WASHINGTON, DC—U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) released the following statement after the release of a jobs report showing that 39,000 total jobs were added in November including 50,000 private-sector jobs, and 1.2 million private-sector jobs in 2010, as the unemployment rate increased to 9.8 percent:
“Today’s jobs report is another indicator of the work that still needs to be done to create jobs and spur economic growth. The increase in the number of unemployed Americans from 14.8 million to 15.1 million is also a reminder of the urgent need to preserve unemployment insurance that was unfortunately allowed to expire this week.
“I offered another motion on the Senate floor yesterday to extend unemployment benefits that expired this week to prevent two million Americans and 83,000 Pennsylvanians from losing this financial life line this month. This motion was blocked by Senate Republicans as were three other similar request this week. By April, six million Americans and more than 350,000 Pennsylvanians would lose benefits. A new report on the positive benefit of unemployment insurance money being spent and going back into local economies projects that there will be 31,000 fewer Pennsylvania jobs over the next year if benefits are not continued.
“I also hope that partisanship can be put aside and agreement can be reached to pass a number of expired and expiring tax cuts specifically designed to grow the economy and create jobs. Specifically, I am talking about tax cuts that have created jobs in Pennsylvania like the R&D tax credit, the biodiesel tax credit which is essential to companies like Hero BX in Erie, the New Markets Tax Credit and the payroll tax credit known as the HIRE Act.
“The highly successful HIRE Act is expiring at the end of the year. From February to August 2010, an estimated 8.1 million workers who had been out of work eight weeks or longer were hired by employers who are eligible for the Hire Act payroll tax exemption. Pennsylvania is one of the 10 states with the largest number of hires—333,255.”
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