Today, Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10) released the following statement after voting to pass the Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act (H.R. 5749):

“Bad trade deals, high gas prices, and a housing market meltdown have taken a serious toll on Western North Carolina. When families are dealing with tough economic times, it’s important for them to have the resources they need to recover and rebuild,” said Congressman McHenry.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the national unemployment rate rose to 5.5%, up from 5.0% in April – the biggest one month spike in 22 years.

The North Carolina unemployment rate currently stands at 5.4%, a 0.7% increase in the last year.

As a consequence of poorly-designed international trade deals, the ten Western North Carolina counties of the Tenth Congressional District have been particularly hard hit by worsening economic conditions, and all but one exceeds the state unemployment average. The unemployment rates there are as follows:
• Avery County: 5.5%
• Burke County: 7.1%
• Caldwell County: 6.3%
• Catawba County: 5.9%
• Cleveland County: 6.7%
• Gaston County: 6.1%
• Iredell County: 4.9%
• Lincoln County: 5.6%
• Mitchell County: 7.2%
• Rutherford County: 6.2%

The Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act will give 3.8 million unemployed Americans an extra three months of jobless benefits.

Congressman McHenry was one of only 49 Republicans to vote in favor of the bill, which passed in the House yesterday by a margin of 274 – 137.

In October of 2007, Congressman McHenry voted to reauthorize and expand the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which provides benefits and assistance to workers whose jobs have been lost to global trade.