For the last 6 months bernanke and the rest of those wall street wizards have declared the recession officially over, unemployment seems to be leveling off and GDP rising, why do they want to extend unemployment rates AGAIN if everyone knows the recession is over and everyone will find work again with this great stimulus plan in the works. Seems very odd...... House moves to extend unemployment benefits By JIM ABRAMS (AP) â 8 hours ago WASHINGTON â Despite predictions the Great Recession is running out of steam, the House is taking up emergency legislation this week to help the millions of Americans who see no immediate end to their economic miseries. A bill offered by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and expected to pass easily would provide 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits for more than 300,000 jobless people who live in states with unemployment rates of at least 8.5 percent and who are scheduled to run out of benefits by the end of September. The 13-week extension would supplement the 26 weeks of benefits most states offer and the federally funded extensions of up to 53 weeks that Congress approved in legislation last year and in the stimulus bill enacted last February. People from North Carolina to California "have been calling my office to tell me they still cannot find work a year or more after becoming unemployed, and they need some additional help to keep their heads above water," McDermott said. Critics of unemployment insurance argue that it can be a disincentive to looking for work, and that extending benefits at a time the economy is showing signs of recovery could be counterproductive. But this recession has been particularly pernicious to the job market, others say. Some 5 million people, about one-third of those on the unemployment list, have been without a job for six months or more, a record since data started being recorded in 1948, according to the research and advocacy group National Employment Law Project. "It smashes any other figure we have ever seen. It is an unthinkable number," said Andrew Stettner, NELP's deputy director. He said there are currently about six jobless people for every job opening, so it's unlikely people are purposefully living off unemployment insurance while waiting for something better to come along. The current state unemployment check is about $300 a month, supplemented by $25 included in the stimulus act. That doesn't go very far when a loaf of bread can cost $2.79 and a gallon of milk $2.72, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said at a hearing last week on the unemployment insurance issue. "We need to keep our unemployed neighbors from falling into poverty. We need to figure out how best to make our safety net work," Baucus said. The jobless rate currently stands at 9.7 percent and is likely to hover above 10 percent for much of 2010. Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said at the Finance Committee hearing that, according to Labor Department figures, 51 percent of unemployment insurance claimants exhausted their regular benefits in July, the highest rate ever. "It is likely the exhaustion rate will continue to increase in coming months" as the unemployment rate continues to rise, he said. Stettner predicted that Congress will likely have to continue extending jobless benefits through 2011. McDermott in July introduced a more ambitious bill that would have extended through 2010 the compensation programs included in the stimulus act. Those benefits are now scheduled to expire at the end of this year. But with a price tag of up to $70 billion, that bill would have been far more difficult to pass. McDermott instead decided to offer the scaled-down 13-week extension to meet the urgent needs of those seeing their benefits disappear this year. McDermott said his bill would not add to the deficit because it would extend for a year a federal unemployment tax of $14 per employee per year that employers have been paying for more than 30 years. It would also require better reporting on newly hired employees to reduce unemployment insurance overpayments. Three-fourths of the 400,000 workers projected to exhaust their benefits this month live in high unemployment states that would qualify for the additional 13 weeks of benefits under his bill, McDermott said. They include Alabama, Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia. Other states could qualify for more benefits if their unemployment rates are approaching the 8.5 percent threshold.
What an idiotic situation!! US Gobermint hands out cash to millions of citizens from everyone's pocket with the false hopes of recovery within 6 months. In the meantime the hopes are so high that the same US Gobermint is giving away green cards to hundreds of thousands of people who has never been to America and who are hoping to land a job where the natives can not even get a job yet. How on earth we will feed all these people for so long from US budget? This is crazy... The fall of this empire will be faster than Roman Empire. Wait and see.
>>The current state unemployment check >>is about $300 a month, supplemented by $25 included in the stimulus act. Isn't it about $300 per week?
"The fall of this empire will be faster than Roman Empire. Wait and see."----->>>> It's not looking good, is it? Keep printing and keep distributing at the cost of massive debts passed on to the taxpayer. How long can it last?
So that means continuing and existing weekly claims will sky rocket correct? so the weekly could go back to 650k and continuing claims will go to 7 mil min as all that have dropped off and found no work come back. wait cnbc will play it off with an * and exclude them. we all know how this ends its just impossible to know how long they can keep the 1000 balls in the air
Have yet read a report from the Fed Chairman or any member of the Board of Governors that forecasts rising employment anytime soon. Although you must have otherwise you wouldn't have posts this. Can please link for me. Thanks.
This really pisses me off no end. Where's the assistance for the tens of thousands of self-employed and small business owners who've lost their life savings? Extended unemployment rewards, for the most part, all those folks who played it safe and buried their heads in cubicle farms drawing corporate benefits and salaries. The people screwed the most in this economy have been those who put themselves on the line to run a small business.
That's absolutely correct and the ones who have been rewarded the most are the ones who drove a stake into the hearts of that small businessman -- the banksters. It's simply disgusting.