Although Congress just enacted an extension of jobless benefits — up to 20 weeks in high-unemployment states — a Dec. 31 filing deadline will effectively prevent many folks from getting all the money they’re eligible to receive.

Underlying the problem is the bewildering framework of the benefits themselves. Under current law, states offer 26 weeks of jobless insurance before a four-tier system of emergency federal benefits kick in. Beneficiaries must exhaust the benefits they’re receiving before they can file for the next level.

NELP estimates that nearly 475,000 people will exhaust their state-funded benefits after Dec. 31 — and therefore miss the filing deadline for the multiple tiers of emergency federal help — while more than 580,000 folks will exhaust one tier of federal help after the deadline, preventing them from jumping to the next tier.

If Congress doesn’t step in, the deadline “will create total chaos for the state agencies and workers facing an uncertain future,” Christine Owens, NELP’s executive director, said in a statement.

The good news for Owens and the unemployed is that congressional leaders are well aware of the problem. Indeed, the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has signaled that Democratic leaders will address the deadline glitch before Congress adjourns for the year.

I think clearly we need to move on unemployment insurance and COBRA. Beyond that, you mentioned a couple: public jobs, job tax credits, infrastructure. There are a lot of options available; we are discussing those. We are discussing with economic advisors as to what is the most effective. And, frankly, there are differences of opinion on that.

Asked about the size of the jobs package, Hoyer offered no hints. “I don’t have a figure,” he said tersely.

Obviously, there may be different figures for different things that you do. But it is clear that we need to act in a way that does get to the creation of job opportunities for people in the short term. That is what we are trying for.

Of course, that’s also what Democrats were trying for when they passed their $787 billion stimulus bill in February, when unemployment was 8.1 percent. How many more business tax breaks does Congress have to pass before recognizing that well-targeted infrastructure spending — including money for public transit – just might offer more bang-for-the-buck?

It gets better.

Over the weekend, The New York Times’ Gretchen Morgenson dug deeper to discover that some of the businesses poised to benefit most from the tax rebates are home builders who are not only flush with cash, but also represent “some of the very companies that contributed mightily to the credit crisis by building and financing too many homes.”

[D]ropping helicopter money on the home builders — the folks who massively overbuilt in community after community — seems decidedly less urgent (unless you are one of these companies, of course). Given that the supply of housing far outstrips demand, it is unlikely that these companies will use these tax breaks to hire workers (unless they go into a completely new line of business).

“I AM surprised that home builders are getting hundreds of millions of dollars given that many have very strong balance sheets,” said Ivy Zelman, chief executive at Zelman & Associates, a research firm. “We question the public policy decision to gift home builders with capital that many will not use to create jobs, since they admit that job growth will be dependent not on capital, but on improving demand.”

Among the beneficiaries of the taxpayers’ largesse, Morgenson points out, will be Pulte Homes, “which will receive refunds exceeding $450 million under the new law, [and] has $1.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet, according to its most recent financial statement.”

Standard Pacific, another recipient, “is poised to reap cash refunds of $80 million under the new tax break,” Morgenson writes. “According to its most recent financial filing, Standard Pacific held $523 million in cash and cash equivalents.”

Ken Campbell, the chief executive of Standard Pacific, said the money would allow his company to continue buying land. “Will we build more houses or will there be more people employed in the first quarter? Probably not,” he said. “Will employment accelerate when the market starts to grow? It will.”

Translation: The builders will sit on their new land acquisitions in hopes that the housing bubble at the root of the economic turmoil re-inflates. Meanwhile, they won’t be hiring.

So why shower these businesses with millions of dollars in the name of creating jobs if the money won’t really create jobs? Morgenson has a pretty sound theory.

Securing this tax break was a top priority for home builders, lobbying records show. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that through Oct. 26 of this year, home builders paid $6 million to their lobbyists. Last year, the industry spent $8.2 million lobbying.

Some Democrats readily conceded that they could have passed the unemployment benefits, which totaled $2.4 billion, without the business-friendly sweetener, but nonetheless agreed to the tax rebates “as a means of greasing the skids,” as Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said at the time.

There’s some evidence that Democratic leaders aren’t exactly proud of their accomplishment. Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) hailed the bill as a necessary stimulus, his statement released after the bill’s passage avoided any mention of the business tax rebates.

The $787 billion economic stimulus bill addressed the issue, providing additional federal funding for the state-federal Medicaid program. But that extra help expires at the end of next year, when unemployment rates are expected to remain near double digits. The looming expiration has left state health officials and children’s welfare advocates anxious about the effects on kids’ health care.

Enter the House health reform bill, which would provide more than $23 billion to continue the additional federal funding for six months. The Washington Post explains:

Under the Affordable Health Care for America Act, the federal government would continue to pay a higher share of all Medicaid costs — 66 percent on average, up from 57 percent before the stimulus — for an additional six months, and erase in one fell swoop a major chunk of states’ projected shortfalls for the coming year.

“It would be a huge help — critical,” said Cindi Jones, chief deputy director of Virginia’s Medicaid program, which quickly estimated last week that it would receive an extra $360 million to $380 million next year under the bill. At a meeting last week of the nation’s Medicaid directors, Jones said the group is unanimously in favor of the provision.

That provision isn’t included in the Senate’s health reform bill, but states are hoping that it will work its way into the final bill. Of course, the temporary help is no remedy to the flawed Medicaid funding formula. It’s worth asking when Democratic leaders plan to tackle that larger problem, if not in the context of the most sweeping health reforms since the program was created.

But it wasn’t clear how party leaders were planning to do it. The answer might have arrived today.

Reid this week told Senate Democrats that he plans to put together yet another jobs bill this year designed to curb those rising unemployment rates, according to The Hill. Citing Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the paper reports that Reid offered no specifics about the legislation, except that passage will be a priority before Congress adjourns for the year.

When that bill emerges, you can bet that an extension of unemployment benefits will be somewhere in the package.

“It is true that we will need to extend the program before the end of the year in order for unemployed workers in high unemployment states to get access to the full 20 weeks of benefits,” a Reid aide wrote in an email.

The Democrats’ bill offers 14 weeks of additional unemployment benefits nationwide, with an extra six weeks for those living in states with high unemployment. But an end-of-the-year filing deadline would prevent anyone from getting those additional six weeks unless Congress steps in to extend the deadline.

The deadline issue wasn’t addressed in the recent legislation, the aide added, because lawmakers were focused simply on adding the extra weeks — a much different (and much cheaper) proposition than extending the entire program. They didn’t anticipate that the process would drag on as long as it did, the aide said.

Some Democrats are already urging a broad extension of the underlying unemployment extension. Reid’s office said Tuesday that the majority leader will likely get behind that push.

“I would expect that Senator Reid would move to extend the program before the end of the year,” the aide said.

Between 1990 and 2006, Mexican immigrants legalized under IRCA dramatically increased their education levels, reduced poverty rates and became more likely to buy their own homes. Real wages rose, many of them moved into managerial positions and the vast majority did not depend upon public assistance, the report finds.

Economic Progess via Legalization is one of three reports issued by the Immigration Policy Center today aimed at encouraging policymakers to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation. The other two look at the social and economic benefits of legalization, and at who should be allowed to benefit from an “earned legalization” program.

Similar legislation passed the House more than six weeks ago, but the bill has been held up in the Senate as party leaders did battle over a series of controversial GOP amendments. The final bill included only two amendments: a provision extending a popular tax credit for homebuyers, and another allowing businesses to recoup taxes they paid in recent years.

The bill now moves to the House, which will vote on it Thursday. Afterward, the proposal will travel to the White House for the president’s signature, which will make it law.

The benefits are not retroactive, so those whose checks stopped coming before the bill’s enactment shouldn’t hold their breath for back-pay. It’s not coming. But those folks will be eligible for at least 14 weeks of benefits moving forward. In states where unemployment rates are higher than 8.5 percent, the new benefits will run for 20 weeks.

For anyone wishing to relive the entire tedious saga, a brief(ish) chronology goes like this:

1) Sept. 22: The House passes its version of the unemployment bill, which would extend benefits for 13 weeks, but only in those states where jobless rates top 8.5 percent.

2) Oct. 8: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) asks for unanimous consent to pass the Senate’s amended version of the House bill. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) objects, citing the absence of a cost estimate.

3) Oct. 13: Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) asks for consent to pass the bill. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) objects.

4) Oct. 21: Reid files cloture on a vote to proceed to the bill.

5) Oct. 26: Reid asks for GOP consent to pass the bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) objects.

6) Oct. 27: The Senate votes to proceed to the bill by a tally of 87 to 13.

7) Oct. 29: Reid asks for consent to pass the bill. McConnell objects.

Oct. 29: Reid files two sequential cloture motions — one on the Senate substitute bill and one on the underlying House bill.

9) Nov. 2: The Senate hops the first cloture hurdle by a count of 85 to 2. The 30-hour clock before the next cloture vote begins ticking.

10) Nov. 4: The Senate hops the second cloture hurdle by a count of 97 to 1. By a previous agreement, the 30-hour clock before the final vote had begun ticking about 12 hours before.

11) Nov. 4: A deal is struck between Reid and McConnell to disregard the remainder of the 30-hour post-cloture clock, leading to the staging of the final vote.

We’ve got a call in to DeMint’s office to ask for the reason behind the senator’s resistance to the bill. There are roughly 250,000 out-of-work South Carolinians who are likely very interested to hear the response.

The count was  97  to one, with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) the only lawmaker to oppose the measure.

The lopsided vote clears the way for final passage of the bill, which, without the consent of Republicans, could take place Thursday morning, at the earliest. There are murmurs on Capitol Hill, however, that an agreement on final passage might happen today.

The bill extends unemployment benefits by at least 14 weeks in all states, with an addition six weeks provided in the 27 states where unemployment rates have topped 8.5 percent. The benefits would not be retroactive, meaning that those whose benefits expired (or will expire) before the president signs the bill won’t be eligible for back-pay to fill the gap.

The bill has been held up for nearly a month as party leaders battled over a series of controversial amendments that Republican leaders insisted get votes, including a provision rebuking ACORN and another to end the Wall Street bailout. In the end, Democratic leaders refused those demands, settling instead on just two add-ons: a tax credit for homebuyers and tax relief for businesses, large and small.

The House passed a similar, though less generous, benefits extension in September. House leaders have said they’ll take up the Senate bill as soon as it’s sent over from the upper chamber.

The question now is whether Republican leaders will agree to final passage before the 30-hour post-cloture debate clock expires, or if they’ll drag this thing into Thursday. Under an earlier agreement, that 30-hour clock began ticking just before midnight last night.