01:17 PM PST on Monday, February 23, 2004

By ARTURO SANTIAGO / KING 5 News

KING Unemployed workers voiced their opinions with signs.

SEATTLE - The machines at Markey Machinery Comp., Inc. are idle because the owner had to scale back and consolidate. Of the 55 workers that were there, just less than half are still working today.

"Things are a little harder to make ends meet. I don't really have the money to do things that I had before. It's just a tough situation and my whole, your whole self esteem kind of goes down," said Maureen Hoff.

Many people have been on unemployment, and a lot of them will be losing their benefits soon.

"It's pretty scary, especially considering we have a child due coming up in a couple of months, so it's a little nerve racking," said Tim Baker.

"Options are moving in with family members,I guess taking anything I could find, which would be go to Mervin's see if they need help, back to before I went to school and got all my training," said Leigh Maxwell.

Sen. Maria Cantwell is trying to do something for them and the thousands of others who are in the same situation. She's sending a letter to the president and members of his cabinet, imploring them to reinstate the temporary emergency unemployment compensation program, which would extend benefits for these people.

Cantwell's argument is if Washington has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and the economy isn't picking up as quickly as the administration projected, unemployment benefits should be extended.

"Please expand unemployment benefits so we get some stimulus into the economy and people can hold on until jobs are created," she said.

The bill to expand unemployment benefits expired in December. Cantwell is ready for more drastic measures if her letter isn't effective. She says Democrats keep trying to bring up the bill on the floor of the senate.

"The Republicans keep thwarting that so every bill that they bring up, we're going to try to amend that to get this to a vote, because we know if it's brought to a vote the members will support it," said Cantwell.

Cantwell says extending benefits would cost $6 billion to $7 billion. That money would come from the federal unemployment trust fund. Right now there's about $17 billion in the fund, so she says it's not a matter of the money not being there.