|
Anchor: FEMA began issuing special debit cards worth up to 2,000 dollars to Americans who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. These cards will help their families meet their short term needs for food and clothes and travel, but what is the federal government doing for the victims of the hurricane in a long term and how will all of these people get back to work. Joining us now from Houston tonight in the Astrodome--Mrs. Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao is with us, Mrs. Secretary, thank you for being with us; I appreciate you're being on board. (Honor! Thanks for having me!) I understand what it is some ten thousand people already have applied for unemployment benefits, so we are hopeful that we can get these people taken care of immediately, but there maybe as many as 400,000 people displaced in terms of their jobs.
Zhao: Well, we don't know quite yet. It's a little too early. But just today, I signed off on 31 million dollars to increase a capacity of the States to take in these unemployment insurance claims. But the great challenge that we have is to communicate to dislocated workers, the array of assistance programs that are available to them. So just in the last 6 days alone I've signed off on about 200 million dollars in National Emergency grants to create about 47,500 temporary jobs, now these jobs are gonna help people, and get a paycheck(Yeah.) and also aid in the recovery, and, ah, cleanup of their own community, (Sure.)They'll also be helping in the delivery of humanitarian services. But we also have 2 other programs that are very helpful as well: One is Unemployment Insurance, and then secondly is a Disaster Unemployment Assistance.
Anchor: Let me ask this, (sure) 'Cause I guess the biggest concern of these people, they lost their homes, everything they have (Yeah.)and they don't have a job to go back to, so that it means by which, for example ,if you lost your job in a normal circumstance, it's hard enough. But now you don't even have a house, you may not even have a phone, you're displaced, you're not even in the same city. (Yeah.) Are we preparing to perhaps to extend benefits of necessary and really look at this as a very unique situation?
Zhao: Well, our hearts just go out to these people, and I think, you know, everyone is trying to do everything they can. In terms of extension of the unemployment insurance, the states have that authority, and obviously as the time gets, uh, as we go forward, then we'll see what is really happening, I think that will be discussed. But let me also say, you know, the majority of people have left the, eva, devastated areas, and I want to make it very clear that people do not have to return to their home communities to fall for these claims. We say basically that to people, No.1, if you have access to a telephone, please call our toll free number, it's 1-866-4-USA-DOL, there you can find caring, compassionate professionals who are working, you know, who are on call 24*7 to provide the assistance. (Secretary, I'm sorry, go ahead. Please go.) And also, yes, if they are unable to get to a phone, or they can get on the internet, please visit our website--- www.dol.gov. Again we have people who are very willing to help, and so eager to help. Now we're also saying if you can not get to a phone, if you can not get to a computer, we are trying to find you. We got teams of people canvasing neighborhood after neighborhood. We're working with nonprofit, faith-based organizations, community organizations to find these people. We have picked teams of people with laptops to register people for Unemployment Insurance, or for Disaster Unemployment Assistance. Now the Disaster Unemployment Assistance is very important. Let me explain. They are people who are not usually eligible for Unemployment Insurance, and these are the self-employed, if you're taxi driver in New Orleans for example, you could no longer apply your trade. You are eligible for Income Assistance through the disaster Unemployment Assistance. If you're newly employed, you don't have a track record yet. You are not ordinarily eligible for unemployment Insurance, but under Disaster Unemployment Assistance, you are available, you are eligible. So we have a whole array of services. We also have job banks; we have mobile units outside the Reliance Center in Houston Astrodome. We have job banks all over. We had a job bank in Dallas, Texas today. We had so many employers that we were oversubscribed. We are gonna hold a job fair in Houston next week, and the employers, we're asking employers to come and register with us and tell us what the jobs they have available. We are setting up a regional job bank that will list kind of like a bulletin board, all of the jobs that are available in the devastated region.
Anchor: We have...Secretary Chao,We have to run, but thank you for being with us,(Yes.) wish you ah.. all the best in that very difficult task ahead of you,(Thank you.) thank you for being with us.
|