The Crisis of Long-Term Unemployment (Washington Independent 5/28)

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A line in Denver last Thursday for jobs at a new supermarket.
Published: May 25, 2010

The Crisis of Long-Term Unemployment

By Annie Lowrey 5/28/10 2:03 PM
This week, Jesse Rothstein, the chief economist at the Labor Department, spoke at the Economic Policy Institute, and the organization just posted the slides. Congress is losing its stomach for funding extended benefits. But, as the slides show, long-term unemployment remains a major problem.



The chart underscores this point: For the economy to really start improving, hiring needs to be much stronger and the unemployment rate needs to start dropping much more quickly.

http://washingtonindependent.com/85991/the-crisis-of-long-term-unemployment

The House on Friday approved legislation to extend the filing deadline for emergency unemployment benefits through November. It does not create new benefits.

The vote was 215 to 204. The bill — which also extends a number of tax breaks set to expire shortly — now moves to the Senate, which will take up the proposal after lawmakers return June 7 from their Memorial Day recess. In the meantime, the filing deadline for UI benefits will expire June 2.

In a separate vote, House lawmakers also passed a bill to prevent Medicare doctors from receiving a 21 percent pay cut at the end of the month. That proposal, too, won’t be considered by the Senate until after the recess.

http://washingtonindependent.com/85989/house-passes-unemployment-benefits-extension

Senate Approves $60 Billion For War, While House Cuts $24 Billion For Unemployed Workers And State Aid

WASHINGTON — The Senate easily passed an almost $60 billion war funding bill Thursday, but anxiety over out-of-control budget deficits led House leaders to drop tens of billions of dollars in spending from a separate catchall bill anchored by an extension of jobless benefits.

Confronted with a rebellion by Democratic moderates, House leaders planned to dump overboard $24 billion in aid to states and allow generous health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers to expire. The changes were an effort to round up votes to extend unemployment benefits and renew more than 50 popular tax breaks that expired last year.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8435802

Stay in session a couple more days? Nah. Gates got his $60 billion. Over and over again, we see who they work for. And it's not us.

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