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Democratic leaders in the Senate are planning to fast-track legislation to extend unemployment insurance, a move that would provide a lifeline to more than a million jobless Americans who lost their benefits five days ago.

The bipartisan bill provides a three-month extension the federal benefits program, a temporary fix designed to allow Congress to work on a solution for the long-term unemployed, who have seen their support vanish.

The benefits, which apply to people who are unemployed for longer than six months, were left to expire on Saturday after a bipartisan budget deal on federal spending for the next two years failed to include a reauthorization of the program.

“Failing to extend emergency unemployment insurance through 2014 will negatively impact 14 million Americans – the 4.9 million workers who will see unemployment insurance cut off and the approximately 9 million additional family members they are supporting,” Sperling said. “But if Congress does the right thing and acts to extend emergency unemployment benefits through 2014, it is estimated to lead to 200,000 jobs and a fifth of a point of additional economic growth.”

The bill extending the program for three months – which would be applied retroactively, reimbursing those who lost benefits over the last week – is authored by senators from the two states with the highest unemployment rates: Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and Dean Heller, a Republican from Nevada. More at http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/senate-democrats-plan-fast-t
rack-fix-reinstate-lost-unemployment-benefits]

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I know nobody's posted about long-term unemployment running out this week, but did you know:

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Right before they left for the holidays, Republicans in the House of Representatives left a lump of coal in the stockings of 1.3 million Americans. On Saturday, long-term unemployment benefits for those struggling Americans expired, leaving them and their families to face the continuing fallout of the recession with nowhere to turn for assistance.

While many have heard about the disastrous impact this will have on 1.3 million people and our entire economy, few are aware that a bipartisan solution was at hand. Republicans could have avoided this latest manufactured crisis by including the extension of unemployment benefits in the recently enacted budget and paying for it by ending unnecessary corporate welfare to big agribusiness companies. But Rep. Paul Ryan, leading the Republicans in the budget negotiations, refused. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2014/01/02/republicans_vs_the_unemplo
yed_322744.html]

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There was a vote to reconsider extending unemployment insurance during debate on the rule. Every single Democrat voted to allow a three month extension of benefits to come to the floor -- yet only one solitary Republican was willing to cross the aisle to extend these critical benefits.

Republicans justified their position with a perverse logic -- that it builds character for people to go hungry and taking these benefits away will help people find work. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that because these benefits are injected directly into our economy, a failure to extend long-term unemployment benefits will mean the loss of 200,000 jobs. That means families looking for work will have fewer jobs to compete for and no benefits on which to fall back. The fact of the matter is that people receiving unemployment insurance, including 20,000 veterans, want to work and are actively looking for a job.

Republicans also argue that the economy has recovered sufficiently so that we can cut off benefits for the long-term unemployed. A recent study ( http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/09/10/some-95-of-2009-2012-income-
gains-went-to-wealthiest-1/) showed that 95 percent of the economic gains made from 2009-2012, during the heart of the recovery, went to the wealthiest 1 percent while everyone else shared 5 percent of the gains.

Go, Republicans!

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Originally posted by reaverfan:
Making broke people even more broke isn't going to help them find jobs.

This is the mentality of entitled pricks who think people are just lazy, when in fact there simply aren't enough jobs to go around. Things are recovering, but slowly (no thanks to Republicans).

It's all part of the ALEC plan to cheapen labor. They WANT high unemployment, and a desperate (formerly) middle class willing to work more for less.

The libertarian ideal.

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Originally posted by reaverfan:
Making broke people even more broke isn't going to help them find jobs.

This is the mentality of entitled pricks who think people are just lazy, when in fact there simply aren't enough jobs to go around. Things are recovering, but slowly (no thanks to Republicans).

It's all part of the ALEC plan to cheapen labor. They WANT high unemployment, and a desperate (formerly) middle class willing to work more for less.

The libertarian ideal.

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