger and homelessness in the middle of a pandemic forcing people back into a contagious workplace also further spreads the virus that has killed 110,000 americans and turned Nursing Homes nationwide into scenes of tragedy. Third, ive heard talk among republican senators of cutting the expanded benefits, possibly just saying lets cut them in half, so i want colleagues to really get this one straight. Between the cares act and fed lending programs, big corporations are getting trillions of dollars in support to weather this crisis, and now Senate Republicans are saying, well, were just going to cut what the little guy gets maybe in half . The systems already rigged to favor the powerful and the wealthy. Congress sure shouldnt stack the deck any longer. Our Unemployment Insurance system created in the 1930s, should have been modernized long ago to cover the gig worker, the selfemployed, the freelancer. Long ago benefits should have been tied to Economic Conditions on the ground. I also believe congress should examine whether a federal approach for administering Unemployment Benefits could do a better job than the quilt of 50 different state systems operating today. Nobody predicted the volume of crisis the volume of claims were seeing, but whether its due to neglect or political sabotage, too many of these state systems are failing the people who are desperate for help. Im going to close with one final thought. American workers are not to blame for the jobs crisis that the country faces today. By now, everybody has seen images of cars stacked up for miles at Food Bank Distribution centers around the country. I gave out food just recently at one of them. Colleagues, these are modern day bread lines with so many people out of work, americas on the precipice of an eviction tsunami, particularly in the black community. Super charging Unemployment Benefits, fully replacing peoples lost wages, bringing gig workers and freelancers into the system was the right thing to do, and i know thats not just the opinion of democrats who got it done because right now the president absurdly is taking credit for the expansion in Misleading Campaign ads on the air waves right now. It is also a fact that every republican member of this committee voted to strip the expanded benefits and slow down their distribution. And at least a few turned around and then sent out press releases touting the expansion that they voted against. Colleagues, that is some seri s serious the senate has a choice. Its about fairness for africanamerican s who are disproportionately suffering. Its about fairness for the blue Collar Worker who looks around and sees a whole bunch of support going to multinational corporations than to hard hit people like them who have done nothing wrong. The extension of super charged Unemployment Benefits, and to do it now. I look forward to our witnesses, and again, i want to thank you for scheduling the hearing. Thank you, senator wyden. Our first panel is one person. Our secretary of labor, so ill give a short introduction. Secretary Eugene Scalia of was sworn in as secretary of labor september 27th, last year. He has served in a number of high level positions in and out of government prior to his appointment. He has served as solicitor of labor, the departments top legal officer, also as a special assistant to the attorney general and as a partner at a law firm. The Labor Department plays a very central role in overseeing the new federal programs intended to help workers and their families respond to the virus pandemic. Secretary scalia, please proceed. Chairman grassley, Ranking Member wyden and members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to testify today. Last friday, the Labor Department issued a very encouraging jobs report. 2. 5 million jobs were created in may versus expectations that we would lose 7. 5 million jobs. The Unemployment Rate dropped nearly a point and a half instead of rising five points as projected. Moreover, the survey period for that report ended in midmay. Since then, many, many more americans have returned to work. Our economy has turned the corner against the coronavirus. All of us welcome that news, and we celebrate it