2010 Unemployment Extensions - is Congress Deadlocked Over Extending UI Benefits to a Tier 5?

2010 Unemployment Extensions - Many in and out of government have begun to opine that the unprecedented ninety-nine weeks of unemployment benefits should surely be enough. It seems many, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal) and Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont) among them, believe that enough is enough, never mind that over a trillion and a half dollars in supposed "stimulus" and other ostensibly economy-resurrecting spending has produced little more than handfuls of pocketed and mostly temporary government jobs.

But here's the thing: Only a small percentage of the jobless have seen anywhere near ninety-nine weeks of unemployment benefits.

Consequently, the debate now raging in Congress is not over the issue of extending unemployment benefits to a Tier 5 - that is, beyond the ninety-nine weeks previously approved. What the Senate has been stalemated on is merely extending the filing deadline for the jobless to move on to the next already existing tier in UI help, regardless of which tier they are currently receiving.

To explain further: A worker who was laid off many months or even a year or more ago, may be about to run through a tier of their extended unemployment benefits. But if the date that they ran out was even just a day or two past the filing deadline to apply for the next tier, they are ineligible for more unemployment benefits. This means that one UI benefits recipient may receive benefits from Tiers 1-4, while his neighbor may be cut off after only receiving benefits for the first tier. It all depends on the date a worker was laid off or that he first applied for UI benefits and the date that Congress set for benefits extensions applications.

This even applies to those who most recently lost their jobs. Hundreds of thousands of workers who were most recently laid off will only receive an average of 22-26 weeks of state funded unemployment benefits - those benefits actually funded by the state "insurance" premium that your last employer(s) paid for you while you were working. As it stands today, these jobless will never even make it to the first tier of federally funded extended unemployment benefits.

Clearly, this system is both inequitable and unjust from the vantage point of the unemployed. It simply makes no sense that one person should receive UI support for as many as ninety-nine weeks of their job search, while another gets this lifeline for only 26 weeks, when, indeed, the job market has not gotten any better at all.

So the issue currently before Congress is not about extending unemployment benefits past the ninety-nine weeks or adding a Tier 5, but rather the legislation centers on the issue of extending the filing dates for the jobless to be able to move onto the next of the tiers of unemployment benefits already in place.

Still, even extending the filing dates adds many weeks of unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans and this costs billions of dollars to do. Therein lies the rub for the Senate, as the federal deficit has so exploded in the last year and a half that it threatens the economy and job creation as much or more than the recession did itself.

Because of this, the Republicans in the Senate have offered several bills extending unemployment benefits through November 30, as well as a number of temporary UI extensions to help jobless Americans while the Senate haggled over specifics in the larger "Extenders" bill. All of these bills included specifics as to how the cost of the unemployment benefits extensions would be completely paid for so they would not add billions more to the deficit and continue to damage the economy. Among the Republicans' suggestions were using unallocated "stimulus" funds and reasonable cuts in government spending. (Read: "Sen. Tom Coburn's Suggestions for Offsets" and "The Thune Amendment") Unfortunately, the Democrats have rejected every bill the Republicans have floated. (Read: "Democrats Reject Another Republican Attempt to Provide UI Benefits")

The Democrats have, instead, managed to find a way to pay for all other costs of their "Tax Extenders" bill, agreeing to apply some of the unused stimulus money to that, but refusing to pay for any of the unemployment benefits extensions and then demonizing the Republicans as heartless for refusing to vote for their job-killing and deficit increasing bills.

Nevertheless, regardless of the politics or reasoning at this point, as Congress has gone on recess without passing an unemployment extension bill to extend the filing dates, those jobless Americans who were nearing ninety-nine weeks in UI benefits have been cut off and those that are still in earlier tiers are running out of benefits with no ability to go on to the next. The fact is, as it stands, only those who have already received all ninety-nine weeks of UI benefits are going to receive that much in benefits.

Indeed, unless and until the Senate gets back from their holiday and passes some kind of an unemployment benefits extension bill, millions of Americans will be joining many of their grand parents or great grand parents in experiencing the degree of homelessness, hunger and despair of the "Great Depression".

And then, since the 2009 "stimulus" has completely failed to stimulate the private sector at all - in fact, this government's policies over the past year and a half have created so much uncertainty for would be employers, it has only ensured the continued loss of jobs and a reticence to hire - the issue of Tier 5 unemployment benefits extensions MUST be entertained and the shipwrecking course this nation has been put on MUST be reversed.