Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP
Congress Extends
Unemployment Benefits
Congress passed
legislation this week to
extend
unemployment insurance
for nearly 2 million
Americans who would have
otherwise lost their
benefits by the end of
the year.
H.R.3548, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009, extends benefits by 14 weeks for jobless workers across the entire country and by 20 weeks in states with unemployment rates higher than 8.5 percent – including California , where the unemployment rate is 12.2 percent.
The bill also includes a provision to extend homebuyer tax credits and a tax provision to ease the burden of the economic downturn on struggling businesses.
This bill comes at a critical time, when millions of Americans and at least 170,000 Californians are at risk of losing their unemployment benefits. Extending benefits will not only help laid-off workers support their families while they look for jobs, it will also provide a boost to our economy.
Extending unemployment insurance is crucial now because more than one in three jobless workers have been out of work for at least six months, and every day 7,000 Americans lose their unemployment benefits.
Extending unemployment insurance also will help stimulate the economy. Every $1 spent on unemployment benefits generates $1.61 in new economic demand. The legislation is also fiscally responsible, with the Congressional Budget Office concluding that the benefits extension will be fully offset.
Congress Extends
Homebuyer Tax Credit
H.R.3548 includes a
homebuyer tax credit
provision that extends
the $8,000 tax credit
for first time
homebuyers until April
30, 2010. The bill also
gives a $6,500 credit to
homebuyers who have been
in their current
residence for the last
five years or more. The
homebuyer credit also
includes tax relief for
military personnel and
members of the Foreign
Service and intelligence
community, and
anti-fraud language to
prevent abuse of the tax
credits.
US
Attorney Prosecutes
Unemployment Insurance
Fraud
FRESNO , Calif. — The US
Attorney’s Office
announced today that
Mario Jurado Pena and
his wife Jacqueline
Chaves Jurado, both of
Sanger were convicted of
defrauding the
State of California
Employment Development
Department of millions
of dollars.
The couple must pay restitution of $3,120,706. Mr. Pena will serve 18 months in prison, in addition to the nine years he is currently serving for a narcotics conviction. Mrs. Chaves Jurado received one year of home detention and three years of supervised release.
This case was the product of an extensive investigation by the United States Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Labor Racketeering, and Fraud Investigations, and the State of California , Employment Development Department.
Read the full release and details of the investigation, extent of fraud and conviction, please go to http://www.justice.gov/usao/cae/press_releases/docs/2009/11-02-09PenaSentence.pdf.
For more information or assistance with this issue, please contact the Office of Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez at (661) 395-2620.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Wright
Field Representative
Office of Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez
1800 30th Street, Suite 350
Bakersfield , CA 93301
(661) 395-2620
(661) 395-2622 fax