Congresswoman Lois Frankel today again called on Congress to bring an extension of emergency unemployment insurance to the House floor, following the news that only 74,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in December.

“Today’s job report shows how fragile the economy truly is and reinforces that Congress needs to do everything it can to encourage job growth,” Frankel said. “Kicking 14,000 job seekers from Broward and Palm Beach counties off of unemployment insurance is heartless and bad economic policy. The House needs to bring an extension of unemployment insurance to the floor immediately.”

A Florida International University research report released earlier this week found that in Florida many unemployed workers are struggling as emergency unemployment insurance has lapsed due to Congress’ failure to act and because of technical flaws with Florida’s new online filing system. Approximately 14,000 people in Broward and Palm Beach counties lost unemployment insurance on December 28, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

In Florida, more than 3,600 folks are a risk of losing benefits every week in the first half of 2014 without an extension of unemployment benefits.

On average 72,000 Americans nationwide are losing unemployment benefits every week because of the expiration of emergency unemployment insurance. This is the equivalent of one person losing benefits every eight seconds.

Last week alone, a House Ways & Means analysis found that the lapse in unemployment coverage drained $400 million out of state economies.

Every dollar of unemployment compensation spent creates $1.52 in additional economic activity and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that extending the benefits for another year would save 200,000 jobs. 

Frankel joined colleagues Thursday in a letter to Speaker John Boehner calling on the House to hold an immediate, up-or-down vote to extend emergency unemployment insurance for 1.3 million Americans who continue to look for jobs.

Earlier this week, Congresswoman Frankel and Congressman Deutch held a press conference calling on Congress to extend unemployment insurance.

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