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Senate Approves Unemployment Extension
If you care about this issue, you’ve probably heard that the US Senate voted 60-40 to keep emergency unemployment benefits going. Long story short: Good for jobless peeps, bad for the deficit.
Millions of people stopped getting checks in June when the program expired in June. According to the Washington Post: 8.7 million people were receiving jobless benefits at the end of June. A little more than half received state benefits, which are typically available for 26 weeks. The rest were receiving extended benefits financed by the federal government, which are due to run out soon unless the bill before the Senate passes. The Labor Department estimates that 2.5 million people had been cut off by the end of last week.
The House is expected to okay the bill this week–possibly today–and forward it on to the prez for his signature.
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4 comments for “Senate Approves Unemployment Extension”
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First, I’m glad Recessionwire is back because I missed your posts. I am extremely happy for the folks who will be receiving checks. Unfortunately, my son-in-law ended up taking a minimum wage Burger King job when his benefits ran out and won’t be eligible. He earned $18 an hour as a machinist when his job was eliminated at a small shop in Bloomington.
Hello out there! Politics:
The best way for us to empower ourselves is to go to the polls in November! The Republican and Tea Party people are NOT going to do anything to help the unemployed or underemployed. The best chance we have for getting help or finding our way out of this recession is to vote for the Democratic representatives that actually care about us “little people”, and that are trying (albeit not hard enough right now) to do something to help us! Please don’t vote against them out of anger, vote for them out of hope of change. In my state (WI) Senator Feingold is losing to a Republican millionare who is trying to buy the seat, and we’re letting him! He doesn’t even know how much the minimum wage is, but vows to try to end it! We need people in power that will represent our intrerests and Republican/Tea Party is NOT it! Our numbers are so huge, that the “unemployed” as a group are a HUGE voting block! Let’s make some noise & get some attention!
[...] Senate Approves Unemployment Extension [...]