Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20160711 : v

Morning. Alabama, good caller the biggest problem we have in this country is a drug problem. It used up the drugs, you stop all the killing and the violence. You have mexicans coming across the border. You either pay 3500 dollars to come across or you have to bring some drugs across. In alabama, if you get address did arrested for drugs, it is two years before you go to trial. If we can stop the drugs, we can stop the violence. Host anthony is also in alabama. Go ahead. I am a 23yearold student at the university of alabama. I wanted to speak on the experience i have had. Me and some friends a year ago tried to play a joke. We were in the neighborhood and we decided to take some fights on each other and see who would stop to help the black guy and who would stop to help the white guy and unfortunately, i did not when they picked a fight with myself and the guys that were with me. They got stopped by a couple of neighbors and chased down. 30 minutes later, we went to a different street and try to couple of my caucasian friends and we were actually stopped and chased the next neighborhood and we told them it was a joke and everybody was pretty mad about it, why would you joke about fighting each other and we were like, there is actually a problem with judgmental people in this country, like everyone see thehat they situation and they judge that this is happening because of the color of the skin. Host that was anthony, last call on the topic. At the center for american progress, there is an event featuring the top Economic Advisor to president obama. The topic will be a discussion on Unemployment Insurance, and also the role it plays in the economy. We are going to take that to you and it is set to start shortly. Good morning. Carmel martin and i am the Vice President for policy here. Thank you for joining us for this critically important conversation on improving unemployment protection. I would like to thank our partners, the Georgetown Center on poverty and inequality and the National Moment law for cohosting this event for all the work they do to promote Economic Security for all families. Workingpoint in their years, two out of every three americans will experience at least one year of unemployment for themselves or the head of their household. As the tens of billions of americans who lost their jobs during the Great Recession will tell you, unemployment can be painful for families. It also has enormous cost for our economy, eroding the skills of our workforce. Unemployment insurance was created to minimize the risk of hardship in job loss. You i kept more than 5 million americans out of poverty and saved more than 2 million jobs by boosting demand. The system has not adjusted to dramatic changes in the american workforce. Globalization and technological change mean that many laidoff workers will need to retrain in new sectors. Uis Reemployment Services are sorely underfunded. Women are now primary breadwinners in 40 of families with children, an increase since 1960. You are women qualify for ui because they are more likely to work parttime, have caregiving responsibilities or face low wages or erratic schedules. Is of the workforce in 2015 in an alternative work arrangement, including gig economy workers and independent contractors. These workers are systematically excluded. Many states have made cuts to the ui programs in recent years. As a result, only about one in four unemployed workers receive ui in recent years, the lowest in history. The new proposals we are discussing layout a comprehensive roadmap for reversing the shortcomings. It includes a job seekers allowance would extend jobsearch assistance to returning caregivers, independent contractors, younger workers and gait economy workers. Shoring up and expanded critical unemployment protection must be must be a priority for a new congress and administration. We hope that todays conversation will inform those critical preparations. We are lucky to be joined by two of our nations most important thought leaders and advocates for strong unemployment protection systems, chairman of the council of economic advisers, jason furman. We will hear first from the congressman who represents michigan michigans ninth congressional district. He has been a tireless champion on behalf of working families and was one of the key architects of reforms that enabled ui to be such an important part of our countrys response to the Great Recession. As the ranking members of the house ways and means committee, he has continued to be a fierce proponent of modernizing Unemployment Insurance. Please join me in welcoming the congressman to the podium. [applause] good morning. Here withto be georgetown and cap. Looking back some years ago,his was such a pressing issue and it tends to have been forgotten. The agony there was for millions of people in this country. Controversy that often the set this program. I want to say briefly why it is vital that we are here. First of all, as mentioned, what for people ineant backociety, i used to call home to michigan, sometimes every week, to see what was going on. For example, in the construction industry, in southeast michigan, when often there would just be a couple hundred people on the trades,nd many of the most of them, there would be thousands of people out of work. Had on theit has this and the way that prevented people from falling into poverty, a 11 million. Also what it meant to the economy, where we would have been adjacent in jason furman is going to talk about this, without the impetus that came from the Unemployment Insurance program. That is the first reason i think it is so important that we be here. Structure is a mess. You covered some of the inadequacies of the program. Only a quarter of the people covered, and that is likely to become even more so if we dont change it. The problem with the state system and the number of states that are deeply in debt. To rereads, and i had it again. 3. 4 billionhave in debt. Three states . The state of michigan has been going in the opposite direction, and what it did some time ago was to cut the minimum benefit from 26 to 20 weeks. Because theret will be another recession. I just want to close by saying this proposal were really mean. Will really mean. It will open up the debate, once again, about what Unemployment Insurance really is. Employed think they work for their Unemployment Insurance, that it is paid for in part by the employer in lieu of wages. They think they earned this. And yet, when we had the battle ,ver longterm uninsurance there was a feeling that it was. Disincentive i remember a report being issued , this3 and it said this program which is already adding too much to the deficit and help keep unemployment to high for should be allowed to finally come to an end. We need to have this debate once again. I remembered two of us going down, christmas eve. Urge there be to an extension of Unemployment Insurance for the longterm unemployed. And we failed. Jason furman is going to touch on how much the lack of Unemployment Insurance essentially leads to people dropping out of the workforce. Year,e every reason to be and my hope is that this proposal, plus that of the administration will once again foster a debate because we talk , the disenchantment and onee of government of the reasons people feel that they work hard, are laid off through no fault of their own because of what happened in japan or china, they are looking for work, they cannot find it. Themtially, the message to is tough luck. This country cannot operate on. He basis of tough love it will not work. Jason furman is now going to. Ake over i the agony with which he and struggled as we maintained to sustain a program to help them keep their spirits and help them continue to look themork when so many of had never done anything but work all their lives. There were so many people that would tell us at the age of 18, they went to work and worked all their lives. When the worst recession since the Great Depression came, and they were out in the street. And country must do better i pay tribute to all of you who came here today to join in this effort that has to be renewed. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you so much for those kind words. City i used to spea multiple times a day. Cannot be a more timely conversation and could be not more timely because the labor et is the worst part is a benefits have expired, both of which we have done in recent years. Provide some broad economic context that motivates the reforms. Talk about some of the economic benefits of ui, and talk about some of the reason some of the ways the Current System could be strengthened and present proposals the president put forward, but notably, these proposals have a lot in common with a lot of the proposals in the new report. The most important thing is not even any of the specifics, but making sure we are all having a , both about the ideas i will be talking about, but other thoughtprovoking ideas be jobseekers allowance, which merits further discussion and consideration. Start, with three economic problems that i worry about ,very day, and the ui reform currently plays a role in helping with and can play an even better role, i wanted to begin with number one, the decline in the Labor Force Participation rate. The council of economic advisers put out a report on this topic. Is labor upshot of it force participation for decades was rising because women were entering the workforce. Starting around 2000, that process ended. The process aging of the population and the Great Recession recession. All of that combined to put us on a downward trajectory in terms of Labor Force Participation, and introductory that i would be worried about that would continue going forward, unless we take steps. One thing we point out is if you look at international context, the United States has lower Labor Force Participation rate for prime age men and women than many other countries and that is notable because our Unemployment Insurance system like the rest of our Social Security social safety net is notably less generous than other countries. We need labor markets that are not just flexible, but also supportive and help people find jobs. The second issue is our ability to respond to future recessions, and the two main policy tools we have our fiscal policy and Monetary Policy. Fiscal policy does not face an economic constraint, but unfortunately may face some political constraints in terms of its time we use. Because we have real Interest Rates which have been declining for decades across a range of countries and were low even before the Great Recession, have less scope for Interest Rate reduction than we have in the past, and thus last room for Monetary Policy to respond for recessions, which makes the improvement of automatic stabilizers all the more important than it ever has been. The final challenge we are dealing with is the changing nature of the employment relationship. Kruegeresearch by alan has found that if you look in nonstandard employment, independent contractors, temporary workers, that it is ining quite rapidly, from 9 1995, to 16 in 2015. The parts of the economy that have gotten the most attention is a small portion of this, but is growing and understanding how we can revise our system as a whole, including unemployment in light of trends like this, is important. It is also important that the majority of people are in more traditional, standard employments. A dont want to invent brandnew system, but we want to make sure it works for this increasing group of people. Whynt to briefly go through ui is economically important. Traditionally, the two arguments you would hear are that it provides Household Incomes would households income when they need it most. If you look between 2008 and 2012, 11 Million People were lifted among above the poverty line by Unemployment Insurance. The second, which is closely related, is it acts as automatic stabilizer, reducing recessions. It does that for two reasons. One is, it is automatic. It does not require the government to do anything or statistical agencies to report on anything. Is the gives money to people who are temporarily low income, thus most likely to spend it. The Congressional Office has found the Unemployment Insurance is among the most effective automatic stabilizers in terms bang foror the buck the buck. In the last decade or so, Economic Research has added two other reasons why Unemployment Insurance is so important and documented. Getfirst is you only Unemployment Insurance if you are looking for work. Unemployment insurance can help keep you attached to the labor force, keep you looking for a job rather than just giving up and leaving the labor force entirely. That is important because once you give up, it is even harder to get back into it. When you look at that trend in Labor Force Participation, this is particularly important. Unemployment provides liquidity and helps workers find better job matches. You can imagine a world where you punish people for being unemployed and if you had that world, people would probably find a job very quickly, the job would be terrible for them and their future earnings. This allows them to find a better one. I want to talk about some of the downsides and tradeoffs. All programs have downsides. When i was in graduate school, the chart we sought to illustrate, the downside of Unemployment Insurance, was this one. The chance that you left unemployment when your benefits expired. People would say look at that. That is in the case of austria. People leave unemployment. If benefits expire earlier, they would leave unemployment earlier and everything would be better. It turns out economists have taken a look at this, and this is one, but the other up next i was talking about related to liquidity, giving you more money and flexibility, so the question is, those people who left unemployment, why did they leave . It turns out it was not because the benefits were expiring, it turns out benefits were expiring, so they no longer say they are on them lloyd, they no longer say the looking for jobs because that is what you need to be doing to be unemployed. You that the odds people become unemployed, become employed, those are unrelated to the duration of benefits. Is,k the benefits are doing it might cause higher measured unemployment, but the majority of that is for the people who say they are looking for a job, which means they are classified as unemployed, rather than giving up and leaving the workforce. There is some trade, and that is why Unemployment Insurance benefits replace only a fraction of your earnings and are timelimited. The right tradeoff depends on the situation of the economy. I want to briefly put on the table six shortcomings of the Current System that could be strengthened, and these are shortcomings that are very similar to the one i did find in the report we are discussing, some of which they have artie talked about. The first is the decline in coverage, down to about a quarter of people. This is in part because of changing economic circumstances, but a lot of this is a deliberate choice on the part of state. Nine states have cut the number of weeks below 26 in north carolina, it is 13 weeks. As tightenedl eligibility in most states, those choices have reduced the percentage of workers that are covered by Unemployment Insurance. In termsd issue, of the response, the administrations proposal is to make 26 weeks mandatory and to cover a wider range of workers, including parttime and people who lose their jobs due to certain pressing circumstances. The second is the insolvency of state programs. We saw 36 states having to take emergency loan in the last recession. Even today, 60 of states dont have enough money in their trust fund to cover a single year of benefits in the recession. Basically the type of standard you want to look at in several states continue to be in debt. Is to reform the Unemployment Insurance Financing Mechanism which would make it more efficient and fair, as well as taking it better able to deal with solvency. Taking a tax base which has been frozen at 7,000 for a long time 46,000, andup to indexing that to inflation, going forward. At the federal level, we would make that revenue neutral by cutting the federal tax rate, but we would expect a lot of states which would have to match the new tax base to rise up and get additional revenue to improve their solvency. The third issue is ineffective countercyclical triggers. They are ineffective in two ways. The problem is during a recession, they have basic balance budget requirements and they are expected to cut spending, not increase it. The government is in a better position to borrow any recession. The second is the way to triggers themselves are designed. At the end of 2013, the ui expired even though the duration of unemployment was higher than any previous recession. We put forward a proposal that would reform the trigger and make them 100 federally financed and they would be triggered by sustained high unemployment or a large rise in it. To reducecentives employment and dean baker on the left and right have proposed this idea, something we Economic Advisor<\/a> to president obama. The topic will be a discussion on Unemployment Insurance<\/a>, and also the role it plays in the economy. We are going to take that to you and it is set to start shortly. Good morning. Carmel martin and i am the Vice President<\/a> for policy here. Thank you for joining us for this critically important conversation on improving unemployment protection. I would like to thank our partners, the Georgetown Center<\/a> on poverty and inequality and the National Moment<\/a> law for cohosting this event for all the work they do to promote Economic Security<\/a> for all families. Workingpoint in their years, two out of every three americans will experience at least one year of unemployment for themselves or the head of their household. As the tens of billions of americans who lost their jobs during the Great Recession<\/a> will tell you, unemployment can be painful for families. It also has enormous cost for our economy, eroding the skills of our workforce. Unemployment insurance was created to minimize the risk of hardship in job loss. You i kept more than 5 million americans out of poverty and saved more than 2 million jobs by boosting demand. The system has not adjusted to dramatic changes in the american workforce. Globalization and technological change mean that many laidoff workers will need to retrain in new sectors. Uis Reemployment Services<\/a> are sorely underfunded. Women are now primary breadwinners in 40 of families with children, an increase since 1960. You are women qualify for ui because they are more likely to work parttime, have caregiving responsibilities or face low wages or erratic schedules. Is of the workforce in 2015 in an alternative work arrangement, including gig economy workers and independent contractors. These workers are systematically excluded. Many states have made cuts to the ui programs in recent years. As a result, only about one in four unemployed workers receive ui in recent years, the lowest in history. The new proposals we are discussing layout a comprehensive roadmap for reversing the shortcomings. It includes a job seekers allowance would extend jobsearch assistance to returning caregivers, independent contractors, younger workers and gait economy workers. Shoring up and expanded critical unemployment protection must be must be a priority for a new congress and administration. We hope that todays conversation will inform those critical preparations. We are lucky to be joined by two of our nations most important thought leaders and advocates for strong unemployment protection systems, chairman of the council of economic advisers, jason furman. We will hear first from the congressman who represents michigan michigans ninth congressional district. He has been a tireless champion on behalf of working families and was one of the key architects of reforms that enabled ui to be such an important part of our countrys response to the Great Recession<\/a>. As the ranking members of the house ways and means committee, he has continued to be a fierce proponent of modernizing Unemployment Insurance<\/a>. Please join me in welcoming the congressman to the podium. [applause] good morning. Here withto be georgetown and cap. Looking back some years ago,his was such a pressing issue and it tends to have been forgotten. The agony there was for millions of people in this country. Controversy that often the set this program. I want to say briefly why it is vital that we are here. First of all, as mentioned, what for people ineant backociety, i used to call home to michigan, sometimes every week, to see what was going on. For example, in the construction industry, in southeast michigan, when often there would just be a couple hundred people on the trades,nd many of the most of them, there would be thousands of people out of work. Had on theit has this and the way that prevented people from falling into poverty, a 11 million. Also what it meant to the economy, where we would have been adjacent in jason furman is going to talk about this, without the impetus that came from the Unemployment Insurance<\/a> program. That is the first reason i think it is so important that we be here. Structure is a mess. You covered some of the inadequacies of the program. Only a quarter of the people covered, and that is likely to become even more so if we dont change it. The problem with the state system and the number of states that are deeply in debt. To rereads, and i had it again. 3. 4 billionhave in debt. Three states . The state of michigan has been going in the opposite direction, and what it did some time ago was to cut the minimum benefit from 26 to 20 weeks. Because theret will be another recession. I just want to close by saying this proposal were really mean. Will really mean. It will open up the debate, once again, about what Unemployment Insurance<\/a> really is. Employed think they work for their Unemployment Insurance<\/a>, that it is paid for in part by the employer in lieu of wages. They think they earned this. And yet, when we had the battle ,ver longterm uninsurance there was a feeling that it was. Disincentive i remember a report being issued , this3 and it said this program which is already adding too much to the deficit and help keep unemployment to high for should be allowed to finally come to an end. We need to have this debate once again. I remembered two of us going down, christmas eve. Urge there be to an extension of Unemployment Insurance<\/a> for the longterm unemployed. And we failed. Jason furman is going to touch on how much the lack of Unemployment Insurance<\/a> essentially leads to people dropping out of the workforce. Year,e every reason to be and my hope is that this proposal, plus that of the administration will once again foster a debate because we talk , the disenchantment and onee of government of the reasons people feel that they work hard, are laid off through no fault of their own because of what happened in japan or china, they are looking for work, they cannot find it. Themtially, the message to is tough luck. This country cannot operate on. He basis of tough love it will not work. Jason furman is now going to. Ake over i the agony with which he and struggled as we maintained to sustain a program to help them keep their spirits and help them continue to look themork when so many of had never done anything but work all their lives. There were so many people that would tell us at the age of 18, they went to work and worked all their lives. When the worst recession since the Great Depression<\/a> came, and they were out in the street. And country must do better i pay tribute to all of you who came here today to join in this effort that has to be renewed. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you so much for those kind words. City i used to spea multiple times a day. Cannot be a more timely conversation and could be not more timely because the labor et is the worst part is a benefits have expired, both of which we have done in recent years. Provide some broad economic context that motivates the reforms. Talk about some of the economic benefits of ui, and talk about some of the reason some of the ways the Current System<\/a> could be strengthened and present proposals the president put forward, but notably, these proposals have a lot in common with a lot of the proposals in the new report. The most important thing is not even any of the specifics, but making sure we are all having a , both about the ideas i will be talking about, but other thoughtprovoking ideas be jobseekers allowance, which merits further discussion and consideration. Start, with three economic problems that i worry about ,very day, and the ui reform currently plays a role in helping with and can play an even better role, i wanted to begin with number one, the decline in the Labor Force Participation<\/a> rate. The council of economic advisers put out a report on this topic. Is labor upshot of it force participation for decades was rising because women were entering the workforce. Starting around 2000, that process ended. The process aging of the population and the Great Recession<\/a> recession. All of that combined to put us on a downward trajectory in terms of Labor Force Participation<\/a>, and introductory that i would be worried about that would continue going forward, unless we take steps. One thing we point out is if you look at international context, the United States<\/a> has lower Labor Force Participation<\/a> rate for prime age men and women than many other countries and that is notable because our Unemployment Insurance<\/a> system like the rest of our Social Security<\/a> social safety net is notably less generous than other countries. We need labor markets that are not just flexible, but also supportive and help people find jobs. The second issue is our ability to respond to future recessions, and the two main policy tools we have our fiscal policy and Monetary Policy<\/a>. Fiscal policy does not face an economic constraint, but unfortunately may face some political constraints in terms of its time we use. Because we have real Interest Rates<\/a> which have been declining for decades across a range of countries and were low even before the Great Recession<\/a>, have less scope for Interest Rate<\/a> reduction than we have in the past, and thus last room for Monetary Policy<\/a> to respond for recessions, which makes the improvement of automatic stabilizers all the more important than it ever has been. The final challenge we are dealing with is the changing nature of the employment relationship. Kruegeresearch by alan has found that if you look in nonstandard employment, independent contractors, temporary workers, that it is ining quite rapidly, from 9 1995, to 16 in 2015. The parts of the economy that have gotten the most attention is a small portion of this, but is growing and understanding how we can revise our system as a whole, including unemployment in light of trends like this, is important. It is also important that the majority of people are in more traditional, standard employments. A dont want to invent brandnew system, but we want to make sure it works for this increasing group of people. Whynt to briefly go through ui is economically important. Traditionally, the two arguments you would hear are that it provides Household Incomes<\/a> would households income when they need it most. If you look between 2008 and 2012, 11 Million People<\/a> were lifted among above the poverty line by Unemployment Insurance<\/a>. The second, which is closely related, is it acts as automatic stabilizer, reducing recessions. It does that for two reasons. One is, it is automatic. It does not require the government to do anything or statistical agencies to report on anything. Is the gives money to people who are temporarily low income, thus most likely to spend it. The Congressional Office<\/a> has found the Unemployment Insurance<\/a> is among the most effective automatic stabilizers in terms bang foror the buck the buck. In the last decade or so, Economic Research<\/a> has added two other reasons why Unemployment Insurance<\/a> is so important and documented. Getfirst is you only Unemployment Insurance<\/a> if you are looking for work. Unemployment insurance can help keep you attached to the labor force, keep you looking for a job rather than just giving up and leaving the labor force entirely. That is important because once you give up, it is even harder to get back into it. When you look at that trend in Labor Force Participation<\/a>, this is particularly important. Unemployment provides liquidity and helps workers find better job matches. You can imagine a world where you punish people for being unemployed and if you had that world, people would probably find a job very quickly, the job would be terrible for them and their future earnings. This allows them to find a better one. I want to talk about some of the downsides and tradeoffs. All programs have downsides. When i was in graduate school, the chart we sought to illustrate, the downside of Unemployment Insurance<\/a>, was this one. The chance that you left unemployment when your benefits expired. People would say look at that. That is in the case of austria. People leave unemployment. If benefits expire earlier, they would leave unemployment earlier and everything would be better. It turns out economists have taken a look at this, and this is one, but the other up next i was talking about related to liquidity, giving you more money and flexibility, so the question is, those people who left unemployment, why did they leave . It turns out it was not because the benefits were expiring, it turns out benefits were expiring, so they no longer say they are on them lloyd, they no longer say the looking for jobs because that is what you need to be doing to be unemployed. You that the odds people become unemployed, become employed, those are unrelated to the duration of benefits. Is,k the benefits are doing it might cause higher measured unemployment, but the majority of that is for the people who say they are looking for a job, which means they are classified as unemployed, rather than giving up and leaving the workforce. There is some trade, and that is why Unemployment Insurance<\/a> benefits replace only a fraction of your earnings and are timelimited. The right tradeoff depends on the situation of the economy. I want to briefly put on the table six shortcomings of the Current System<\/a> that could be strengthened, and these are shortcomings that are very similar to the one i did find in the report we are discussing, some of which they have artie talked about. The first is the decline in coverage, down to about a quarter of people. This is in part because of changing economic circumstances, but a lot of this is a deliberate choice on the part of state. Nine states have cut the number of weeks below 26 in north carolina, it is 13 weeks. As tightenedl eligibility in most states, those choices have reduced the percentage of workers that are covered by Unemployment Insurance<\/a>. In termsd issue, of the response, the administrations proposal is to make 26 weeks mandatory and to cover a wider range of workers, including parttime and people who lose their jobs due to certain pressing circumstances. The second is the insolvency of state programs. We saw 36 states having to take emergency loan in the last recession. Even today, 60 of states dont have enough money in their trust fund to cover a single year of benefits in the recession. Basically the type of standard you want to look at in several states continue to be in debt. Is to reform the Unemployment Insurance<\/a> Financing Mechanism<\/a> which would make it more efficient and fair, as well as taking it better able to deal with solvency. Taking a tax base which has been frozen at 7,000 for a long time 46,000, andup to indexing that to inflation, going forward. At the federal level, we would make that revenue neutral by cutting the federal tax rate, but we would expect a lot of states which would have to match the new tax base to rise up and get additional revenue to improve their solvency. The third issue is ineffective countercyclical triggers. They are ineffective in two ways. The problem is during a recession, they have basic balance budget requirements and they are expected to cut spending, not increase it. The government is in a better position to borrow any recession. The second is the way to triggers themselves are designed. At the end of 2013, the ui expired even though the duration of unemployment was higher than any previous recession. We put forward a proposal that would reform the trigger and make them 100 federally financed and they would be triggered by sustained high unemployment or a large rise in it. To reducecentives employment and dean baker on the left and right have proposed this idea, something we Unemployment Insurance<\/a> reforms and something we are getting Additional Support<\/a> for, both incentives for states to take up shortterm compensation as well as administrative funding in recession. The fifth issue is insufficient support for job search. United states said spends 1 10 of a percent of the gdp in the active labor market. The average is 6 10 of 1 . We are below every country except chile or mexico. Want to propose incentives for states to adopt a variety of different ways that help people search for jobs, and get into jobs, and finally, insufficient insurance against more adverse job prospects. Is that Unemployment Insurance<\/a> helps you if you dont have a job, it does not help you if the only job you can find has lower wages. One way to help deal with those tradeoffs is to give people more of an incentive to take a new job, rather than taking away the support they get ui. We will conclude by saying we are looking forward to this conversation, and as i said, it could not be more timely. Thank you. [applause] for thoseou both terrific presentations. Maybe we can Start Talking<\/a> about the atmospherics around this issue as you have been so involved in recent efforts to extend ui in the past three otherwise it. Those debates, there is a stigma around unemployment, but yet we see the beginning, so Many Americans<\/a> really experienced it at some point in their employment history. Other ways you think we can get past that so we could get a conversation we do not have to be in an emergency situation to think about how we can strength in this program and prepare for those recessionary periods as opposed to having to constantly do it in a crisis moment can mark moment . Would be too do it have a discussion in this president ial campaign, to elevate it. The purpose of unemployment out soce, jason has laid vividly why Unemployment Insurance<\/a> is not a welfare program. The nationsor economy. Endlessly, and we said if you cut off Unemployment Insurance<\/a>, it is likely that a substantial number of people will drop out, maybe for good. We just need to elevate this what this as part of country is really all about and not leave it to next year. Do you think that is part of it, people do not appreciate the number of people leaving the workforce . There are two it have Million People<\/a> on ui right now, but 70ing the Great Recession<\/a>, Million People<\/a>, including the workers, their families and more than 17 million children, benefited from Unemployment Insurance<\/a>. Something that affect a lot of people. What i found in the debate last time was really fatigue. By the end of 2013, we had had this for seven years, do we need it for another year, as opposed to saying, congress originally passed the extended emergency benefits in 2008 when the Unemployment Rate<\/a> was at 5. 5 and longterm unemployment was relatively low. In 2013, the Unemployment Rate<\/a> was higher. The longterm Unemployment Rate<\/a> was a lot higher. You should not think of it as you have done it for a certain number of years, we should think of it as one of the objective economic circumstances and do they justify it . They still did in 2013, but and thatt tired of it is unfortunate, part of why we want to make it more automatic so there is less discretion. It is very relevant to some of the issues that are being discussed in its own way, income inequality. Also in terms of corporate responsibility. What is happening in the states essentiallys are ducking this issue, in many cases making it worse, and we need to have a constructive discussion with the world of business about their obligation, suffers,verybody including the entire structure, when we have close to chaos. 20 years, going back we talked about these triggers in the present structure. Work. Ible, they dont today is that of they will hopefully project this issue into an honest constructive discussion of what Unemployment Insurance<\/a>, the role it plays in the lives of people and the Economic Life<\/a> of this country. You mentioned that the role of states, that obviously creates a lot of the inconsistencies on state to benefits, but of brings challenges, the fact that it is a federal state partnership. Do either of you have thoughts about how to think about that, moving over, if we were able to think about the program in new and different ways . I could talk about what has happened in michigan, what the state of michigan did was decide they were going to go over to an automatic system. They were going to even further , so they went off to and automatic system thousands and thousands of when so result far it turns out that in the past majority of cases, that was not true, and what happened as a result of this kind of blind, automatic thought about Unemployment Insurance<\/a> is people who were not at fault at all have their wages garnished had their wages garnished and have their income tax returns taken back by the u. S. Government. Reasonse all kinds of for us to take a hard look and for all of us to do this creatively. The federal government pays a decent fraction of unemployment. Nsurance cuts benefits to 13 weeks, and in light of that, it is really important to take a look are,at the set of rules what the principles you are operating on, and one of them should be that if you want to be a part of this program, you will offer 26 weeks of benefits, and we will give you extra in the event that the Unemployment Rate<\/a> in your state is high on a sustained basis. If you do not have a federal component, if it is every state on its own, what happens is there is a race to the bottom, to to workare forced to look for work, elsewhere and it has a disruptive impact on family life. I said during the recession for people, we thought we should not extend the benefits, just go home and talk to the families of people when you cut the Unemployment Insurance<\/a> or it was not extended. People instead of working looking for work or their kids were, or the kids were in school, and often where the spouse worked, you had to pick up and leave, what are the consequences . Thats persuasive, for some of them at least. Can you talk about some of the things the administration has proposed to try to prevent job and connect Unemployment Insurance<\/a> with training and talk about what you put forward and if you have ideas specifics,e get into i want to make an optimistic point. We did Unemployment Insurance<\/a> modernization, let a lot of the work, the congressman was obviously very deeply involved, that was something that has been gestating for a long time, with different proposals and discussions like the one we are having today. We came back in 2012 and added. Ome things we have a number of things we would like to see, and part of the spirit of what the president s perform proposal is is building on the success of recent years and making sure having a conversation now, and not because he is it is going to happen right away, but to make sure that when we come back to it, we have laid the foundation. I think all of the proposals are very much in the spirit of ui is a great program, and we need to build on it to make it even better because of changing circumstances and the economy, but also because of changing circumstances in public policy. That includes all the things i was talking about, before. Lets make sure people can get it, it is an important program, it make sure you to prevent you from losing a job or helps you find a job, or a few cannot find the greatest job, helps compensate you for that as well, so broadening the coverage. In both of those directions. The coverage in both of those directions. I think the conversation has with the people who had been at odds, but also among tose of us who are dedicated improving the system, because there are different ideas. Training tote job Unemployment Insurance<\/a>, it has been 20 years ago, when Kitty Higgins<\/a> who was then the chief of staff, who had worked in the Labor Department<\/a> since she was 18 eventually became the chief of staff. We tried to start a conversation about how you really intervene , and how you really link job training and other ideas about people sharing less employment, all of these ideas are sometimes difficult and are sometimes a bit controversial, even among people who basically agree, we need to have a very forthright conversation because this system , and our country, is backwards compared to most countries. Canada whenrue in there is a likely layoff, there is much earlier intervention on an organized basis, in terms of what is going to happen next for ensuringilies, Unemployment Insurance<\/a> and building a training and retraining program much earlier. Most stateu go to unemployment offices today and while there used to be a top service with unique human , ands to provide advice many offices, there is almost nobody there. Something we need to tackle together. We have a few more minutes, so we have time for a couple of questions. I think this is incredibly important. Complex, idibly think on the whole, most folks in this country dont even begin to understand the interdependencies. My own view is one place for the government is failing us is explaining these processes in terms that the general voter can know what you are talking about. Did an amazing thing in explaining complex science to 11yearolds because that is the level you have to reach if you want the voter to understand it. We end up having metrics that do not work. The idea that the Gross Domestic Product<\/a> tells us what the average income is and when you have 40 of the income of the people or whatever, have a sense that the general public is better off than they are. You have to think about all these tiny details, and i would get a whole lot of people engaged in coming up with answers. I dont understand where the jobs are going to come from. There was a piece in the Washington Post<\/a>, the solution to our carbon problem was to have the federal government by all of the coal mines in West Virginia<\/a> and not mine them. I looked at how many miners there are in West Virginia<\/a>, 183,000. You talk about your uninsurance, if they dont have income, everything in the state comes to a standstill. Im asking you to explain it with all the details and places and you have to do it visually. Thank you for that question. I know jason does a lot spent a lot of time cutting the and and you getting you did a terrific job translating the numbers. An expanded version of my remarks will be on the council of Economic Advisor<\/a> website and we work together. Im sure you have done all sorts that give brutal images about how many millions of people are being cut off from benefits or what the consequences will be. I think we certainly made an effort and can continue to. We try. We try harder. Has aould note that cap paper on using royalties coming from federal resources mind on federal lands to Fund Training<\/a> programs for workers to be retrained to be able to do different kinds of jobs. That is one idea we have in terms of figuring out how we can prepare people for the next set of jobs. We have time for one more question. I heard those two interesting things and i wondered i wondered if each of you could expand on. Support, we have not had so much of that. How much do you conceive that is feasible and the second was, making this a leading theme and they president of campaign. It seems to me that is a very high potential item and might even be connected with bipartisan support, but what were you thinking of . You are right. We need to have very direct conversations about what we are discussing here. Dohink what we are going to is try to have people tell their stories. Just what this has meant in the lives of people. I think that gentlemen in front maybe had a question. Ok. You mentioned some kind of glitch in the automatic system in michigan, where some Unemployed People<\/a> have their wages garnished, and their tax returns confiscated. Whatever happened with that . Did they get their money back . Is, we are working hard at it. We had a press conference to go back to the, the gentleman behind you made, in michigan, in detroit, in front of the state office, of people who had been impacted. Maybe this is a good place to close this or go to the next us is weat motivated tried to extend this program, not endlessly, and we ignore knowledge there might be some need to cut short the weeks because you could argue about some of those details, but the thrust for us was always does, and that was, what what is this country all about . Elevateneed to Unemployment Insurance<\/a> issues as part of an honest debate in this happens in to what the time of recession. The notion is that it will all come out in the wash, it needs to be challenged by those are the victims of that kind of approach, so that is what we are doing with this problem in michigan, and it is both a federal and a state responsibility, because we have , and there istem not the suggestion that the federal government take it over entirely. We have a blended system in this complicated country, and what we need to do is have this debate, so if what the what should the federal role and i think as jason has outlined, there has to be certain minimums, but then there has to be a state responsibility combined with that, but the states need to step up to it, and instead, what they are doing now is ducking their responsibility in many cases. Doing that,e because they dont want their taxes raised, but in the end, if you have another recession, then everybody gets hurt and more importantly, then your next panel will discuss that, we need to have an honest discussion about how you blend training and retraining with the strong. Nemployment insurance system about this you talk equilibrium, inequality, though these are vivid examples, so i think hopefully today, we will project this into the dialogue that we are going to have these next months, as we decide who will be president of the United States<\/a>. Thank you. Conversation,reat to theillustrates the bipartisan question from before, in 2009, when we raise the number of weeks to 99 weeks in recognition of the economic circumstances, it was passed in , and number of the reform proposals here set a minimum for states but also set more flexibility and tools for states to use, that many states have been eager for and we have seen support both sides. There have been moments like 2013 wrote where it really and itartyline debate resulted in millions of people being cut off from benefits, that it is not always that way and having conversations like this can help build support to really do things about this in the future. Thank you for having us. Thank you. We will do some storytelling from someone who has experienced the system firsthand. We asked the audience to think our panelists for joining us, today. [applause] thank you so much for your leadership on behalf of the american families. We have heard today about how ui is nothing short of a lifeline through workers who are laid off through no fault of their own. Three in four jobless workers are without this lifeline. Call to expand and strengthen unemployment protections would be complete without the real experiences of unemployment for families. That speak to the wise role in boosting Economic Security<\/a>, underscore the expanding of the work force before the next recession, and they demonstrate how valuable similar protections could be for workers who remain ineligible for ui. The share one such experience, it is my honor to introduce our next speaker. She comes to us from jackson, mississippi, where she and her husband are raising two daughters. After earning her masters degree, she worked in the Health Education<\/a> deal for a decade. Last december, she was laid off from her nonprofit job due to budget cuts. Ui has been instrumental in helping her family navigate the difficulties of unemployment, which are made more challenging for her family by medical toenses, while allowing her search for a job that fits her skills and interests. I am pleased to welcome her. Applause] hello. As she stated, growing up in jackson mississippi, the oldest of five, to an army father and fulltime working mother, there was a plan for our lives. You go to school, you go to church and you hopefully get a good job and retire, and that was our life plan. I followed the plan, i went off to college and got a degree in psychology and a masters in human services. I returned home to the place that raised me and provided me to be with my husband and my family, and to secure a life for us. 2012,led in and in doctors discovered to a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. We settled into a neurologist visits, visiting the eye doctor to learn how to care for my vision, how to care for my children with optic to write us and how to care for my children with multiple sclerosis. What that means when it comes to medical expenses, to our bills, to the medicine i require, and then we settled into me working as a health educator, and i was there for five years and last year, i got the news, i have the meeting that none of us want. Is not you, it is our budget, and so we will have to let you go. Then i said ok, now what happens . How does our family survive on one income . Then, we learned that Unemployment Benefits<\/a> would be family,e to us, to our so we made the decision to remove our sevenyearold daughter from aftercare. She could be home with me since i would be home looking for a job, and that would alleviate some of the burden of our expenses. Then we decided to leave our twoyearold daughter in day care because we knew how important it was that i had time during the day to look or a job. You cannot look for a job with a twoyearold, so we made a decision to sack ice and leave her there. What did we do about insurance . I had insurance through my job. We made the decision to apply chip for our daughters and they were covered because of meet receiving Unemployment Benefits<\/a>. Then, we look at our budget and we said ok, how can we make this work . How can unemployment sustain us while were working with one budget, and so we made the decision to pay our mortgage first, that was the priority. All other things would come next, such as day care and we streamlined things in our home,educing our cell phone bill apply for my medications that i needed three Pharmaceutical Company<\/a> and they were able to cover them as a result of me being on unemployment and showing them that unemployment does not mean i am waiting for a handout. That means that i am actively seeking work, that i am looking for something new, i dont want to just take a position that matches no interest of mine, or provides no addition to the career that i plan to move award in. This is not the end for me when it comes to unemployment. It is a transition to a different getting. For 10 years, i worked in the field of public health, so that is what i knew. For five years, they were aware of my msa gnosis, so i was comfortable because if i needed to take a break because of the heat or there were things i had forgotten because of ms, they understood and were willing to work with me. It was a fear of mine, how can i move over to a new position if they are not aware . Should i disclose to them . How can i be comfortable in a new place and how can i be sure the stigma or discriminatory happen if i disclose i have m. S. It has given me a cushion. It allowed me the ability to keep my daughter home with me in the afternoons while i was looking for employment during the day. It allowed me to work parttime or contract positions to keep experienced and not be unemployed for long stretches of time, and that is a big nono to have a cap in employment. In employment. It gave me the flexibility of looking for something new and to be able to move forward in a different career, if necessary. In theep moving forward progression of my career and allowing my daughters to stay in , i amre and aftercare grateful for unemployment and for what it is giving to our family and for providing what could have been a catastrophic event. It has allowed us to stay in our home, allowed us not to lose our lights or our cell phones. For women, infants, and Childrens Program<\/a> which provides a monthly meal benefit as a result of our 2yearold daughter and being unemployed, and it has given us a safety net that we may not have had as result of me being laid off. And i am grateful for that unemployed being would otherwise result and many of us go to our daytoday lives being stressed. You live with a disease, do not be stressed. Things for you. How do you deal with that when you are told you are unemployed or you have a sevenyearold daughter who worries, are we going to run out of money . We say, we are not going to run out of money, we are still going to do fun things or making life comfortable and happy for her, has been a result of me receiving unemployment, and im grateful for that. Never in my life did i think i would be in a place where i would share the story of unemployment. , always thought i would work always thought i would follow the line of going to church, going to school, and getting a job. But even in this place, i am still going to church, and if need be, i will go back to school because i have sufficient unemployment, and i will be back in the market force. Im grateful for the opportunity to share my story, just many other peoples stories. So thank you. [applause] ms. West we will start off by thanking laquita for herstory. It goes to the grounding of how we talked about the economics of the program and policy perspective. We heard about the human story about what it is so important, and im delighted to have a distinguished panel with us to talk about both policy solutions and how we can get from where we are today to a point where we have a strengthened and more modern Unemployment Insurance<\/a> system. I will introduce the panel. To my right is valerie wilson, the director of the program on race at the Economic Policy<\/a> institute, a recognized source for policy analysis on the economic condition of americas people of color. Mckenna,ght, is claire a National Expert<\/a> on Unemployment Insurance<\/a>. To her right is a senior fellow at the Georgetown Center<\/a> on poverty and inequality, also spent time on the ways and means and was a force behind the modernization efforts discussed earlier. Wu, leadsortia the employment and training administration, which is the so very relevant to the conversation to dating. I want to start today. I want to start up, we heard a lot about the broad standards, the next recession, i was wondering if the two of you could cover an overview of what we are discussing today with recommendations. Unemployment insurance is a federalstate partnership. States are granted flexibility in program areas, benefit eligibility, adequacy, and financing, and the result is very significant state variation in key program metrics. For example, the share of the states unemployed populations that receive Unemployment Benefits<\/a>, race with income replacement, which varies inevitably, and trust fund solvency, the Financial Health<\/a> of the state programs. And jason reviews way that states are short in these areas. Our proposal advocate a stronger federal role in the federal state partnership by recommending a series of new, broader federal Program Standards<\/a> in key program areas. We really are at a point in the programs history where we can no longer ask states to do the right thing and maintain properly financed adequate Unemployment Insurance<\/a> programs. Makesroposal that modernizations of interest in three categories, and the first category would expand access to services and and it would expand Job Retention<\/a> measures especially a program called work sharing, which has been referred to earlier. Programing is a type of that allows to preserve during a slow that i reducing job schedules in places of laos. Of layoffs. Acrossproven effective the world, but it has never been used in the United States<\/a>, unfortunately. Our second set of recommendations are focused around expanding benefit eligibility and strengthening benefit adequacy, and a number of recommendations should be familiar, but we go further in this area of recommendations and say the administrations strong proposal and even the recovery act legislation of 2009. We would the proposal recommends a monetary eligibility standard that would apply across states, extending ,s ability to parttime workers which plays a significant role in the u. S. Labor market as well as expanding eligibility to a variety of other workers and other arrangements. Toill turn to my coauthor describe the rest of the proposal. Thank you, claire. I wanted to touch on the allowance which is a nude idea a new idea, just found in other countries, especially the united kingdom, we think is a compliment to the Unemployment Insurance<\/a> proposal we have laid out. First of all, we tried with the ways in to expand the which we thought were defensible based on research and helps with aspects of the program. That it is a contributory program, and secondly, that even as it serves many of the purposes that i will discuss later, and we have already heard ofm, against recent loss earnings, a reduction of hours. That means the most robust system will not reach every unemployed worker. That is true in the case of new entrant into the labor force and reentrants in some cases, people who have taken time out. We propose an allowance that , halfpay a modest benefit of the Unemployment Insurance<\/a> weekly benefit on average, and for about half as long, 40 months. People who are actively seeking work. Who might this new program particularly help . And some of the beneficiaries are and some pharmasset. One group we think is left out and would be left out of any u. I. System is young people. We have a real crisis in this country with youth employment. There are 5 million young people , young adults and teenagers from who are out of work and school. To give you a sense of it, the teen Unemployment Rate<\/a>, 60 , but teens,fricanamerican 30 . That you think about people might take time out of the workforce, people will be taking time out for caregiving responsibilities with an aging population, but also responsible of his four children. Programs likeeed paid leave to help people fulfill these duties can we need to take it seriously when laquita is saying is a fulltime job to look for work. Jobseekers allowance would be a modest benefit that would help acknowledge what we are telling inple, but not living up to our our country. Jailse people leaving in the u. S. , and they are not eligible for assistance, so this could be part of a strategy. As we think about some of the Economic Trends<\/a> in the working and middle class to be sure the job seekers allowance reaches up the Social Security<\/a> taxable wage base, which is up to 100,000 a year, this is a benefit that could help fulfill people use notwithstanding working arrangements. That is something that we acknowledge in the report and ought to be addressed. Fied,rkers are misclassi they are misclassified. This could be a help for that. Final thing i want to mention is while this benefit is clearly for a wide swath of the working and middle class, the reality is for those at the very bottom, we te our stated in anyways him and this is one way states can engage in active labor market policy. People really want to work. This is an important tool that can help us get them there, whether or not there is a recession. Invite you toto react. You are experts on Unemployment Insurance<\/a>, reemployment training and the economy. I would invite your comments on the proposal as well as some of the broader trend and need of the Unemployment Insurance<\/a> system. For allowing me to be part of the discussion. I agree that if we do not continue this discussion enough im glad to see this today. I think the report and the proposal touches on a lot of important issues that tend to get swept aside or overlooked or not be as urgent as the discussions we are having, that we need emergency benefits. But the whole idea strengthening and expanding the system is critical. We have already talked about how women and people of color are disproportionately and the types of jobs that this certainly have not been covered by Unemployment Insurance<\/a>. Is growing workforce increasingly diverse. Womensd about rising participation, but also demographics are changing. And when we see in 2016 only one in four unemployment workers are receiving benefits, it has a lot to do with what the population looks like. Another important point you have made talking about strengthening the federal component of the system is the fact there is a lot of state variation. That state variation unfortunately is not random. Does not have a random effect. In a of the states that have not adopted the monetization changes that cut their unemployment duration or tighten the eligibility, especially in the southern United States<\/a>, that is significant because over 60 of africanamerican workers live in these southern states. When those changes are made to they have a disproportionate effect on africanamerican workers, but all workers who live in those states. The component of the proposal that tries to address what happens with that state variation is relevant, the cost of living varies across states, states have different budgets, but that should not result in different segments of the population being hurt more drastically when we have an economic downturn. I think the other part of that that is critical is on Reemployment Services<\/a>, because when you are out of a job and you live in a community where many of your neighbors are out of a job, how do you get reconnected to the system, since many jobs are identified and secured by people that we know references that we can get . So having something that is systematic like that, where there is a place where people can go and get this new training if they need new training, the information about what opportunities are available and where they are available, and other services that are critical to doing that, are important as well. A think we have talked about extending benefits people are in nonstandard work arrangements. Was andlly, i then filing, i was thrilled to see the jobseekers allowance, because that was getting to something that has not been talked about a lot, but needs to be talked about a lot, because when we look at younger workers and new entrants to work first, those who are finishing school in 2007, 2010, even now, it is bad timing that they enter the workforce in the time when we are having one of the worst enemy downturns in our history. That is no fault of their room. They were doing what they were supposed to do. Laquita talked about it earlier. The plant have a stable, successful the plan to have a stable, successful life, but if you get out of school at a time when we are losing 800,000 jobs a month, what do you do . Still have bills come still have expenses, your parents they not be in the best Economic Situation<\/a> either. Something like a jobseekers allowance is critical for this downturn moments, but also in any economy. When we look at demographic differences, black Unemployment Rate<\/a> is typically twice the white Unemployment Rate<\/a>, and it is high because those are people who are looking for work. It is not people who do not want to make any effort to get a job. It is because there are a lot of people who are looking for work youre not finding jobs, but to provide them economic support that stabilize incomes are essential. Thank you, valerie. Thank you for including me in this discussion. Direction, administration has a proposal to strengthen and modernize Unemployment Insurance<\/a>, and there are similarities highlighted in the report. It is important we are having this debate right now. For those of us in that the ciara, we normally take metro. We recognize the downside of ongoing neglect, and lets not another smoke and fire situation. This is the time. We have a growing economy, the chance to catch our breath. We need to look at proposals, and we have ideas, the report puts forward a lot of great ideas that emphasized this has to be a broader emphasized broader opposition. Got to have stakeholders, business, everybody at the table to think about not only how we strengthen, and modernize the system. One thing i will touch on i was excited about them because of the administration, we deal with job training and employment services, i really hurt and have been hearing in the world we are bringing to gather more than ever before thesetwo worlds, and that makes a lot of sense. The way we need to talk about Unemployment Insurance<\/a>, it is not just an important economic stabilizer and supporting families through a shock and making it a shot as opposed to a catastrophe in the course of their lives, but it is also about the skills match in our economy, making sure that people have time to look for the jobs that is the best fit. If you have a masters degree in computer programming, i cannot find a job because of the downturn, we do not want you flipping burgers for your skills are wasted, plus, somebody else could have used that job. Inhaving a good skill match, the things we are seeing in the report, the proposal Adequate Funding<\/a> to states that run the system, a basic number of weeks of benefits, and also having the strong support to make those good connections to make sure that skills are matched appropriately to jobs those are the most efficient outcomes for our company. One other question i have is we talked today about the federala partnership and the federalstate role, and everyone is acknowledged the need for a stronger federal standard to ensure that discrepancies across and one of the things i report does is in addition to setting the standards, it provides resources to states that with strengthen their ability to meet these standards. Can you speak about the recommendations the report makes, the administration makes him of the important of resources to states in meeting in meeting the new federal standards that were laid out in the report . I think it is responsibility of the federal government to ensure state have enough funds to properly administer their programs. Claimanto excuse for receiving their payments late or not being able to properly file an appeal to have a serious challenges, navigating new claims filing technologies, which many states are currently implementing. Advocatesal does significantly increasing federal administrative funding for u. I. Programs in state, and it also i am encouraged by the fact that the department of labor was able to secure additional funding for Reemployment Services<\/a> and eligibility assessments in its 2016 budget, but i think in order to really neat the needs of our labor that really meets the needs of our labor market the use the employment services. 2010, if youto asked me how much i would talk about roles would change between federal, state governments and the partnership, i would say maybe not much. And what we have seen, bowery touched on the in orissa variation now, and that is justified by local Economic Conditions<\/a> or cost of living, and what we have seen in the proven shortcomings of state and their ability to forward finance they are supposed to build up trust Fund Reserves<\/a> during expansion so they can draw down during a recession, just makes it quite clear that this proposal, the administrations proposal, is responding to facts on the ground. At the end of the day, the reason for striking the right balance between the federalthat governments is to deliver the program for workers the best program for workers that we can. What we find in our report is that there is a strong need for the federal government because of its ability to be a stabilizing effect, it can also respond to local or regional conditions when the economy for example, she can was in a recession for years before the recession hit. And particular when you see states are unfortunately taking shortsighted measures and not appreciating some of the wide and longerterm benefits, the federal government has to play a stronger role. We know that is an uphill fight, but the reality is it you are expect the state to fix it without very strong measures from the federal government, we will be waiting far too long for far too many families. Want to wrap up with a question that this post all of you on the panel. Hopefully take us in a more weeful direction just how do tell the political will for these changes . We have increased economic uncertainty, although we are in an expansion, where we have seen intersections with Unemployment Insurance<\/a> issues that a pickup in states across how can we translate the proposals in the report, but also for strengthening protections more broadly, such as in the proposal, bens action and momentum for policy change in the coming years . I will start. Says there are 194 days before the weekend for us. The career folks will still be there. The department of labor will still have responsibility working with the state as they administrator their programs, and i think every long journey starts the second and there are big steps that of an taken here. Modernization probably took us 10 years to get it passed into law. Many of us held the baton. And reports like this are incredibly important conversations, the political arena is important, research is important. One of the great and if its of the recession, although it is and it it did its job really worked, and that we have a wealth of information to see what happened, who was on u. I. , unemployment, how are things changing on states that are cutting back on benefits . It is important to be having that conversation not only on a political level, reading in the issues,and skills gap talking from our experience, and i will note there are a lot of people who have regular employment or traditional employment at manage their risk. System isnt insurance the system to manage that kind of economic risk for family, and it works in place for everyone. I think it is something we need to think about how to bring into the next economic era. I that is terrific. One of the things that was striking to me today is i do not know if i having worked on this program for over a decade fully appreciated all the benefits of u. I. We know the costs. We know the costs with taxes. I want to run through some of the benefits i think we do do a better job communicating, frankly. These are throughout the business cycle. With thet could help labor force is vision problem where a shrinking share of the population has worked in the labor force, looking for work. It helps with the quiddity constraints. Liquidity constraints. Half of families are able to come up with 400 without borrowing or selling something in an emergency. Lossjobs lost or earnings hits, it can be there to help with that. It can improve skills and job quality. Edrtia just mention this. It can help with stimulus, and that is not just with the session the recession. Unemployment insurance is targeted. It goes to people who have lost their jobs. It is targeted, whether we have an extension or recession. It can help prevent layoffs, and layoffs are harmful. It hurt workers health. It can reduce foreclosures. Also things like disaster response. Unemployment insurance can be a major response when there is disaster some which we can expect more of with climate change. It can strengthen families. If you do not get that from s story, i do not know. They need to follow a spouse to move them have caregiving responsibilities, illnesses, and this programming that delivers all these benefits is not some Magical Program<\/a> to it does it on a massive scale. To mitigating that clearly is helpfu situating this in the politics of economic instability, which is a political threat, and also finally emphasizing and i think laquita did a great job bringing security andomic employment go off in hand in hand. I wanted to echo the point about the excellent Academic Research<\/a> that came out to show the Unemployment Insurance<\/a> keeps workers engaged inwork. I think thats an important point to make as much as we can. Perspective ity see how wet to engage the Employer Community<\/a>. From my perspective they play a pretty outsized role in state legislatures. Especially where policymaking occurs. If we could try to engage partners in that community, i would think that that would help all of us. Also, just trying to engage our labor partners who also interact with the Employer Community<\/a> on a regular basis, trying to make a strong case to them that on them Women Insurance<\/a> is a really important rim that affects members and is something that should really care about. Important program that affects members into something that should really care about. Quite my colleagues have made some excellent points. I will just be summarizing at the end. I think that what all of this comes down to is messaging. In order to this issue forward have to first win the messaging battle. That means getting it out of this whole discussion of a term wasrogram, as the used earlier. People not putting forward job, which is a ridiculous, because you get just a fraction of what you earn when you are working and you have to be looking for work to get it. Really, moving beyond that to talking about how we can strengthen the system, the benefits of the system, i think we have made some progress in that. We are here to talk about strengthening and expanding ui as opposed to please dont cut it, which was the conversation a few years ago. But i think there is some gradual momentum in that area but there is a lot of work to be done on the messaging end of it and getting through that story in the news, all the benefits of ui. I also think that the fact that we have just come through the Great Recession<\/a> and been in this slow but plotting recovery for a number of years, i think thats a greater willingness or ability to identify with and for that. Much like we are seeing with the National Discussion<\/a> on inequality. That. Become a part of the whole 99 versus 1 . That includes many more of us. In the events that have happened over the last several years that have opened years or consciousness of people to the important of things like Unemployment Insurance<\/a> and other aspect of our social safety net as well. Thank you to this amazing panel. Im definitely excited that we got to have this conversation we one week after ui expired were scrambling to do an extension with time to think about how we modernized system to help more workers in the economy overall. I think we are at a moment when we can really begin to love these great recommendations and please join me in thanking this amazing panel. Please come up afterwards if you have any russians. Any questions. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National<\/a> cable satellite corp. 2016] if you missed any of this discussion this morning on unemployment, you can watch it in the cspan video library. We have some Campaign News<\/a> for you this morning. House Speaker Paul Ryan<\/a> has announced that he will speak at next weeks republican lastingtial convention, about 10 minutes and focusing on the republican agenda in the house. One of his aides said at the speech would show the sharp contrast been republican ideas and four more years of president policies. Progressive he finalized this speaking spot last thursday after donald trump met with House Republican<\/a> lawmakers. You can read more about that on politico. Com. We are on the campaign trail of mr. Trump today, giving a policy speech in virginia beach, virginia. Live coverage starts at 1 p. M. , eastern. Also today, the Republican National<\/a> committee starts a week of meetings in cleveland prior to next weeks convention. You will be able to watch live coverage of those meetings beginning today at 2 p. M. Eastern on our companion network, cspan3. Congress is back for the final week for their summer break today. The house will consider a temporary funding extension for the federal Aviation Administration<\/a> whose funding ends on friday. Also on the agenda, spending for the interior department during for purchasing water from iran. There is no indication yet as to whether house lawmakers will consider gun control legislation before the summer break. The houses back with legislative Business Today<\/a> at 2 p. M. Eastern. The senate is also in today to continue the debate on the defense spending bill. Later in the week that bill considered in the house. Also legislation to prevent opioid abuse and a revote vote on a measure that failed earlier therovide funds to combat zika virus. See live Coverage Today<\/a> beginning at or p. M. Eastern on our companion network, cspan2. A hardfought 2016 primary season is over, with historic conventions coming this summer. As the delegates consider the nomination of the first woman ever to head a Major Political<\/a> party. And the first nonpolitician in several decades. Watch live on cspan. Listen on the cspan radio app or get video on demand at cspan. Org. You have a front row seat to conventions of both on cspan. Beginning monday, july 18. The house gavels in at new eastern for general speeches. Until then we will show you a conversation on campaign 2016 with politico reporter Stephen Shepard<\/a>. Host good morning. Ell talk about polls and how it affects the various candidates. First question, how much attention should the coverage be paying attention to these days . Guest we are pretty early on process. When we look back, the polls accurate ecome more later. The conventions are about a month earlier than theyve been the past two elections. Were still in that early stage. The numbers that youre seeing baseline. A these two candidates are going to spend the next three weeks to votersg themselves in a more formal way as their partys nominees officially. Once we move toward august and these polls ay, should start not only measuring how americans feel about these which tes by also americans tend to vote. Nce we get down to the likely voter polls in august and september, things tend to get more accurate. So if you go to sites like real clear politic. They show different polls and what they say about the candidates. Pewexample if you go to the poll it says when it comes to hIllary Clinton<\/a>. 33 . Ers, clinton 44 , trump when you get to polls that show leading by two points at 40 , what do those numbers show trends and how has that trend been going for either of these candidates . Look. The reality is of the past roughly 50 polls that have been nationally, donald trump has led twice. Led 48 time on has ors something along that trend. Now that doubt right you look at the numbers and Illary Clinton<\/a> enters this general election phase with an advantage. Conductedf polls were before her the fbi talked ab her email case and decided that wouldnt be charged. These polls were conducted before some of the things that appened last week in the country. These polls are going to be conducted before each candidate their running mate before each party has their onvention and each candidate has an idea to talk directly to voters. Once we get that in the rear mirror they do become more accurate. What it tells us, with the rasmussen of the two polls conducted on automated land line with only respondents and only half of American Adults<\/a> live in a household with a landline now. Other than that, the polls are hillaryy unanimous that clinton has a pretty small but all significant advantage going into the election host well talk more about steven idates are shepard. If you want to ask him questions n the science of polling 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488001 for republic, independent. For hat does it say about who ultimately wins . Guest the past few campaigns it a interesting to have candidate in the middle of the summer with a lead quite this big. Barack obama and mitt romney were basically tied. Barack obama had opened up a in t lead over john mccain the summer, but that was a lead john mccain closed with his when his nvention, party got to go second. Came into palin, labor day basically tying the race up. Bush and john kerry were very close, george bush and close. Were very thats going back to 1996 when over dole forlead basically the duration of the campaign. O historically thats not necessarily that big of an abberation. Theres no guarantee that shes going to win. 1988, george k to and bush trailed dukakis never looked back and won a slide victory. I would caution against saying someones ahead in the early means theyre going to win. It means if the election was would be most likely. Host these elections are especially as a Vice President<\/a> candidate gets chosen. How much does that factor into their minds ange about who theyll support . We talk about whether the Vice President<\/a> matters. Part, they dont. But they matter in this way. It is really the first residential decision that voters get to see these candidates make. And particularly someone like ofald trump, there are a lot republicans here in washington. The they were really on fence, want to support their partys nominees have reservation. They want to see his first president ial decision. And naming a running mate this to be that g decision. So i think a lot of folks, maybe even more than usual, voters are looking to see where these candidates come down on these having mates and then the opportunity to sell that running mate and sell this ampaign at the Convention Next<\/a> week and the week after. Critical. Hat will be sheet a political tip that comes out daily, also was a Polling Editor<\/a> at hotline. Shepard joining us. Arthur youre up first. Good morning, youre on with our guest. Caller thanks. Like to talk about this happened. Ragedy that i think a lot of people dont donald trump investigated all of this with the way hes been treating in his campaign and everything. Hit them in the mouth, throw them out on your ear. In the mouth. Pay your bill if you go to jill. Of this. Stigated all i think the people should know this. Like hes soto act righteous. Racist and a bigot and he aint got no business running for the president of the United States<\/a> of america. Host thats arthur in virginia, giving his thoughts on it. Maden shepards statements by donald trump. Ow they factor into how people are polled. How long does it last as far as sentiment is concerned . Thats an interesting question. I think the tenor of this been already very very negative. From both parties for the most part. Hat the democratic primary is pretty positive. When you look at where the both ing is now from candidates, hIllary Clinton<\/a> is unning some positive advertising. Most people look at her, like in tlantic city, is talking about onald trump and attacking donald trump. Both candidates go into the really high negative. The other needs to bring their opponent down. Thats only going to increase the negative tenor of this campaign. Theres a difference between negative campaigning and some of the violence that weve seen at some of these events, from Donald Trumps<\/a> opponents and his supporters. Think that will be something to watch next week in cleveland. Host from vermont, indiana, guest steven shepard. Caller good morning. Thank you very much for giving a chance to talk. I impression to who i vote, dont vote for hillary. Background, she has enough. My only candidate i was in favor sanders. Rnie i wanted him to win with but ons of people, by crats prevented that playing tricks. Bernie tried to mix the democrats and accept that and hillary. I respect bernie, but i dont. The country, that right was taken from me. Want to say. Guest i think this will be a question. Teresting the polls will be a good measure. 55 of clinton only won the vote in the democratic primary. That means you have a lot of 42 of whom voted for Bernie Sanders<\/a>. Supporters to his come on board step one is have Bernie Sanders<\/a> endorse you. We are going to see that tomorrow in new hampshire. Tracking now to see if she can increase. Little nning 80, 85, under 90 of democrats in these polls. 90 , 95 et that up to thats going to be worth a few points in the polls overall and her kpapb her lead over donald trump. Host does the same thing when it donald trump comes to gary johnson . How much he polls it certainly it applies to the Republican Voters<\/a> who are still on the sidelines about donald trump, they will looking at the convention, looking at his running mate, looking for cues as to whether or not this is a candidate they can get behind. Otherwise, a lot of those voters who would not for those voters would not vote for hIllary Clinton<\/a>, gary johnson remains a choice and gary johnson still has to vote pigeon self to those voters, he has to get people who knows who to 15 o peaking get up in these polls and make the debates in late september and then command this large audience and be able to make his pitch. Host what is he pulling . With donald trump and hIllary Clinton<\/a> so that he can get that measure right now, depends on where you look and it depends on how they asked the question, but it is generally about the highest digit. If he can get over 10 and towards 15 , he can make a case to get into this debate. Host democrat line, vivienne, good morning. Caller i was calling to talk about the polling. I am 65 years old and nobody ever calls me about polling. How many people are you pulling . Polling . Our deplete F Police Department<\/a> and the citizens. Last night, they were here talking about the shootings, and ino about the shooters tennessee killing each other and a father spoke about it. Policee listened to our chief. I am very proud of that. Black people have to stop killing each other, too. They are up there saying black lives matter. All lives matter. My son was a Police Officer<\/a> and i was praying to god everything would go ok. We need someone to lead this country, not put up hate like that will trump. I say this to republicans and democrats, please get out and vote. Host thank you. Caller to take her first take her guest to first question, how many people are in these polls, the one they came up this morning, it is about 1000 people. Statistically speaking, when youre looking at the overall population of the country, you can get a significant sample out of 1000 people. People who say they are not getting called, statistically speaking, that often happens and a lot of folks say well i dont call when i dont recognize the number that is calling me. But they never get called to participate. I know people are bombarded by sales calls and telemarketers, but there is some legitimate Public Opinion<\/a> research being , and i the telephone would encourage people to answer. There is also Significant Research<\/a> being done online. If you want to give your opinion, you can sign up online. You can participate in online polling. There are various ways to get your voice heard, at a time when so many people want to do that. Host how long does it take to take a poll . Minutesfive to 15 depending on the survey. They are not selling you anything, sometimes they are trying to convince you to vote for one candidate or another, but we talk about the polls we are talking about, these are legitimate scientific polls. They are trying to figure out whom you support and what is driving that. How you feel about the issues. Host here is the poll that our guest mentioned from Washington Post<\/a>, about the fbi decision to exonerate hIllary Clinton<\/a>. Most disapproving of that. Our guest, Stephen Shepard<\/a> talking about polling. We go to bob in springfield, virginia, independent. Doler my question has to with the quality of the polls themselves. Polled many people being who may be misinformed or ignorant, we have seen popular tv shows where people do not even know who the president is or who is on the supreme court. Me wonder whether randomized questions of 1000 people are really getting the true feelings of voters. The second part of the question is when you do put out a cold, the think put out a poll, do you think it influences the undecided . Guest i will take a second part of that, first. There is no doubt that there are there are a lot of questions that have been asked about horse race polling and when we go into say hillary, lets clintons advantage of six or seven points holds. What does that do to voters who are maybe not as motivated to get out to the polls if they know that one candidate has a significantly and the outcome is not terribly in doubt. Does it affect turnout . Does it affect how people want to vote . Do people want to send a message and vote against it . As far as the first part, that is part of our democracy, that or u. S. Citizen, 18 years older can turn out and their ballot counts the same as somebody who reads the New York Times<\/a> or the Washington Post<\/a> every day, or our website at politico. What i will say is that pollsters, particularly as we get later in the process, they really try to discern when they , who is goingks to vote and who is not. Get to knowoters the candidates and get to see the range of the convention, you start drilling down and you only want those people in your polls who are going to vote because frequently, the people who are not going to vote are not the same as the people who do vote. Electorate more so in the midterm years but to some degree in president ial years, tends to be older and whiter, since tends to be more affluent than the overall population. Pollsters want to get it right, they try to weed out the folks who cast ballots but that does not come until later in the process. Host Stephen Shepard<\/a>, the chief polling analyst for politico. Florida, republican, go ahead. Caller my question is, why should we not vet the provincial candidates like trump and clinton when they are going to be the most powerful person in the world . Why only the Vice President<\/a> s . We have experience with president obama who was not vetted. It is important that we vet t rump on his tax returns. Irony thate is some donald trump has asked applicants to be his running mate to release tax return so they can scrutinize them and make sure there is nothing that could be embarrassing to the trunk campaign while he has not released his tax returns to the public. That is not what these do, they juste to have to give them to the donald trump campaign. The campaigns want to make sure there are no surprises with the people they named to the ticket. There are some striking examples in American History<\/a> of people who were named to the Vice President<\/a> ticket who either had something embarrassing buried in 2008, or in the case of sarah palin who were not quite ready for the spotlight, and the campaign was not able to perceive how they would be tested during the course of the two months leading up to election day. These campaigns are being very careful about that and it is up to the voters in the media to vet hIllary Clinton<\/a> and donald trump. Both candidates are getting an extraordinary amount of negative news coverage. Voters have to process all this information and examine these candidates on their records as far as policy and their personal whom theynd decide want to be president. Host here is some of the results. When it comes to hIllary Clinton<\/a> 27 say do not trust her. 12 said capable of being president. 60 percent said dislike him, 12 said a joke and embarrassment. 12 said racist and bigoted. What do you get from these responses . Guest it gets to the perception that hIllary Clinton<\/a> and her honesty andes are trust. Donald trumps biggest problem is temperament, some of his views on racial minorities as expressed directly to this campaign. As expressed during his campaign. That is what drives the negative. Mpressions of these candidates do point to what is behind. Host john in herndon, virginia. Democrat. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. Im looking at 90 of africanamericans against donald trump. 80 of spanish people do not want donald trump. Seven out of every 10 women want to vote for hIllary Clinton<\/a>. This kind of negative, how do you think they can win elections . It is amazing to me that so many republicans are against him right now, no matter what kind 2 p. M. E will be back it eastern. For temporary funding for the faa. Air lays before the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers rooms, washington, d. C. July 11th 2016. I hereby appoint the honorable mark meadows to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, paul d. Ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the order of the house of january 5, 2016, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. The chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia800502.us.archive.org\/21\/items\/CSPAN_20160711_140000_Key_Capitol_Hill_Hearings\/CSPAN_20160711_140000_Key_Capitol_Hill_Hearings.thumbs\/CSPAN_20160711_140000_Key_Capitol_Hill_Hearings_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240625T12:35:10+00:00"}