Hackensack - Today, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) appeared at a New Jersey one stop career center in Hackensack to discuss the urgent need for support for recently-unemployed workers as part of the economic recovery package currently making its way through Congress. New Jersey's unemployment rate has hit 7.1 percent, a 15 year high, and jobless claims nationally hit a new record high last week. The recovery package will be up for debate and a vote in the Senate this week.

"It's not only our responsibility to create new jobs-we also have a responsibility to the many thousands of workers who've lost their old jobs," said Senator Menendez. "As grim as the numbers are by themselves, they can't begin to tell the story of the stress and strain a lost job puts both on laid-off workers and their families. All of a sudden they have to get by without a badly needed source of income. It's a heavy burden, financially and emotionally.

"We understand that a major part of helping the economy recover is allowing workers who've lost their jobs to keep their families afloat, develop the skills necessary to maintain long-term employment and find new jobs. In the economic recovery package I helped craft in the Senate Finance Committee, we're making exactly this type of bold investment."

The Senate version of the recovery package includes $72 million for worker training and services in New Jersey through a variety of programs; $214 million for unemployment insurance to help laid off New Jersey workers and their families stay afloat; $200 million for emergency food assistance programs in New Jersey and $193 million for emergency housing programs in New Jersey to help the hardest-hit workers; and Continuation of Health Coverage for the recently unemployed (no NJ estimate available yet).

ECONOMIC RECOVERY PACKAGE - PROGRAMS FOR THE RECENTLY UNEMPLOYED

Estimated New Jersey funding and descriptions for selected programs in current U.S. Senate version of the bill
Worker training and services
-$72 million for New Jersey through a variety of programs
Examples:
Workforce Investment Act (Adults and Dislocated Workers Program) - designed to provide quality employment and training services to assist eligible individuals in finding and qualifying for meaningful employment, and to help employers find the skilled workers they need to compete and succeed in business.

Career centers - the Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933 established a nationwide system of public employment offices known as the Employment Service. The One Stop delivery system provides universal access to an integrated array of labor exchange services so that workers, job seekers and businesses can find the services they need in one stop and frequently under one roof in easy-to-find locations.
Unemployment Insurance
-$214 million for New Jersey for unemployment insurance modernizationThe program helps cushion the impact of economic downturns and brings economic stability to communities, states, and the nation by providing temporary income support for laid off workers.
Continuation of Health Coverage - COBRA
-No estimate yet for NJ, nationwide estimate is $25 billion over 10 years
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) gives workers and their families who lose their health benefits the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan for limited periods of time under certain circumstances such as voluntary or involuntary job loss, reduction in the hours worked, transition between jobs, death, divorce, and other life events.

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