Senator Casey: “U.S. Senate has done next to nothing for virus and jobs in past 4 months”
HARRISBURG – U.S. Senator Bob Casey joined a panel discussion with the Central Pennsylvania Workforce Development Corporation focusing on local jobs and the economy.
Senator Casey says unemployment numbers in the commonwealth are not declining as much as they had expected, and are especially high when compared to the rest of the nation, “As I said, I haven’t seen those numbers nor has anyone in my lifetime, in Pennsylvania. You’d have to go back to the 1930’s to see a time period where unemployment in our state has been above 13% over the last four full months.”
Casey says we need to start thinking in terms of the “New Deal,” and think about a WPA-style approach, “And that means a lot of federal money, and we can’t turn to state governments or local governments, or county governments, or the private sector. That is just not going to work here. They, of course, are all going to be partners in this, but we need that kind of transformative WPA-style program.”
Casey adds that there needs to be direct support for state and local governments; something he says hasn’t been a focus of the U.S. Senate in the past four months, “Probably 90% of our work, when you consider the votes we’ve cast, have been on nominations. No nomination has been as important as dealing with the virus and dealing with the jobs crisis.”
“But here we are,” adds Casey. “Facing four solid months where the United States Senate did next to nothing, because the majority wanted it that way,” he said.
Casey says a solution needs to be federally funded but locally developed. He says it needs to be flexible, employ up to 40 percent of those unemployed, and use strict reporting to ensure equity.
