WASHINGTON - During the 107th Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives has acted repeatedly to provide extended unemployment benefits.

Starting in October 2001, the House passed four separate bills providing enhanced benefits for unemployed workers. This culminated in the President signing the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act (Public Law 107-147) on March 9, 2002. This law has already helped some three million unemployed workers and their families by providing up to 13 weeks of extended benefits in all States, and up to 26 weeks of extended benefits in States plagued by especially high unemployment. This law also provided all States a share of $8 billion in excess Federal unemployment funds, which has supported benefit payments and kept States from raising unemployment taxes.

These efforts by the House on behalf of unemployed workers continued into the final weeks of this Congress. On November 14, 2002, the House unanimously approved legislation extending unemployment benefits through January 2003. This reasonable extension would have granted time for the new Congress to review the unemployment situation and make orderly decisions about how to proceed. Unfortunately, the Senate chose not to take up this sound legislation prior to adjourning for the year on November 20, 2002 - nearly a week after the House acted.

This week the Department of Labor announced that jobless claims are at their lowest level in four months after unemployment plunged by 25,000 (seasonally adjusted) last week, supporting the House call for a short-term targeted extension of benefits.

Despite this, some in the Senate and elsewhere have objected to the most recent House action as not providing enough additional weeks of benefits, citing responses to past recessions as their guide. However, the last Federal extended benefits program ended in April 1994, when Democrats controlled the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate. In April 1994, the unemployment rate was 6.4 percent. Today, the unemployment rate is 5.7 percent.

The House is on record supporting a reasonable, short-term extension of benefits for those who have lost their jobs. Sadly, the Senate has adjourned, having avoided the chance to act on this common-sense House legislation and failing to provide continued support to 800,000 unemployed workers.