House to Consider Unemployment Benefits Extension

[babylonsister]

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=cqmidday-000003204963

House to Consider Unemployment Benefits Extension


The House is expected to take up an unemployment benefits bill next week that would extend the available safety net for jobless workers in states hit hardest by the recession.

The measure sponsored by Rep. Jim McDermott , D-Wash., would allow 13 extra weeks of benefits for workers in states where the unemployment rate has surpassed 8.5 percent. That would come on top of the emergency extensions approved in last year’s supplemental spending bill and this year’s stimulus.

Currently, unemployed workers in all states are eligible to collect up to 46 weeks of benefit checks, and those in states where the jobless rate is at least 6 percent can collect up to 59 weeks’ worth. Jobless workers in 47 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, currently qualify for longer period of benefits; Nebraska and North and South Dakota are the only states to have maintained an unemployment rate under 6 percent, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Workers in 26 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, would qualify for an extra 13 weeks of benefits under McDermott’s bill. The cost of the additional weeks will be entirely assumed by the federal government, which is also reimbursing states for the full cost of the existing emergency benefits still being paid out.

Lawmakers were considering attaching a similar extension of eligibility to an overall renewal of the existing emergency benefits, before they expire at the end of the year.

But with about 400,000 workers expected to exhaust their eligibility this month – and some economists predicting that number might rise to 1.5 million by year’s end – lawmakers have moved to take up just the targeted extension in an accelerated fashion.

Lawmakers are expected still to renew the emergency benefits from the supplemental and stimulus bills before Dec. 31.

[stray cat]

1. That is a worthy and logical stimulus along with foodstamps

[closeupready]

2. Agreed.

n/t