• In Florida, off-the-job conduct may put your unemployment benefits at risk, By Jim Stratton, May 11, 2011, Orlando Sentinel: “A just-passed overhaul of Florida’s unemployment laws gives employers the ability to challenge jobless benefits to former employees for behavior that has little to do with how they conduct themselves at work. The provision permits businesses to fight a worker’s benefits claim based on ‘misconduct, irrespective of whether the misconduct occurs at the workplace or during working hours.’ In essence, it allows the business to cite a worker’s private behavior as a reason to deny benefits…”
• Bill could end long-term benefits for jobless, By Marisa Schultz, May 12, 2011, Detroit News: “States could end long-term benefits for laid-off workers and use the money to pay off federal loans for the unemployment benefits under legislation passed Wednesday in the House Ways and Means Committee. States also could use the federal extended unemployment money to pay for federal tax increases on businesses or to start job creation programs. Michigan is to receive $1.3 billion this year from the federal government, which will distribute $31 billion nationally. As a result of the prolonged recession, 29 states owe the federal government a total of $41.2 billion in outstanding loans for unemployment benefits. Michigan, which held the highest unemployment rate in the nation for nearly four years, owes nearly $3.2 billion and must start paying the bill Sept. 30…”

• Debit cards hit jobless with ‘junk fees’, By Susan Tompor, May 11, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Michigan’s debit card for jobless benefits hits the unemployed too hard in the pocket with ‘junk fees,’ a national consumer group said Tuesday. The group, which did a study of such cards for jobless people in 40 states, took issue with a fee on the Michigan debit card that charges $1.50 each time a purchase or ATM transaction is denied because there’s not enough money on the card. Another fee charges $1 to track the balance on the card at an ATM after two free balance inquiries each month at a network ATM. There are no free balance inquiries at out-of-network ATMs…”
• Report gives Ohio’s unemployment benefits card a thumbs down, By Sheryl Harris, May 11, 2011, Cleveland Plain Dealer: “The National Consumer Law Center says Ohio could have done more to protect citizens when it began delivering unemployment benefits on prepaid cards. The law center compared the prepaid cards issued by 40 states, giving Ohio’s card its lowest rating, a thumbs down. The biggest factor in the rating is the state’s decision to permit an ‘opt-in’ for overdraft coverage, which allows a card to be used even when there aren’t sufficient funds in the account to cover a transaction. Ohio’s card, issued through U.S. Bank, charges $17 per overdraft, but the big gripe about overdraft fees is that they tend to trigger additional deficits and even more fees. The law center report generally praised the Ohio card for providing ample fee-free services, including customer service calls, written statements, balance checks and withdrawals at U.S. Bank and VISA Plus ATMs. That’s better than some states, which charge consumers for both transactions denied for lack of funds as well as for checking their balances…”

• Florida would be only state to tie unemployment benefits to jobless rate, By Marcia Pounds, May 5, 2011, South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “If Florida’s Legislature approves the unemployment benefit bill passed by the Senate on Tuesday, Florida will be the only state that varies an unemployed worker’s weekly benefit with the jobless rate. An amended HB 7005, which returns to the House this week, is ‘the most damaging blow to unemployed workers yet,’ said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, in a press release. The legislation ‘would go further than any other state in dismantling its unemployment insurance system,’ Owens said. Under the House version, the national standard of 26 weeks of benefits would no longer be available to unemployed Florida workers. Instead, the maximum number of weeks would vary from 23 weeks when the state’s unemployment rate is as high as 10.5 percent to as low as 12 weeks when the rate drops to 5 percent…”
• Lawmakers cut unemployment benefits to 23 weeks, By Michael C. Bender, May 6, 2011, Miami Herald: “Out-of-work Floridians would receive fewer state benefits while businesses pay less tax under a controversial proposal approved Friday by a divided Legislature. The deal, which Gov. Rick Scott is expected to sign into law, immediately cuts unemployment benefits by 11.5 percent. Jobless Floridians would continue to receive a maximum payment of $275 per week, among the lowest of any state in the country. But it would be paid for no more than 23 weeks, instead of 26. Cutting the number of weeks was a victory for Scott and the Republican House, which had fought Senate sponsor Nancy Detert to reduce the number of weeks. The bill, HB 7005, passed along party lines in both the Senate and the House. The bill also creates a sliding scale that cuts and adds weeks of benefits based on the unemployment rate. Unemployment compensation would drop as low as 12 weeks once the average unemployment rate drops to 5 percent or lower. A week would be added for every 0.5 percent the jobless rate climbs…”

Most states seen raising jobless tax on businesses, By Michael Cooper, April 27, 2011, New York Times: “As persistently high unemployment has drained the funds that are used to pay jobless benefits, more than two-thirds of the states expect to raise taxes on businesses this year to replenish them, according to a survey of labor agencies released Wednesday. Unemployment taxes remain low by historical standards: the survey, by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, found that states have effectively cut the unemployment tax rate on businesses by 64 percent since the unemployment program began collecting taxes from employers in 1938…”

States seek to link public assistance, drug testing, By Ron Barnett, April 17, 2011, USA Today: “South Carolina state Sen. Harvey Peeler was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in January when the human resources director of one of the area’s major employers, textile manufacturer Hamrick Mills, told him the company was having trouble hiring some people from the unemployment rolls. ‘They said they had potential employees that would come and apply and couldn’t pass the drug test,’ Peeler says. Peeler, a Republican who says he heard similar stories from other employers, introduced a bill Feb. 9 that would suspend unemployment checks to people who fail a drug test they must take to get a job. South Carolina is among 27 states, including Florida, Massachusetts and Arizona, to consider legislation this year that would require recipients of various kinds of public assistance to pass drug tests, according to Meagan Dorsch of the National Conference of State Legislatures…”

Senate offers deal on Missouri jobless benefits, By Virginia Young, April 8, 2011, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “A logjam holding up extended unemployment benefits broke Thursday when Senate Republicans crafted a compromise that aims to cut other federal stimulus spending to send Washington a message about the deficit. Under the deal, senators agreed to extend benefits temporarily for longtime jobless Missourians by 20 weeks, at an estimated cost to the federal government of $105 million. As a tradeoff, the Senate intends to eliminate $250 million in already approved stimulus projects, such as grants and loans to make homes more energy-efficient and to improve municipal wastewater treatment systems. Senators also added a new provision, sought by business groups. Missouri employers would pay for 20 weeks instead of 26 weeks of unemployment benefits for future workers. Supporters said that change would help Missouri employers by offsetting higher taxes they will owe next year to pay back $800 million in federal loans that have kept the state’s unemployment fund afloat. Michigan recently took a similar step…”

Forget unemployment extensions, cutbacks more likely, By Sara Murray, April 5, 2011, Wall Street Journal: “State attempts to pare back unemployment and an improving economy are likely to lead to a much shorter span of unemployment benefits next year. A combination of state and federal programs has offered up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits to jobless Americans in the recession and subsequent recovery. That coverage is beginning to unwind as cash-strapped states move to reduce their share of benefits and other states become ineligible for federal programs…”

Mo. to drop extended benefits for unemployed, By David A. Lieb (AP), March 31, 2011, ABC News: “Thousands of people in Missouri who have been unemployed for more than a year soon will lose their jobless benefits, marking a significant victory for Republican fiscal hawks who are crusading against government spending. When eligibility ends Saturday, Missouri will become the only state to voluntarily quit a federal stimulus program that offers extended benefits. Michigan, Arkansas and Florida also recently took steps to cut back on money going to the unemployed, although they targeted state benefits instead…”

• Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signs bill to cut unemployment benefits in 2012, By Chris Christoff, March 29, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “As Gov. Rick Snyder and lawmakers struggle to erase a looming $1.4-billion state deficit, another deficit nearly three times as large hangs over the head of Michigan employers. They owe the federal government about $3.96 billion that the state borrowed to pay unemployment benefits during the worst economy since the Great Depression. That’s on top of the regular unemployment tax businesses and other employers must pay. The growing cost is a reason the Republican-led Legislature approved a new law that extends unemployment benefits this year, but next year will reduce to 20 weeks the maximum the state will pay unemployment benefits — down from 26. That means lower unemployment taxes for Michigan employers in the future…”
• Michigan cuts jobless benefit by six weeks, By Michael Cooper, March 28, 2011, New York Times: “Michigan, whose unemployment rate has topped 10 percent longer than that of any other state, is about to set another record: its new Republican governor, Rick Snyder, signed a law Monday that will lead the state to pay fewer weeks of unemployment benefits next year than any other state. Democrats and advocates for the unemployed expressed outrage that a such a hard-hit state will become the most miserly when it comes to how long it pays benefits to those who have lost their jobs. All states currently pay 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, before extended benefits paid by the federal government kick in. Michigan’s new law means that starting next year, when the federal benefits are now set to end, the state will stop paying benefits to the jobless after just 20 weeks. The shape of future extensions is unclear…”

Michigan first to act as states weigh reductions in unemployment benefits, By Peter Whoriskey and Michael A. Fletcher, March 24, 2011, Washington Post: “Michigan moved Thursday to significantly cut its unemployment program, becoming the first of what could be a flurry of debt-laden states to reduce aid even as high jobless rates persist. The Michigan measure reduces the maximum period a person can receive state unemployment benefits from 26 to 20 weeks, the lowest in the nation, officials said. Gov. Rick Snyder (R) indicated Thursday that he would sign the bill. The state’s economic troubles, aggravated by the recession and its shrinking manufacturing base, have turned Michigan into a bellwether of bust. Its unemployment rate stands at 10.7 percent - one of the worst in the country. The move comes as other Republican-dominated legislatures, including Florida’s, are weighing similar efforts to restrict payments to the jobless, and states such as Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana are implementing far-reaching, controversial plans to close budget gaps…”

• Michigan may cut length of jobless benefits, By Todd Spangler, March 24, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak, finds himself immersed in the affairs of the Capitol in Lansing because of a piece of legislation - now on the governor’s desk - that could make Michigan’s unemployment benefits the skimpiest in the nation, in terms of how long they can last. In a hastily called conference call with reporters and two state legislators this morning, Levin railed against the bill passed by the Republican-controlled state House and Senate as having ‘potentially dire ramifications’ if it goes into effect- which is almost certain to happen, at least in the short term, since Gov. Rick Snyder, also a Republican, has said he will sign it…”
• Levin, Dem leaders urge Snyder not to sign jobless measure, By Karen Bouffard, March 24, 2011, Detroit News: “U.S. Rep. Sander Levin and Democratic leaders of the state House and Senate called a rare joint press conference this morning to urge Gov. Rick Snyder not to sign legislation that will permanently reduce state-level unemployment benefits to 20 weeks from 26. The bill provides a 20-week extension in federal unemployment benefits for about 150,000 laid-off Michigan workers set to lose benefits by the end of the year, including 35,000 slated to fall of the rolls at the end of this month. The governor is expected to sign the bill into law, according to Snyder spokesman Sara Wurfel…”

Safety net for jobless rolls up after 99 weeks, By Greg Griffin, March 15, 2011, Denver Post: “Kelly Wiedemer alternates between hope and despair in her search for work, but as the months pass, she finds that pessimism prevails. The 45-year-old former business analyst has been unemployed since July 2008 and worries that she’ll never find a job that puts to use her college degree and more than 15 years of experience. Still, she said, she keeps looking and pursues every lead. Wiedemer’s unemployment benefits expired in April and resumed last month for a final six weeks. She’s been living off food stamps and the help of her mother, whose Westminster house she moved back into last June. ‘It’s a challenge just to buy dog food,’ she said, her 7-year-old bull terrier Kenda lying nearby. ‘My mom’s bootstraps are all that’s holding me up now.’ Wiedemer is among at least 13,000 Coloradans who are receiving six weeks of Tier IV federal unemployment benefits for those out of work at least 94 weeks…”

• Floridians may get fewer federal unemployment benefits, if state insurance cut, By Marcia Heroux Pounds, March 6, 2011, Sun Sentinel: “Florida residents who lose their jobs will get fewer unemployment benefits than residents in any other state if a House bill reducing benefits is passed, says a national advocacy group for the unemployed. Republican legislators said the cuts are necessary to protect Florida’s business climate. But benefits experts say Florida’s unemployed will get penalized twice. At issue are the federal unemployment benefits that kick in after state benefits are exhausted. House sponsors of HB 7005 said reducing the state’s payment would not cut the federal entitlement the unemployed can claim. But not everyone agrees…”
• Fla. House gives first OK to reduce jobless benefits, By Jason Garcia, March 9, 2011, Orlando Sentinel: “The Florida House of Representatives tentatively approved a plan Wednesday that would slash unemployment benefits for out-of-work Floridians and pass much of the savings on to businesses. The sweeping legislation would both cut the maximum number of weeks unemployed workers could receive state payments, from 26 to 20, and reduce the tax levied against businesses to pay for the program. It would also make it easier for businesses to deny benefits. A top priority of the state’s business lobby, the unemployment-compensation package was the first substantive measure taken up on the floor of the House in the 2011 legislative session, which opened Tuesday. An estimated 400,000 Floridians are currently receiving unemployment benefits, as the state’s unemployment rate remains stuck at about 12 percent…”

As unemployment insurance debts mount, interest payments loom, By Pamela M. Prah, February 16, 2011, Stateline.org: “For more than two years, stubbornly high unemployment has been taking a toll on the nation’s workforce, but for states, the mounting costs of paying benefits to millions of people who can’t find work are only beginning to become clear. Come this fall, some 30 states will be on the hook for paying $1.3 billion to the federal government for loans they took out to keep sending unemployment checks to workers who’ve lost their jobs. And that’s just the interest. In total, states owe the feds more than $42 billion, a tab they hope will evaporate on its own as the economy improves but will require decreasing benefits or raising taxes on businesses if it doesn’t…”

Proposals put squeeze on Florida’s jobless, By Jeff Ostrowski, February 13, 2011, Palm Beach Post: “Mark Wampole figures his weekly unemployment checks are the only thing saving him from homelessness, and he grows frustrated when he hears of proposals by state lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott to tighten eligibility for unemployment compensation. ‘Without it, I’d starve,’ said Wampole, a laid-off welder who lives in Palm Beach County. ‘I’d have to live under a bridge and hope I could find somebody to feed me. It’s that serious.’ Job seekers surviving on unemployment benefits that top out at $275 a week aren’t the only ones facing a financial squeeze. Business groups and Republican lawmakers point to dire finances for the state’s unemployment system, which has been sapped by an economic downturn that left more than 1 million Floridians seeking work. Unemployment benefits are paid through an insurance system that gets little attention in good times. Employers pay a small premium every year, and workers who are laid off collect benefits…”

State jobless benefits hit record $23 billion in 2010, By Dean Calbreath, February 11, 2011, San Diego Union-Tribune: “In what will be a major surprise to absolutely nobody, California broke all records in jobless benefits last year, paying $22.9 billion to a record benefits to 1.7 million jobless Californians, according to a report released Thursday by the state Employment Development Department. That averages to about $90 million each business day as the jobless rate continues to linger at post-Depression highs. In comparison, a typical annual average during a strong economy is about $5-$6 billion, averaging $20-$24 million per business day…”

Obama plans to rescue states with debt burdens, By Michael Cooper and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, February 8, 2011, New York Times: “President Obama is proposing to ride to the rescue of states that have borrowed billions of dollars from the federal government to continue paying unemployment benefits during the economic downturn. His plan would give the states a two-year breather before automatic tax increases would hit employers, and before states would have to start paying interest on the loans. The proposal, which administration officials said would be included in the 2012 budget that the president is scheduled to unveil next week, was greeted coolly by Republicans on Capitol Hill, who warned that the plan would ultimately force many states to raise their unemployment taxes in the years to come. But the White House is calculating that the proposal will ultimately appeal to Republicans because it involves a tax moratorium right now for hard-hit states during a still-fragile economic recovery…”

An uncertain future after jobless benefits expire, By Cristina Silva (AP), January 29, 2011, Washington Post: “The portraits of his dead father are among the few mementoes Bud Meyers is certain he will take with him when he is forced from his home of five years next month because he cannot pay the rent. His prized collection of mystery novels, the bedroom set he was once proud to purchase new and anything else that can’t fit into the trunk of a car must be left behind. More than two years after Meyers lost his job as a Las Vegas Strip bartender and nearly eight months after he exhausted his unemployment benefits, it has come to this: a careful inventory of a life’s possessions and the hopeless embrace of a future as a middle-aged homeless man. ‘I can’t believe this is happening to my life,’ Meyers, 55, said on a recent afternoon, as he surveyed the one-bedroom apartment he must soon abandon. ‘It’s a social holocaust.’ Meyers, who is single and childless, is among a growing number of men and women who no longer qualify for unemployment benefits because they have been out of work for so long…”

States will soon have to start paying interest on their massive unemployment borrowing, By Olga Pierce, January 14, 2011, ProPublica: “Sometimes it’s time to pay the piper. And sometimes that piper is the federal government. And sometimes the piper wants more than $1 billion. Soon. Because of the high jobless rate and past fiscal irresponsibility, 30 states have collectively had to borrow more than $40 billion from the federal government just to keep unemployment insurance checks in the mail. A provision in the stimulus bill made those loans interest-free for an extended grace period. But no more. Efforts to include an extension of the grace period in Obama’s tax cut extension enacted at the end of last year failed, and the first batch of 14 states will have to start paying interest before the end of this year. Given that state budgets need to be hammered out in advance, that means state legislatures will soon face tough choices as they come back in session…”

States’ unemployment debit cards often carry hidden costs, fees, By Pamela M. Prah, January 20, 2011, Stateline.org: “Like many out-of-work Americans, Philip Tressler gets his unemployment benefits deposited directly into his checking account. He could have received the benefits via a debit card that the state also offers. But Tressler, who was laid off 14 months ago after 32 years working for a grocery distributor in western Pennsylvania, didn’t go for the card. ‘It’s just not convenient,’ he says, especially since he doesn’t use the same bank that issues the state’s debit card. But there’s more than inconvenience at issue when it comes to state debit cards for the unemployed. Had Tressler decided to take one, he might have been subjected to a whole array of extra charges, including $1.50 for each withdrawal of cash from an ATM that isn’t ‘in-network.’ Pennsylvania is among some 30 states that offer debit cards as vehicles for unemployment insurance payments. These cards have their advantages. Workers get their benefits quicker, and states save money. And people without bank accounts can avoid check-cashing fees and make purchases without carrying large amounts of cash…”

State debt for jobless benefits looming, By Catherine Candisky, December 19, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “Although the battle over extending unemployment benefits has been solved in Washington, Ohio still has no way to repay the $2.3 billion borrowed from a federal loan fund to continue the jobless benefits through the recession. Without a reprieve from Congress, that bill comes due next year, at the same time state leaders will be grappling to close a projected $8 billion shortfall in the two-year state budget that begins in July. Given the budget crisis in Ohio and other states, many are hoping the due date for repayments will be extended again or the loan wiped out altogether…”

• Benefits: Jobless relieved life raft still afloat, By Meghan Barr (AP), December 19, 2010, Washington Post: “Kimberly Smith holds up the piece of paper that is the only thing keeping her from bankruptcy: an application for extended unemployment benefits. She’s not happy that she needs it. And she’s upset that it was nearly taken away. ‘I do deserve it,’ the 49-year-old says. ‘I’ve done everything I could to try and get a job. I tried to get back into the retail industry. I made the effort to, at my age, go back to college.’ President Barack Obama extended unemployment benefits for Smith and millions of other Americans when he signed tax-cut legislation Friday. It helps people who have been out of work more than 26 weeks but less than 99 weeks, though the benefits vary greatly from state to state. They could be just about anybody. People with college degrees and people with no higher education. People who have resorted to living out of their cars. People who have cashed out their retirement savings. People who once held six-figure jobs and people like Smith, who was laid off from her job as a department manager at a jeweler’s a year and a half ago. What unites them is the bitterness in their voices as they talk about how badly they need unemployment benefits - to clothe their children, to pay for heat, to save their homes from foreclosure…”
• Jobless benefits are extended - but hold the applause, By Tami Luhby, December 20, 2010, CNNMoney.com: “Millions of jobless Americans are no doubt cheering the tax cut deal that President Obama signed into law Friday. The legislation provides for 13 more months to apply for extended jobless benefits, but not everyone who’s unemployed will be eligible for these extended benefits. In fact, residents in at least five states won’t have access to the same level of unemployment benefits as their peers nationwide. That’s because the unemployment rate in those states is improving, so, according to federal law, the jobless there can’t receive checks for as long as those in harder-hit states…”

• Unemployed, and likely to stay that way, By Catherine Rampell, December 2, 2010, New York Times: “The longer people stay out of work, the more trouble they have finding new work. That is a fact of life that much of Europe, with its underclass of permanently idle workers, knows all too well. But it is a lesson that the United States seems to be just learning. This country has some of the highest levels of long-term unemployment - out of work longer than six months - it has ever recorded. Meanwhile, job growth has been, and looks to remain, disappointingly slow, indicating that those out of work for a while are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Even if the government report on Friday shows the expected improvement in hiring by business, it will not be enough to make a real dent in those totals. So the legions of long-term unemployed will probably be idle for significantly longer than their counterparts in past recessions, reducing their chances of eventually finding a job even when the economy becomes more robust…”
• Extensions for unemployment benefits started to expire earlier this month, By Jeff Bollier, December 2, 2010, Oshkosh Northwestern: “Back in April, when Congressmen and Senators last debated an extension of unemployment benefits, policy groups estimated failure to act would impact about 1,600 Wisconsinites. Congress eventually agreed to extend unemployment benefits to a maximum of 99 weeks. Now, the end of those benefits could have a more far-reaching impact. The extensions approved earlier this year started to expire this month, and the U.S. Department of Labor estimates a decision not to extend benefits now would leave almost 44,000 state residents and 2 million Americans without financial assistance, guaranteeing a dismal holiday season for people already struggling with bills and expenses…”

Millions to lose unemployment benefits, By David Welna, December 1, 2010, National Public Radio: “Things just got worse for the millions of Americans who have been unemployed for up to 99 weeks. At the stroke of midnight Tuesday, a short-term extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed expired as Democrats and Republicans in Congress failed to agree on how those benefits should be further extended. Congress decided last July to extend long-term unemployment insurance only until the end of November. November has now given way to December, and West Virginia Democratic Sen. John D. Rockefeller lamented that those benefits have run out, just in time for the holiday season. ‘I feel terrible about it, particularly in West Virginia where everybody’s fighting to survive all the time. And we have to do it,’ he said. ‘Why we haven’t done it, I don’t know.’ The House has already tried once - and failed - in the current lame-duck session to extend the jobless benefits. In the Senate, No. 2 Democrat Dick Durbin appeared stricken Tuesday when asked what that chamber planned to do about the 2 million people losing their jobless benefits…”

• Cut-off of jobless aid would shrink economic growth and raise unemployment and poverty rates, By Paul Wiseman (AP), November 30, 2010, Baltimore Sun: “If Congress lets unemployment benefits expire this week for the long-term unemployed, they won’t be the only ones to feel the pain. The overall economy would suffer, too. Unemployment benefits help drive the economy because the jobless tend to spend every dollar they get, pumping cash into businesses. A cut-off of aid for millions of people unemployed for more than six months could squeeze a fragile economy, analysts say…”
• Millions face loss of unemployment benefits, By Lyneka Little, November 30, 2010, ABC News: “The nation’s long-term unemployed will be left high and dry if Congress allows emergency unemployment benefits to grind to a halt today. The unemployment bill, along with an extension of the Bush tax cuts, are among the hottest issues in the lame-duck session of Congress that began Monday. The jobless bill has a pricetag of as much as $65 billion and the tax-cut extension could cost $3.7 trillion over the next decade, all on top of a deficit that tops $13.7 trillion. Unemployment insurance has for many decades provided about 26 weeks of benefits, but the current Congress has extended the benefit to 99 weeks in four separate bills. The consequences of ending the extended benefits aren’t entirely clear though most agree it could hurt the recovery…”
• Thousands in Kentucky and Indiana face lapse of unemployment benefits, By Chris Otts, November 28, 2010, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Amid an anti-spending atmosphere in Washington, funds to extend unemployment compensation for more than 33,000 Kentuckians and nearly 67,000 Hoosiers are likely to run out next month. The soonest Congress is scheduled to resume voting is Tuesday - but it’s uncertain if lawmakers will take up the issue, and benefits for people who have been jobless for more than six months expire the next day. Even if the House and Senate move extraordinarily quickly, administrative hurdles would keep states from getting checks out the door for at least a few weeks, said attorney Rick McHugh, Midwest coordinator for the National Employment Law Project, the main proponent of extending jobless aid…”
• Anxious time for laid-off workers as unemployment-benefit program expires, By Jamie Smith Hopkins and Lorraine Mirabella, November 29, 2010, Baltimore Sun: “Mildred Miller was just notified that her unemployment benefits will be cut off two weeks before Christmas. She can’t think about it without breaking down. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do; I really don’t know,’ Miller said Monday, her eyes welling with tears as she scanned job listings at Baltimore County’s work force development center in Essex. ‘I don’t want to get evicted. If we get on the street, I don’t know where we’ll be.’ The Middle River resident, a single mother with a 6-year-old son, is one of thousands in Maryland and about 2 million nationwide whose payments will be phased out in December if the federally funded emergency unemployment compensation program expires Tuesday as planned. She hopes her long job search finally bears some fruit - or that Congress steps in. The prospect of losing benefits left many unemployed residents fearful about the future, as some officials at workforce development centers in the state say they’ve seen rising anxiety among job seekers. The looming cutoff also sparked a protest in Baltimore Monday night…”

• Unemployment claims drop sharply to 407K, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), November 24, 2010, Washington Post: “The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week to the lowest level since July 2008, a hopeful sign that improvement in the job market is accelerating. The Labor Department said Wednesday that weekly unemployment claims dropped by 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 407,000 in the week ending Nov. 20. Wall Street analysts expected a much smaller drop. A Labor Department analyst said the claims figures are volatile during the week between the Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving holidays. A key question is whether claims will remain this low in future weeks, or bounce back. Still, applications for jobless aid are steadily moving lower. Claims have fallen in four of the past six weeks…”
• 41 states see job gains in Oct., most in 5 months, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), November 24, 2010, Washington Post: “Businesses and other employers added jobs in 41 states in October, the best showing in five months, the Labor Department said Tuesday. The figures indicate the job market is picking up a bit in most parts of the country. Even the nation’s hardest hit states - Nevada and Michigan - showed declines in their unemployment rates. But the gains weren’t enough to broadly reduce unemployment rates. The Labor Department said the jobless rate fell last month in 19 states, remained the same in 17 and rose in 14. Unemployment can rise when jobs are created if more people begin searching for work…”
• As holidays near, Congress remains divided over jobless benefits, By David Lightman, November 24, 2010, Miami Herald: “Voters clearly want lawmakers to ease the nation’s unemployment pain, but a sharply divided Congress is still balking at extending jobless benefits for those out of work a long time. Unless Congress acts by Nov. 30, an estimated 2 million people slated to receive extended benefits will not get them on time, if ever. And Congress is taking this week off for a Thanksgiving recess, reconvening on Nov. 29. If lawmakers don’t extend the benefits, it will be the third time this year that they will have missed a deadline to do so, even though the nation’s unemployment rate, at 9.6 percent, hasn’t budged since May. Earlier this year, after Congress failed to extend benefits before deadlines, jobless workers got retroactive benefits once legislation was passed…”
• Many in area set to lose jobless benefits, By Ben Goad, November 23, 2010, Press-Enterprise: “Congress appears unlikely to act in time to prevent unemployment benefits from expiring next week for millions of jobless Americans, as lawmakers are sharply divided over whether a costly extension of the program is in the nation’s best interest. Coming on the cusp of the holiday season, the current Nov. 30 expiration would hit particularly hard in Inland Southern California. At 14.2 percent, the Inland area’s jobless rate is far above the national average of 9.0 percent. As of last count, 167,275 residents of Riverside and San Bernardino counties were collecting unemployment insurance benefits totaling up to $450 a week. They are among more than 4 million people across the country who would begin to fall off the rolls unless the program is extended…”

• Jobless-benefits bill rejected, By Janet Hook and Martin Vaughn, November 19, 2010, Wall Street Journal: “House Republicans Thursday torpedoed a bill to extend benefits for the long-term unemployed, pressing their demand that the $12 billion cost of the program be offset rather than adding to the deficit. In a defeat for Democrats trying to keep the program from expiring Nov. 30, the House rejected a bill to continue the program for three more months. Lawmakers in both parties expect a compromise eventually to be reached-but not until December, after the current program expires. Without an extension, 800,000 unemployed workers will lose their benefits by Nov. 30 and two million by the end of December. The unemployment aid is just one of many issues before the lame duck Congress that are confounding President Barack Obama and congressional leaders. Others include the fate of the Bush-era tax cuts due to expire Dec. 31 and a funding mechanism to keep the government running after a stop-gap appropriations bill expires Dec. 3…”
• Filibuster blocks U.S. aid for jobless, By Ann Belser, November 19, 2010, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “On the same day the state reported that there were still 560,000 unemployed Pennsylvanians in October, congressional Republicans blocked a measure that would have reauthorized the national extension of unemployment benefits. The state’s Department of Labor and Industry announced Thursday afternoon that the unemployment rate last month dropped to 8.8 percent, the same level as January, as Pennsylvania gained nearly 16,000 nonfarm jobs. Reauthorization of unemployment benefits would have allowed states to pay unemployment compensation past the standard 26 weeks up to 99 weeks, as they have been doing since early in the recession…”
• House GOP blocks extension of jobless benefits, By Lisa Mascaro, November 18, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “House Republicans voted Thursday to deny an extension of unemployment benefits for jobless Americans and tried to cut off public funding for National Public Radio, moves that reinforced the GOP’s direction following its midterm election gains. The votes were not necessarily new tactics, as Republicans have generally opposed extending unemployment insurance unless it is paid for with federal spending cuts elsewhere, and have pledged to take weekly votes to cut federal spending. But the two House votes, within hours of each other as lawmakers prepared to recess for a Thanksgiving break, provided an example of the agenda to come when the GOP takes control of the chamber in January…”
• EPI: Extending federal unemployment benefits through 2011 could generate the equivalent of 700,000 jobs, By Jackie Headapohl, November 9, 2010, MLive.com: “Not only do unemployment benefits assist the unemployed, they also boost spending in the economy and generate jobs, according to a brief from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The brief states that extending unemployment insurance benefits through 2011 would generate more than 700,000 full-time-equivalent jobs while saving millions from poverty…”
• CBO: Unemployment benefits prevented record poverty rate in 2009, By Arthur Delaney, November 17, 2010, Huffington Post: “Extended unemployment insurance put in place to fight the recession prevented the poverty rate from rising to 15.4 percent in 2009, a level unseen since the 1960s, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The government announced in September that that the 2009 poverty rate had risen to 14.3 percent from 13.2 percent the previous year…”

• End of jobless benefits is political plight, By Janet Hook and Sara Murray, November 15, 2010, Wall Street Journal: “Jobless benefits for two million unemployed Americans will begin to expire in two weeks, an issue Congress is ill-prepared to tackle during a packed lame-duck session that is shadowed by growing voter antipathy toward government spending. With the aid for the long-term unemployed due to lapse Nov. 30, Democrats are under heavy pressure to extend the program during the lame duck session because its prospects will likely dim after Republicans gain control of the House in January. The program, which provides aid for up to 99 weeks after workers are laid off, has been extended seven times during the current economic downturn. Democrats are hoping its critics will be loath to allow the benefits to lapse during the holiday season, with the unemployment rate still exceeding 9%. But the last time Congress extended the program, the summertime battle was so pitched that extended benefits lapsed for more than a month as Republicans opposed another extension on the grounds that it would add to the deficit-a concern that has only grown more prominent during and after the midterm elections…”
• Congress’ to-do list includes unemployment help, By Audie Cornish, November 15, 2010, National Public Radio: “Lawmakers have a long list of items to take up in their lame-duck session, and one of the things they could tackle is a federal program extending unemployment benefits for millions of laid-off workers. The money runs out at the end of November. If lawmakers don’t extend those unemployment benefits, millions of people will lose their checks over the next few months. The program funds jobless benefits beyond the 26 weeks that states normally provide. In states with the highest unemployment rates, workers are eligible for more than a year and a half of benefits…”
• Jobless benefits set to end yet again, By Catherine Candisky, November 14, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “Nearly 40 percent of Ohioans receiving jobless benefits will exhaust their unemployment by the end of December unless Congress agrees to continue funding extended benefits. According to state officials, 115,679 Ohioans will lose their benefits within a month if the program expires Nov. 30. By the end of April 2011, nearly all of the 291,998 receiving aid will fall off the rolls, said Benjamin Johnson, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Congressional Democrats, who will be in the minority in the House and have a diminished majority in the Senate, are considering a three- or six-month extension when lawmakers return to Washington this week for a brief lame-duck session. While some Democrats say they would like to pass a one-year extension, it’s doubtful there will be the votes to accomplish that…”

• Welfare reforms will lead to ‘extreme hardship’, say campaigners, By Hélène Mulholland, November 11, 2010, The Guardian: “Ian Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, faced a backlash from poverty campaigners today over plans to impose severe welfare penalties on people who are out of work and refuse to take up jobs. Leading anti-poverty charities accused the coalition government of creating a ‘climate of fear’ and exposing families and children to the ‘risk of destitution’ as Duncan Smith outlined tough sanctions as part of a radical shake-up of out-of-work benefits which he said represented a ‘fair deal’ for both the jobless and the taxpayer. Under the changes outlined in a white paper, published today, a work programme will be introduced to help people return to the workforce - with some long-term jobless required to do unpaid community work. But unemployed people who persistently fail to turn up or turned down and refused to apply for jobs will lose their £65-a-week jobseekers’ allowance for up to three years…”
• Facing austerity, Britain unveils welfare cuts, By Sarah Lyall and Alan Cowell, November 11, 2010, New York Times: “A day after violent protests against government proposals to cut education spending and steeply increase tuition for university students, the government unveiled proposals on Thursday for welfare reforms that could penalize Britons deemed to be work-shy and stir further resistance. In one particularly contentious proposal, unemployed people would be stripped of a $100-a-week job-seekers allowance for up to three years if they turn down three job offers - a proposal that drew protests from civic groups. Some economists called the sanctions the harshest ever imposed by a British government…”
• Off the sofa! UK gets tough on welfare, By David Stringer (AP), November 11, 2010, Washington Post: “Britain announced the most radical overhaul in decades Thursday to its once-generous welfare system, pledging harsh penalties for those who refuse jobs and community work service for the unemployed in return for benefit checks. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith unveiled sharp changes to the country’s cradle-to-grave social safety net, which was first introduced after World War II to better protect newborns, families, the jobless and the sick. Critics have long said the British system offered hefty benefits unavailable to other citizens across Europe, the U.S. and other major economies - encouraging some people to snub modest jobs in favor of an easy life on handouts…”

• Housing benefit cuts will ‘push poor out of south’, experts warn, By Randeep Ramesh and Andrew Sparrow, November 8, 2010, The Guardian: “Large swaths of southern England will become off limits to housing benefit recipients in a little more than a decade because of the government’s proposed plans to cut welfare bills - triggering a huge migration of the poor to the north - according to a study by housing experts. The work, by the Chartered Institute of Housing, shows that before 2025 rents on most two-bedroom properties in the south will become unaffordable to those claiming local housing allowance…”
• How Britain’s new welfare state was born in the USA, By Anushka Asthana, Toby Helm, and Paul Harris, November 7, 2010, The Observer: “The gathering was small and discreet and made no headlines at the time - but its significance for the future of our welfare state and for David Cameron’s vision of a ‘big society’ will become clear this week. It was on a warm day in June that Professor Lawrence Mead, who inspired many of the US welfare reforms of the 1990s, strode into 10 Downing Street. The American guru had been invited by Steve Hilton, Cameron’s chief strategist. Also present were senior Whitehall officials from the Treasury and other government departments. They were joined by Neil O’Brien, director of the rightwing thinktank Policy Exchange. Mead was immediately struck by how eager the assembled team was to hear his ideas. ‘I was surprised how interested they were,’ he said. Under detailed questioning, he told his inquisitors that attitudes to welfare in Britain had been characterised by a culture of ‘entitlement’ for too long…”
• Unemployed told: do four weeks of unpaid work or lose your benefits, By Toby Helm and Anushka Asthana, November 7, 2010, The Observer: “The unemployed will be ordered to do periods of compulsory full-time work in the community or be stripped of their benefits under controversial American-style plans to slash the number of people without jobs. The proposals, in a white paper on welfare reform to be unveiled this week, are part of a radical government agenda aimed at cutting the £190bn-a-year welfare bill and breaking what the coalition now calls the ‘habit of worklessness’. The measures will be announced to parliament by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, as part of what he will describe as a new ‘contract’ with the 1.4 million people on jobseekers’ allowance. The government’s side of the bargain will be the promise of a new ‘universal credit’, to replace all existing benefits, that will ensure it always pays to work rather than stay on welfare…”

• Unemployment rate drops in 23 states in September, By Christopher S. Rugaber (AP), October 22, 2010, USA Today: “Nearly half of U.S. states reported drops in their unemployment rates in September from a month earlier, the best showing since June. But job creation was weak in most areas of the country. Unemployment fell in 23 states and Washington, D.C., rose in 11 states and was unchanged in 16 during September, the Labor Department said Friday. The declines were nearly double the number reported by states in the previous month…”
• For some, jobless benefits trump a job, By Allison Linn, October 21, 2010, MSNBC.com: “You know the economy has become truly screwy when it pays more to collect jobless benefits than to get an actual job. The economy is so weak and jobs are so scarce that some people are finding that it isn’t worth it to work. These workers say that’s because the only jobs available are part-time or low-wage gigs that would not only be a big step down from their previous careers but also would not even pay enough to cover their expenses. About 8 million people are now collecting some form of unemployment aid, but how much they take home varies widely depending on what state they live in and how much they made previously. In Massachusetts, for example, the maximum benefit is $943 per week, including an allowance for dependents, while in Mississippi it is just $235 a week. In August, the average weekly benefit was $293.54, according to U.S. Department of Labor. On average, unemployment pays about 47 percent of what people were making before they lost their jobs, according to the department’s latest data from 2009…”

• Call center waits prove frustrating, By Phil Anderson, October 10, 2010, Topeka Capital-Journal: “Please don’t mention the word ‘filibuster’ to Kansas Department of Labor Secretary Jim Garner. He really doesn’t want to hear it. Not after a summer in which a filibuster that started in early June by U.S. Senate Republicans contributed to almost two months of delays in processing extensions to unemployment claims that Garner said resulted in thousands of frustrated Kansans having to wait weeks for benefits or information regarding their eligibility. The previous unemployment extension expired June 2, he said. Many thought passage of a new extension would be a mere formality, but the Senate filibuster action changed that. Garner said the Kansas Department of Labor had to stop taking applications because the federal extended benefit program ‘wasn’t legally in existence…’”
• N.H. long-term jobless take a hit: Feds shift burden to local welfare rolls, By John Nolen, October 11, 2010, Foster’s Daily Democrat: “Some unfortunate Granite Staters who lost their jobs when the recession began to impact New Hampshire in January 2009, have been unable to find work since then. Their woes eased slightly this summer when Congress voted to extend unemployment benefits to 99 weeks for this might have carried them through to November. It was a false dawn, though. Like just a handful of states, New Hampshire’s unemployment rate has averaged below six percent in recent months, and so the latest federal benefit extension lifeline has excluded the long-term unemployed in New Hampshire. The calculations that go into the 99-week unemployment payments are complex, and in the process a few states with lower unemployment rates may be filtered out of some of the federal programs…”

• Georgia Work$ expands, By Christine Vestal, September 20, 2010, Stateline.org: “When Augusta Roosa lost her accounting job at a restaurant on Jekyll Island, Georgia, she figured it would be just a matter of time before she landed another job in her line of work. But after six months of looking, she decided to go for a long shot. ‘I knew the back of the restaurant so I figured ‘why not learn the front?” says 29-year-old Roosa. The trick was getting a local restaurant owner to give her a chance to prove she could learn everything she needed to know on the job. That’s where a nationally recognized program called Georgia Work$ came in. Started in 2003, it allows jobless workers to become trainees for selected businesses at no cost to the employers. Starting today (Sept. 20), Georgia is more than doubling the number of people who can benefit from the program by opening it up to anyone without a job, not just those collecting unemployment checks, as originally designed…”
• Utah incentive helps put people ‘Back to Work’, By Mike Gorrell, September 20, 2010, Salt Lake Tribune: “Javier Mendez married Marquita Luker on Aug. 18, so it was not a good time for him to be out of work. But he was, laid off a couple of months earlier from a gritty job removing asbestos from older buildings. So the 32-year-old Taylorsville man was eager to take advantage of a new Utah Department of Workforce Services program that offers companies an incentive - worth up to $2,000 - to hire people receiving unemployment insurance benefits. ‘That’s like a gimme,’ Mendez said last week while working among a crisscrossing grid of pipes running in and out of a chiller unit at the $20.5 million JL Sorenson Recreation Center being built in Herriman by Layton Construction. His new company, Thermal West, is one of the first to participate in the state agency’s ‘Back to Work’ program, which began in July. The department has received enough federal funding through the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program to find work for up to 2,500 recipients of unemployment insurance benefits and 700 out-of-work youth. How? By offering companies the $2,000 subsidy if they hire someone off the active unemployment rolls and put them to work for three months, at a guaranteed minimum wage of $9 an hour…”

For the unemployed over 50, fears of never working again, By Motoko Rich, September 19, 2010, New York Times: “Patricia Reid is not in her 70s, an age when many Americans continue to work. She is not even in her 60s. She is just 57. But four years after losing her job she cannot, in her darkest moments, escape a nagging thought: she may never work again. College educated, with a degree in business administration, she is experienced, having worked for two decades as an internal auditor and analyst at Boeing before losing that job. But that does not seem to matter, not for her and not for a growing number of people in their 50s and 60s who desperately want or need to work to pay for retirement and who are starting to worry that they may be discarded from the work force - forever. Since the economic collapse, there are not enough jobs being created for the population as a whole, much less for those in the twilight of their careers. Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group - 7.3 percent - is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession…”

Jobless are straining Social Security’s disability benefits program, By Michael A. Fletcher, September 14, 2010, Washington Post: “The number of former workers seeking Social Security disability benefits has spiked with the nation’s economic problems, heightening concern that the jobless are expanding the program beyond its intended purpose of aiding the disabled. Applications to the program soared by 21 percent, to 2.8 million, from 2008 to 2009, as the economy was seriously faltering. The growth is the sharpest in the 54-year history of the program. It threatens the program’s fiscal stability and adds to an administrative backlog that is slowing the flow of benefits to those who need them most. Moreover, about 8 million workers were receiving disability benefits in June, an increase of 12.6 percent since the recession began in 2007, according to Social Security Administration statistics…”

For many unemployed workers, jobs aren’t coming back, By Alana Semuels, September 5, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “The U.S. economy will eventually rebound from the Great Recession. Millions of American workers will not. What some economists now project - and policymakers are loath to admit - is that the U.S. unemployment rate, which stood at 9.6% in August, could remain elevated for years to come. The nation’s job deficit is so deep that even a powerful recovery would leave large numbers of Americans out of work for years, experts say. And with growth now weakening, analysts are doubtful that companies will boost payrolls significantly any time soon. Unemployment, long considered a temporary, transitional condition in the United States, appears to be settling in for a lengthy run…”

California’s safety-net health insurance premiums rise, By Duke Helfand, September 1, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “As state leaders blast giant health insurers for raising rates, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration has quietly allowed hefty increases for thousands of sick or jobless Californians who must rely on expensive safety-net coverage — if they want insurance at all. To the frustration of policyholders, state regulators have given insurance companies permission to raise maximum premiums for most of the 20,000 Californians who depend on the coverage of last resort. Some who buy the insurance will have to pay an extra $7,500 annually, pushing their bills to nearly $25,000. Healthcare advocates say that continued high unemployment in California could drive up the ranks of people in this high-risk pool who have no other options for protecting themselves against catastrophic medical expenses. These vulnerable consumers could face higher-than-anticipated costs until at least 2014, when the nation’s new healthcare law will require private insurers to cover all comers regardless of their health histories…”

• Record number in government anti-poverty program, By Richard Wolf, August 30, 2010, USA Today: “Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand. More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That’s up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007. ‘Virtually every Medicaid director in the country would say that their current enrollment is the highest on record,’ says Vernon Smith of Health Management Associates, which surveys states for Kaiser Family Foundation. The program has grown even before the new health care law adds about 16 million people, beginning in 2014. That has strained doctors. ‘Private physicians are already indicating that they’re at their limit,’ says Dan Hawkins of the National Association of Community Health Centers. More than 40 million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50% during the economic downturn, according to government data through May. The program has grown steadily for three years. Caseloads have risen as more people become eligible. The economic stimulus law signed by President Obama last year also boosted benefits…”
• As unemployed lose benefits, more seek welfare benefits, By James Osborne, August 30, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “One morning in July, Lisa Carstarphen climbed out of her husband’s car and walked into the beige brick building that houses the offices of Camden County’s social services, wondering how at age 46 she ended up there. Two years ago, she was laid off from her $35,000-a-year job at Comcast. Now, with her unemployment benefits exhausted, she was broke. She stepped through the building’s glass doors into a crowded, fluorescent-lit room to wait her turn to sign up for welfare. As a child, she had accompanied her mother to the welfare office and swore she would never end up the same way. But here she was, surrounded by dejected faces, just as in her youth. Memories of nondescript jars of peanut butter and big blocks of government cheese came rushing back, and Carstarphen struggled to keep it together. ‘It was like going back in time. But I had no choice. My refrigerator was bare,’ she said. ‘For someone who has worked their whole life, it’s awful to ask for a handout. When my husband picked me up later, I busted out in tears.’ For the first two years of the recession, welfare caseloads followed the same steady decline of the decade and a half after President Bill Clinton’s transformation of welfare from a social-assistance program into what is essentially a job-training program for low-income families. But over the last six months, caseloads have begun to creep up, the product, experts say, of the continued sluggishness of the job market. Unemployed workers who have run out of unemployment benefits, like Carstarphen, are being pushed into the system…”

Denmark tightens its generous jobless benefits, By Liz Alderman, August 16, 2010, New York Times: “How long is too long to be paid to go without a job? As extended unemployment swells almost everywhere across the advanced industrial world, that question is turning into a lightning rod for governments. For years, Denmark was held out as a model to countries with high unemployment and as a progressive touchstone to liberals in the United States. The Danes, despite their lavish social welfare state, managed to keep joblessness remarkably low. But now Denmark - which allows employers to hire and fire at will while relying on an elaborate system of training, subsidies for those between jobs and aggressive measures to press the unemployed into available openings - is facing its own strains. As a result, it is beginning to tighten up…”

99 weeks later, jobless have only desperation, By Michael Luo, August 2, 2010, New York Times: “Facing eviction from her Tennessee apartment after several months of unpaid rent, Alexandra Jarrin packed up whatever she could fit into her two-door coupe recently and drove out of town. Ms. Jarrin, 49, wound up at a motel here, putting down $260 she had managed to scrape together from friends and from selling her living room set, enough for a weeklong stay. It was essentially all the money she had left after her unemployment benefits expired in March. Now she is facing a previously unimaginable situation for a woman who, not that long ago, had a corporate job near New York City and was enrolled in a graduate business school, whose sticker is still emblazoned on her back windshield. ‘Barring a miracle, I’m going to be in my car,’ she said. Ms. Jarrin is part of a hard-luck group of jobless Americans whose members have taken to calling themselves ‘99ers,’ because they have exhausted the maximum 99 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits that they can claim. For them, the resolution recently of the lengthy Senate impasse over extending jobless benefits was no balm. The measure renewed two federal programs that extended jobless benefits in this recession beyond the traditional 26 weeks to anywhere from 60 to 99 weeks, depending on the state’s unemployment rate. But many jobless have now exceeded those limits. They are adjusting to a new, harsh reality with no income…”

A growing pile of debt for state unemployment insurance programs, By Joey Peters, August 4, 2010, Stateline.org: “When Pennsylvania officials met earlier this year with business and labor leaders to fix the state’s depleted unemployment insurance trust fund, they thought they’d be able to make progress. Since March of 2009, the state has borrowed more than $3 billion from the federal government to continue paying out unemployment benefits. That seemed impossible to sustain. Among the ways to raise money were increasing the wage taxes paid by employers, or simply reducing the level of unemployment benefits to jobless residents. The talks unraveled. Business groups dropped out of the negotiations, possibly because of a proposed wage tax hike. The state’s Department of Labor and Industry is looking into holding new negotiations, this time without that provision, but for now progress on finding a solution is stalled. The result is that after this coming December, when a provision of the federal economic stimulus law expires, Pennsylvania may have to start paying interest on every federal dollar borrowed…”

Extension of benefits for the jobless clears Senate hurdle, By Carl Hulse, July 20, 2010, New York Times: “The Senate broke a stalemate on Tuesday over extending unemployment benefits for Americans who have been out of work for six months or more, voting to override Republican objections that the bill’s costs would add to the federal deficit. On a 60-to-40 vote, the Democratic-led Senate agreed to cut off debate on the $34 billion plan to distribute added unemployment compensation through November for those who have exhausted their standard 26 weeks of aid. The 60 yeas were the minimum needed to overcome the threat of a filibuster and advance the bill to a final vote, expected later on Tuesday, when it is all but certain to pass. Two Republicans, Senators Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, joined 56 Democrats and two independents in voting for the legislation; 39 Republicans and one Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, opposed it…”

• After training, still scrambling for employment, By Peter S. Goodman, July 18, 2010, New York Times: “In what was beginning to feel like a previous life, Israel Valle had earned $18 an hour as an executive assistant to a designer at a prominent fashion label. Now, he was jobless and struggling to find work. He decided to invest in upgrading his skills. It was February 2009, and the city work force center in Downtown Brooklyn was jammed with hundreds of people hungry for paychecks. His caseworker urged him to take advantage of classes financed by the federal government, which had increased money for job training. Upgrade your skills, she counseled. Then she could arrange job interviews. For six weeks, Mr. Valle, 49, absorbed instruction in spreadsheets and word processing. He tinkered with his résumé. But the interviews his caseworker eventually arranged were for low-wage jobs, and they were mobbed by desperate applicants. More than a year later, Mr. Valle remains among the record 6.8 million Americans who have been officially jobless for six months or longer. He recently applied for welfare benefits…”
• Frustration and despair as job search drags on, By Michael Luo, July 17, 2010, New York Times: “In her well-thumbed, leather-bound Bible, Terri Sadler recently highlighted in bright pink a passage in the Gospel of Matthew. In it, Jesus urges his followers not to ‘worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.’ But Ms. Sadler’s tightening throat and halting breath when she tries to read the words aloud make it clear that she is having trouble mustering enough faith to follow them. Ms. Sadler, who lost her job at an automotive parts plant in October 2008, learned last month that her unemployment insurance had been cut off. She is one of an estimated 2.1 million Americans whose benefits have expired and who are waiting for an end to an impasse that has lasted months in the Senate over extending the payments once more to the long-term unemployed. Times have changed politically, however, and opposition is growing in Washington and abroad to deficit-bloating government spending, even for those who are hurting…”
• Obama assails G.O.P. for blocking benefits bill, By Helene Cooper, July 19, 2010, New York Times: “President Obama called on Congress on Monday to pass an extension of unemployment benefits, and leveled a sharp critique against Republican senators who have stopped passage of a bill that would give some relief to out-of-work Americans. Under pressure in an election year to reduce the unemployment rate, now at 9.5 percent, Mr. Obama also urged the Senate to approve a package of tax cuts and an expansion of lending to small businesses. ‘We all have to continue our efforts to do everything in our power to spur growth and hiring,’ Mr. Obama said at the White House. Senate Democrats are expected to bring the unemployment insurance bill back up on Tuesday, after they swear in another Democrat, Carte Goodwin of West Virginia, to be the interim successor to Robert C. Byrd, who died last month. Mr. Goodwin will provide Democrats with the 60th vote they need to close debate and pass the measure…”
• When being out of work becomes a chronic condition, By Floyd Norris, July 16, 2010, New York Times: “In the United States, unemployment has typically been a relatively brief affair. The vast majority of people who lost jobs soon found new work. That is not the way it has been in many other developed countries. In Europe and Japan, long-term unemployment is far more common. At any given time, most of the unemployed people in many European countries have been out of work for more than six months. Now the United States appears to be becoming similar to Europe. Even as the overall unemployment rate has begun to drop - falling to 9.5 percent in June from a peak of 10.1 percent last October - the proportion of the work force that has been out of work for more than six months has risen to 4.4 percent, as can be seen in the accompanying charts…”

Strain on aid agencies rises with jobless extensions stopped, By Sean F. Driscoll, July 14, 2010, Rockford Register Star: “All Kim Adams-Bakke has to do to judge the effect of lapsed unemployment benefits is listen to the chatter in the Rock River Valley Food Pantry’s waiting room. ‘I hear a lot of people talking about them and what will happen if the extension doesn’t go through,’ said the pantry’s executive director. ‘We know this is affecting us.’ It’s been 44 days since funding for 73 weeks of unemployment extensions lapsed, with efforts since to revive them ending in congressional stalemates. The benefits are in addition to the 26 weeks’ coverage offered by the states. More than 100,000 Illinoisans have prematurely exhausted their benefits before being able to take advantage of the four tiers of extensions available. Although a Senate vote on the funding is expected next week, it’s far from a sure thing that Democrats will garner the 60 votes they need to overcome a filibuster and pass the measure. The uncertainty has social service agencies like the food pantry preparing for the worst in the midst of an already challenging year…”

• No unemployment extension: Benefits not in sight for the long-term jobless, By Michael A. Fletcher, July 13, 2010, Washington Post: “Even before his unemployment checks ended, Dwight Michael Frazee’s days were filled with the pursuit of any idea that could earn him a buck. But few are working out, and now his nights are filled with dread. In the coming weeks, the Senate is expected to resume its debate about whether to extend the emergency jobless benefits that were passed in response to the steep increase in unemployment caused by the recession. But people like Frazee, who have suffered the longest in the downturn, will not be part of that conversation. They are among the 1.4 million workers who have been unemployed for at least 99 weeks, according to the Labor Department, reaching the limit for the insurance. Their numbers have grown sixfold in the past three years. The 99ers are glaring examples of the nation’s most serious bout of long-term joblessness since the Great Depression. Nearly 46 percent of the country’s 14.6 million unemployed people have been out of work for more than six months, and forecasters project that the situation will not improve anytime soon. Currently, the Labor Department says there are nearly five unemployed people for every job opening…”
• When the benefits run out - and still no job, By Hibah Yousuf, July 13, 2010, CNNMoney.com: “Two years on the unemployment line is devastating. You deplete your savings. You borrow from your family. You feel that your life is slipping out of your control. And then you spend your last unemployment check. As the ranks of the long-term unemployed grow, the politicians in Washington are fighting over whether to extend deadlines so more people can get the maximum of 99 weeks of benefits. But 99 weeks is the cap. For Americans surviving on jobless benefits, that’s the end of the road. And there’s no movement in Washington to come to their aid. In fact, by the end of the year, more than 1 million people will have exhausted their 99 weeks and still be without work, according to Andrew Stettner, deputy director at the National Employment Law Project…”

Analysis: How 2 million lost jobless benefits, By Andrew Taylor (AP), July 12, 2010, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Keeping unemployment benefits flowing for millions of workers whose jobs were eaten by the recession should have been a slam dunk in an election year. But until this month, Senate Democrats have been unable to bring themselves to pass a simple bill that just does it. Instead they’ve demanded a series of unrelated and often controversial tax and spending add-ons that have enabled Republicans to mount successful filibusters. Now that the legislation has been shorn of all the extras, the bill could win final passage soon. It can’t come soon enough for more than 2 million people whose checks have been cut off in a five-month impasse in which there’s plenty of blame to go around…”

• No work, and now no safety net, By Diane Stafford, June 30, 2010, Kansas City Star: “In just one week and in just one state - last week in Missouri - more than 8,300 people fell through the unemployment insurance safety net. Actually, their nets were removed. The result: Those who have lost jobless benefits already are turning in greater numbers to food pantries and other emergency aid programs, both government and nonprofit. ‘We’re hearing from more people needing assistance,’ said Ron Howard, spokesman for the United Way of Greater Kansas City. ‘Our 2-1-1 call center is seeing an increase in calls, especially from first-time callers. Without a doubt, the loss of that unemployment check is a contributing factor.’ Loss of jobs and jobless benefits also is contributing to a rise in applications for Social Security disability payments from unsuccessful job hunters. That search for subsistence funds revved up last month after the U.S. Senate rejected a bill that would have included more than $35 billion to fund another extension of emergency unemployment assistance…”
• Jobless benefits running out for 147,000 Floridians this week, By Jim Stratton, July 7, 2010, Orlando Sentinel: “More than 147,000 Floridians will run out of unemployment benefits this week because the U.S. Senate, before leaving on a weeklong summer vacation, was unable to reach an agreement on how to keep payments flowing. By the end of next week, the number will rise to 175,000 unless lawmakers reauthorize the federal legislation that has provided emergency payments to the long-term unemployed. The standoff pits deficit hawks - Republicans primarily - against Democrats in a battle of politics and economic policy. The GOP says the country simply can’t afford to reauthorize the benefits package - it would cost about $34 billion - unless money is found from somewhere else in the federal budget. But Democrats and other supporters of the measure say it’s important to keep checks moving, even if that means borrowing the money and adding to the deficit…”

• Unemployment rate falls, but momentum weak in job market, By Neil Irwin, July 2, 2010, Washington Post: “The nation’s unemployment rate fell in June, though hiring by the private sector remained soft, according to a government report Friday. The figures suggest the economic recovery is moving forward this summer, but with weak momentum in the job market. The jobless rate was 9.5 percent last month, down from 9.7 percent in May, a surprising decrease that came as hundreds of thousands of workers dropped out of the labor force. Private employers added 83,000 jobs in June, more than double the rate in May but still below the six-figure job creation numbers that would suggest a strong recovery in employment. Overall, employers shed 125,000 jobs in June; however, that figure was distorted by the Census Bureau cutting 225,000 temporary jobs. The total of 100,000 jobs added, excluding the census, is lower than the 130,000 or so jobs needed every month just to keep up with growth in the labor force, which could put upward pressure on the jobless rate in the months ahead…”
• Unemployment rate dips as more workers leave labor force, By Don Lee, July 2, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Private employers added a smaller-than-expected 83,000 jobs in June, but the unemployment rate edged down to 9.5% as many workers dropped out of a labor market that remains very sluggish. The Labor Department reported Friday that total payroll employment, including government workers, was down 125,000 in June, reflecting the loss of 225,000 census workers who finished their assignments. The decrease in Census Bureau staffing was expected, but most analysts were looking for stronger job growth in the private sector, which has yet to generate momentum and looms as a major threat to the overall economic recovery. In May, private employers added just 33,000 jobs. What’s more, the average hours worked in manufacturing and other industries in June declined, as did average hourly earnings. Job gains last month were largely in low-paying industries — leisure and hospitality, and the temporary-help industry. Manufacturing payrolls grew by 9,000, but that was much smaller than the average of 25,400 in the prior five months. And the construction industry shed another 22,000 jobs in June…”

1.3 million unemployed won’t get benefits restored soon, By Stephen Ohlemacher (AP), July 1, 2010, Detroit News: “More than 1.3 million laid-off workers won’t get their unemployment benefits reinstated before Congress goes on a weeklong vacation for Independence Day. An additional 200,000 people who have been without a job for at least six months stand to lose their benefits each week, unless Congress acts. For the third time in as many weeks, Republicans in the Senate successfully filibustered a bill Wednesday night that would have continued unemployment checks to people who have been laid off for long stretches. The House is slated to vote on a similar measure Thursday, though the Senate’s action renders the vote a futile gesture as Congress prepares to depart Washington for its holiday recess. A little more than 1.3 million people have already lost benefits since the last extension ran out at the end of May…”

• States fear strain as feds curb spending, By Ronald J. Hansen, June 21, 2010, Arizona Republic: “With Congress increasingly reluctant to add to the nation’s debt, financial help is hard to find for state governments and individual casualties of the recession. Last week, the Senate rejected a bill that would have extended stimulus provisions to help the unemployed. Several attempts to extend higher Medicaid assistance have failed, too, leaving dozens of states, including Arizona, with looming budget holes that collectively total about $24 billion. Many still expect that the Medicaid money will materialize, if only because many states have expected the help for months and built it into budgets that begin in July. In Arizona, the federal money would mean an extra $394 million to help defray the medical costs of about 310,000 poor adults. Extending help for the unemployed would cost $40 billion nationwide. Without a share of that money in Arizona, weekly unemployment checks that are already among the smallest in the nation are $25 lower, and fewer people qualify for help at all. The push for austerity comes as Congress tries to balance the needs of the social safety net against the costs of soaring debt…”
• States struggle to balance budgets after Congress refuses to offer more stimulus money, By Beth Fouhy (AP), June 28, 2010, Grand Forks Herald: “For at least 30 cash-strapped states counting on federal stimulus money, the news was a stunning blow: A deficit-weary Congress had rejected billions in additional aid, forcing lawmakers into a mad scramble to balance their budgets. Now, with a new fiscal year just days away in most states, many governors are proposing to make up for the shortfall with tax increases, cuts in essential services and potential layoffs of thousands of public employees. ‘I support restraining federal spending, but cutting the only funding designed to help states maintain the very safety-net programs Congress mandates us to preserve will have devastating consequences,’ California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a letter to his state’s congressional delegation. California faces a whopping $19 billion deficit _ more than 20 percent of the state’s total budget _ despite deep cuts that have already been made to many programs. Its new fiscal year begins July 1, and a budget deal there is nowhere in sight…”