Unemployment Benefits Extended! Now What?

I suppose everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the Senate passed the long-delayed extension of unemployment benefits on Wednesday.

Getting the extension through was a major victory for a vast number of advocates across the country, including many of you. The bill has gone back to the House, which will swiftly pass it (again) and then on to the President, who will swiftly sign it.

So let's take a moment to celebrate. But not to rest on our laurels. Because the Senate's vote just kicks the core policy issues down the road apiece.

One issue, of course, is the very limited lifeline the UI benefits extension provides. The other is what, if anything, Congress will do to prevent more people from losing their jobs — perhaps even jump start some job creation.

These two issues are inter-related, but we can look at them separately.

The bill the Senate passed will mean that workers who've been jobless for more weeks than their state's regular UI benefits program covers can get anywhere from 34 to 73 additional weeks of benefits, if they exhaust their state-funded benefits before the end of November.

As a joint brief by the Center for American Progress and the National Employment Law Project explains, the number of weeks depends on the unemployment rate in the state and what the state has chosen to do about triggering the last stage of the extended benefits. Complicated, but important in assessing the relief Congress has just provided.

To see how the extension will affect jobless workers in your state, look at the maps in this new brief from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

No matter where workers live, they won't get the extra $25 per week that's been in UI benefits checks since Congress passed the economic recovery act. One of many compromises that has weakened what began last December as a fairly strong jobs bill.

Even jobless workers in states with the highest unemployment rates will be on their own after 99 weeks, if not sooner. Then what?

As blogger Megan Cottrell wrote awhile ago, a growing number of workers have been jobless longer than even the extended benefits will cover. As of mid-July, there were reportedly 1.4 million of these "99ers." There's no current estimate of how many there will be as the months go by.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that there won't be any attempt to help them until the end of November. Over on the Senate side, the influential Chairmen of the Finance and Budget Committees have pretty well dismissed the notion of a Tier V for benefits beyond the reinstated 99-week maximum.

This, of course, may not be the final word on the issue. What's clear is that there will, once again, be efforts to extend the two related funding measures that support unemployment benefits up to 99 weeks.

It's also very clear that it will be at least as difficult to pass another round of extensions as it was to get the latest round through. This, I think, will be true even if the Democrats hold on to their majority in the House and suffer no more than minimal losses in the Senate.

One reason, though not the most important, is that unemployment benefits don't solve the jobs crisis. Frankly, it's hard to imagine any action the federal government could take that would.

As the Economic Policy Institute reports, the labor market has lost 7.5 million jobs since the recession began. It should have added about 3.1 million to keep up with population growth. So to get back to pre-recession unemployment levels in the next four years, it would need to add 325,000 jobs every month.

No way that more stimulus spending could create that many jobs, even if it were politically feasible. And it isn't, especially now that the Obama administration and leading Democrats in Congress, as well as Republicans have shifted their policy focus to the deficit.

However, there are some things that Congress could do to stave off more job losses.

For example, the bill the Senate just passed originally included extensions of the higher federal match on state Medicaid costs (FMAP) and the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund. Both these measures could save jobs that will otherwise be cut to keep state budgets in balance.

Seems as if they're now in limbo.

Also in limbo is a proposal that would provide $10 million to local school districts to avert about half of their projected layoffs. It's one of a number of "social spending" measures that the House Appropriations Committee added to a bill whose main purpose is to increase funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the school aid is gone now to avert another standoff with the Senate. Key Democrats in the House are reportedly looking for another way to pass it.

In short, the temporary extension of longer-term unemployment benefits is a great thing. But it leaves a lot of unfinished business — for the Obama administration, Congress and those of us who know by now that we've got to keep (or should I say get?) the jobs crisis in the center of their radar screens.

Photo credit: Seven_Null 7