WE ARE living through one of the most difficult economic climates since the Great Depression. While we see encouraging signs such as last quarter's GDP growth and stock market movement, high unemployment is persistent and disturbing.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has helped local governments like Contra Costa County retain police officers who might have otherwise lost their jobs. It has helped keep community health care centers open and local schools from laying off more teachers.

But news that California's unemployment rate has reached 12.5 percent shows the urgent need for further action.

The Senate took an important step by overcoming a filibuster and extending unemployment benefits by 20 weeks to help laid-off workers in California.

Extending these benefits is nothing short of lifesaving for many families. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, extending unemployment insurance last February helped keep 800,000 Americans out of poverty.

But extending unemployment benefits is not enough. A jobless recovery may be acceptable to Wall Street CEOs, but it isn't to me or to the millions of families struggling to make ends meet.

That is why I am working with my fellow committee chairmen in the Senate to craft a job-creation package that will strengthen our small businesses, spur investment in clean-energy jobs and technology, and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

More than 60 percent of new jobs created over the past 15 years have been by small businesses. We can help California's small businesses today by passing legislation to ensure greater access to credit and lending programs through community banks and to increase the maximum size of Small Business Administration loans. And, we should help home-based small businesses by passing my legislation to create a standard home office deduction option of $1,500. We can also help our families and small businesses by reforming health insurance.

Lacking the bargaining power of large firms, small businesses pay as much as 18 percent more for the same health insurance.

The health care bill before the Senate will help small businesses by providing tax credits to those who purchase health insurance for their employees and offering the option of purchasing quality, affordable insurance through an exchange, where meaningful competition will bring down costs.

To break out of this deep recession, we must rebuild our aging infrastructure and spur investment in emerging technologies. We must make critical investments in the highways, bridges and water systems that keep our economy moving. Every $1 billion of federal investment in transportation supports approximately 35,000 U.S. jobs. I am leading a bipartisan effort as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee to reauthorize the Economic Development Administration, which provides the seed money for public-private partnerships in economically challenged communities. The bill was passed 18-0 by Democrats and Republicans.

We also are working for bipartisan support to continue moving climate change legislation forward. The Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act will create millions of good-paying jobs in California and across the nation as we incentivize clean energy.

Venture capitalists tell us that this law would attract billions in private investments to new startups and in clean energy businesses. We also will finally move away from our foreign oil addiction, which results in $1 billion a day leaving our country when we need those dollars at home.

We will bring our economy back. We will help small businesses. We will secure America's energy future. We will rebuild our infrastructure.

But it takes all of us working together. We need to do this for the good of our nation.

Boxer is a U.S. senator from California.