Just Four Lawmakers Show Up
To Congressional Hearing On
Long-Term Unemployment

By Travis Waldron

Apr 24, 2013--A nearly-empty committee room belies the nation’s stubborn unemployment rate at 7.6 percent and what can be done.

Members of Congress are fond of saying that they are focused on nothing but jobs.

Focused like a laser?

Yet, when Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) scheduled a Joint Economic Committee hearing on one of the biggest jobs-related crises facing the United States, just four of the committee’s 20 members bothered to show up.

Why should they, they’ll get paid in any event.

When Klobuchar’s hearing on long-term unemployment began at 10:30 Wednesday morning, she was the only member in attendance.

Did she get a good seat?

She was later joined by three other members, though not a single one of the committee’s 10 Republican members managed to attend, as National Journal noted.

Nice going National Journal. Sure you didn’t miss anybody sleeping under the seats? 

The Joint Economic Committee is one of a handful of committees whose members come from both parties and both houses of Congress.

Klobuchar was eventually joined by three colleagues (in order of their appearance): Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Maryland Rep. John Delaney and Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings.

All four are Democrats. Anybody notice?

As noted, it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to be absent at the beginning of hearings, and there were 25 others going on at the time.

But perhaps the poor attendance at a hearing dealing with unemployment shouldn’t be a surprise, given the general lack of focus from members of Congress on unemployment since the end of the recession.

Hey! What happened to laser focus?

Instead, Congress has focused on debt and deficits, cutting spending even when evidence shows that the opposite needs to be done to grow the economy and create jobs.

Yeah, but those things won’t wreck a presidency as fast.

There are currently 4.7 million American workers who have been unemployed for at least six months, and the challenges they face are immense.

Do I have too much time on my hands? Why not put the 4.7 million unemployed to work on the crumbling infrastructure?

Not only do the long-term unemployed face discriminatory hiring policies, they are also losing federal unemployment insurance. State-level cuts and sequestration has slashed 10 percent from federal benefits.

Unfortunately, even if they had attended, it’s unlikely members of Congress would have gotten the complete picture of unemployment. 

All four of the panelists invited to speak were white men, the least likely to be affected by the long-term unemployment crisis.

Ya think?

A report that accompanied the hearing noted that even as long-term unemployment rates have fallen for Blacks and Latinos, progress has been slower for other racial and ethnic groups.