Washington, DC - Today, Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) released the following statement in reaction to the April jobs report from the U.S. Department of Labor.  A net total of 165,000 jobs were created and the unemployment rate for April decreased to 7.5 percent from 7.6 percent in March.   "The fact that an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent is better… Read more

  Yesterday, key Republican Members of the Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Labor expressing their continued support for unemployment insurance (UI) reforms signed into law in 2012 that authorize States to screen certain UI applicants for drug use.  In anticipation of the Department’s upcoming notice of proposed rulemaking on this… Read more

Congressman Dave Reichert (R-WA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing titled, “Letting Kids Be Kids: Balancing Safety with Opportunity for Foster Youth.”  The hearing will review recent State efforts to improve the lives of foster youth by eliminating barriers that… Read more

The Obama Administration once promised that, “A well designed recovery plan will not only create numerous jobs, but also many jobs paying good wages and providing full-time employment.” (Administration’s January 10, 2009 Romer-Bernstein Report on its economic stimulus plan, officially titled “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”)   The actual… Read more

Welcome to today’s hearing on the progress of reforms enacted last year designed to help more unemployed individuals, especially the long-term unemployed, get back to work. Reforms enacted in 2012 were aimed at connecting those in need with the resources necessary to succeed. Today, we will take a look at what the Administration and States are doing to implement these reforms.   As… Read more

Hearing on the Implementation of 2012 Unemployment Insurance Reforms _____________________________________ HEARING BEFORE THE … Read more

In 2009, Administration economists predicted that as a result of the Democrats’ trillion-dollar stimulus plan, the unemployment rate would never rise above 8 percent and would decline to 5 percent by mid-2013.  The unemployment rate then soared above 8 percent for over three years, and has only recently declined because millions of people have simply given up even looking for… Read more

Congressman Dave Reichert (R-WA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing reviewing the implementation of reforms to the unemployment insurance system contained in Public Law 112-96, The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. The hearing will take place at 2:00 P.M.… Read more

The official unemployment rate fell in March because 496,000 people gave up looking for work and dropped out of the labor force, not because significant numbers of Americans found jobs.  This was the largest one-month drop in the labor force since December 2009 and the largest drop in the month of March since March 1960 (-550,000).  In fact, the survey that is used to… Read more

Washington, DC - Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) released the following statement in reaction to the March jobs report from the U.S. Department of Labor.  A net total of 88,000 jobs were created and the unemployment rate for March decreased to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent in February.   "Too many Americans remain out of work, and even more Americans… Read more