The Battle Over Unemployment, Dissected

Democrats had the chance to approve a fully paid-for unemployment bill but decided to take a Congressional recess instead, leaving jobless Americans in a lurch. Republicans refused to put people before politics, choosing to delay the passage of a perfectly good piece of legislation for political gain.

If you've been trying to follow the unemployment debate over the past few weeks, you've surely heard these two seemingly incompatible arguments. What's the real story, and how will it affect every-day Americans who are out of work and out of luck?

First of all, let's get a clear idea of how unemployment insurance works. If you lose your job and file for unemployment — assuming you meet your state's eligibility requirements — you'll start at the bottom of a five-level process. The first level allows for 26 weeks of state benefits; Tiers I, II, III, and IV provide federal benefits for twenty, fourteen, thirteen and six weeks, respectively. You can only be in one tier at any given time; there's no overlap of tier benefits allowed.

Say you're currently beginning week 14 of Tier II. Normally, you'd finish up that final week and proceed to file your paperwork for Tier III, getting another 13 weeks of benefits in the process. But therein lies the problem, says the Washington Independent. "Beneficiaries must exhaust the benefits they're receiving before they can file for the next level." The filing deadline of April 5, however, just passed, meaning that "those exhausting their Tier I, II or III benefits from now forward won't be eligible for the next level without congressional action." Unfortunately, Congress is currently on recess, meaning that 212,000 jobless Americans are going without unemployment benefits until the Senate reconvenes next week and makes sense of its self-created logistical mess.

Sound confusing? It is.

So who's to blame? Well, in a broad sense, Congress as a whole. Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Tom Coburn, rejected a House-approved bill that would use "emergency" funding to pay for a one-month extension of the unemployment filing period, which would effectively add the cost of the program — a hefty $10 billion — to the federal deficit. Democrats, in turn, weren't willing to acquiesce to Coburn's demand that the legislation be paid for with unused stimulus funds. With a shortening window of time to come to an agreement, Senate Dems and GOP leaders decided on a one-week extension of benefits, set to expire the day that Congress would come back into session. The House, however, responded with a resounding "no." Left without a workable solution to its endless political squabbling, the Senate adjourned, leaving several hundreds of thousands of unemployed citizens without the extra income they depend upon to survive.

The one thing Democrats did manage to do before initiating the Congressional recess was start the "cloture" process, which will basically allow them to override Senator Coburn's objection to the unemployment extension bill as soon as their next session begins. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised to "tweak" the legislation at that time to make it retroactive to April 5.

To the unemployed: until Congress reconvenes, you can and should speak out against the "politics as usual" that's keeping your much-needed benefits at an arm's distance. Start by joining in the fight for a Tier V. Then submit a photo and a paragraph about your unemployment struggle to AllYourTV.com's "I Am Not A Number" campaign, and tell Congress that you refuse to be a casualty in their political war.

Photo credit: SenateDemocrats