The Senate Lets Unemployment Benefits Expire

[IDemo]

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs
Posted: April 5, 2010 09:09 AM


Today -- April 5 -- is not a good day for people who've been out of work more than six months. That is because the U.S. Senate failed to extend the federal program of Unemployment Insurance benefits before leaving for a two-week Congressional recess, even though the program was scheduled to expire on April 5 -- a week before they return.

So here it is, April 5. In the next week, more than 212,000 jobless people will lose unemployment benefits because the Senate failed to act, according to an analysis by the National Employment Law Project. The Senate leadership, which tried to take up the extension, has said they will make the benefits retroactive when the Senate finally acts. That is undeniably a good thing, but in the week or two people will be without their $300 - $400 weekly benefit checks, it's likely that some will run out of food. Some, once denied benefits, will not understand that they are only temporarily ineligible, and may not come back to seek assistance after Congress acts.

The latest unemployment figures are a painful reminder of why the federal benefits are so badly needed, and why letting the program expire is simply shameful. The federal program picks up where state benefits leave off, covering people who remain out of work after their state benefits run out (usually after 26 weeks). The number of long-term unemployed has been growing month after month, and grew by a stunning 414,000 in March. There are now 6.5 million people jobless for more than six months; their proportion of all the unemployed has now grown to 44.1 percent. The jobs picture showed some signs of improvement in March, but it will be years before we get back to where we were before the recession. If we abandon the jobless now, their loss of income will put the brakes on the economy just when we need to accelerate. And it is a pretty nasty thing to do, besides.

Providing unemployment benefits is not by a long shot all we should be doing. We need to do far more to help the long-term unemployed find work. Congress has been too slow and too timid to invest productively to create jobs and provide training. Now is the perfect time to give people the chance to get jobs repairing schools and roads, and to enter the fields of renewable energy and health care. Representative George Miller has recently introduced the Local Jobs for America Act (H.R. 4812) to put people to work rebuilding communities and to save existing local jobs. Such an approach would allow people to improve their skills and experience while meeting community needs. Their work will strengthen the economic recovery. The bill would do a lot - creating or saving one million jobs - and therefore it is not cheap ($100 billion over 2 years). It is just the kind of investment we need to jumpstart the economy. But it will be opposed by some in Congress because of the deficit - the same wrong-headed rationale that has temporarily stymied unemployment benefits.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-weinstein/the-senate-lets-unemploym_b_525147.html

[FBaggins]

1. Was there a filibuster?

How did the Senate "let" this happen?

[Love Bug]

2. They let this happen because that last go-round was only a one-month extension

The idea was they would pass an extension with the intention of tacking the problem long term. Well, guess what, they used up all their time on HCR. This did come up just before they went on recess but lo and behold, the Republicans blocked it again.

In the meantime people wait.

[FBaggins]

3. Unacceptable

I see in reading the rest of the article that it was Sen Coburn (R of course) that blocked it by denying unanimous consent.

Of course we should blame him for holding the unemployed hostage to make some political point... but I also blame the so-called "leadership" for not scheduling the vote within the normal process (so that one person wouldn't have this opportunity).

If they did it on purpose (intending to paint the republicans in a bad light) they they TOO are holding the unemployed hostage to score political points. If it was an oversight... then I question their priorities.

[RedCloud]

8. Cut off Coburn's pay and then his oxygen!

[tonysam]

9. It wasn't a real extension anyway, just a moving of the eligibility date.

People need to pressure Congress to put in a Tier V. Millions are going to be without any money by midsummer.

[KharmaTrain]

11. Coburn Pulled A Bunning...He Put A Hold On The Legislation...

...and he did it at the last minute...after a majority of Senators had headed home following the final vote on the HIR fix. The hope was there'd be "unanimous consent" to extend the benefits for a few more weeks, but at the last minute Colburn put things on hold...there wasn't a quorum to over ride his hold and thus here we are. They'll do something about this next week, but for those who need these checks to eat, that's little consolation.

[tonysam]

12. And then what? They move the filing date three weeks or a month,

and the process starts all over again.

What a bunch of worthless pieces of shit that are in the Senate.

[99 Percent Sure]

4. The problem with these articles is that they don't

report the full picture.

Sure, those who have been unemployed 6 months or more won't move to the next tier in the federal UE program because the House of Lords refused to extend programs under the ARRA, and that is absolutely shameful.

But what is not being reported is that there are millions of us unemployed over a year or more--many 2 years and counting--who have exhausted all benefits, and won't be eligible for any further tiers anyway.

So not only has the Senate failed to extend for those mentioned in the article, now there are millions of us who have no income whatsoever as of the end of last month, even if they return next week and vote to extend the ARRA benefits for Tiers 1 thru 4.

We're the same ones who got jerked around all last fall by the Senate until, finally, they passed the extension granting us an additional 20 weeks, if our state's UE rate was over 8.5%, and 14 weeks for states below 8.5%. The bill was finally signed by Pres. O on 11/6, yet we didn't begin to get checks until over a month later. Some didn't even get checks until after Christmas and the beginning of the year!

Now not only are we struggling to find jobs, we're in a fierce struggle to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table, etc., without any sort of income.

Yet, not ONE media outlet--broadcast or print--has reported on that particular major issue regarding the long term UE.

[FBaggins]

5. Would the proposed legislation have helped?

Or did it only extend shorter-term benefits?

[99 Percent Sure]

7. No, the proposed legislation only extends ARRA programs through

the end of the year, thus allowing those unemployed less than a year to move to a new level (tier), e.g., a person who runs out of regular state-paid benefits then moves to Fed-ED Tier 1 or a person who has exhausted Tier 1 moves to Tier 2, and so on. The proposed legislation also extends COBRA discount, the additional $25 per week for UE, SNAP benefits increase, etc.

However, there is currently no legislation being considered in either the House or the Senate to either add benefit weeks to other tiers or to add a Tier 5 for those who have exhausted all benefits. Unless we find employment immediately or find some kind of hustle, we have absolutely zero income, and no signs of any help from our illustrious Congress. Call Pelosi and Reid's offices and they'll tell you so. In fact, they say they aren't even considering it.

Even NELP says that the highest priority is to get the ARRA provisions extended, and I can't argue with that since, unless these are extended, most all of the 20-30 million UE will be out in the cold as well.

Yet the president has asked Congress for over $2 billion to help those poor people in Haiti. But there's been no mention of helping the millions of us and our families who are falling through the cracks right before our government's eyes. All we hear them talk about is the "middle class" which is code for the employed.

I've worked 40 years of my life, since age 15. Believe me when I tell you that I'd rather be employed than sitting here posting about this. I've sent out nearly 600 resumes since my ordeal began in 2007. In all that time, I've had only 3 temp jobs (temp agencies these days suck BTW) and 4 interviews, with two of them being by telephone. The rest never even deigned to acknowledge receiving my application, and I've got an excellent CV, solid experience in several industries and myriad skills. Also, I've always taken good care of myself, with the help of God, so I look 15 years younger.

Still, for the jobless, this economy is still a mess, and most--not all but most--of the Congress critters on both sides of the aisle are lousy people. I'm even giving the president the side-eye on this because their response to this crisis remains abominably anemic, even if I acknowledge that the government can't mandate jobs.

But still...if we've got dough to send to Haiti, and we've got dough to fight 2 wars. . .

[blindpig]

6. You are invisible

as are the homeless and hungry.



This is raw capitalism, the kid gloves are off.

If the office holders gave a shit they'd do something about it, but they don't, their lives are moving along just swimingly.

[tonysam]

10. Yep. The media keeps lying about an "extension," when the last REAL extension

was last fall.

But watch the GOP sandbag anything to help people because they want to use the old divide-and-conquer routine between those who have jobs and those who don't. Meanwhile, the financial elite continues to get money from the feds to scam the economy further.