This morning, the Labor Department announced that initial weekly jobless claims fell to 454,000. The number of people continuing to receive benefits fell to the lowest level in seven months, in large part due to Congress’ inability to renew federally extended benefits. The broader trend remains: Initial claims More…
I wanted to pull out part of my article from this morning, as it makes a somewhat confusing but nevertheless important point. Most policy experts and economists think that unemployment insurance discourages people from looking for work or accepting jobs offered to them, keeping them unemployed for longer — More…
In his weekly radio address, given on Saturday morning, President Obama accused congressional Republicans of holding the federal extension of unemployment benefits “hostage.”
On Friday, we learned that after 22 straight months of job loss, our economy has now created jobs in the private sector for 6 months in
After failing to pass an extension of unemployment benefits earlier this week, the House tried again — and succeeded, 270 to 153. The Senate will take up its version of the bill when Congress returns from a week-long break, on July 12.
House Ways and Means Committee Chair Sandy More…
Tonight, a bill to extend federal unemployment insurance benefits for the long-term unemployed failed in the Senate, 58 to 38. The vote was technically only one short of 60; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) voted no for procedural reasons.
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) today is accusing Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Senate majority leader, of playing politics with the federal extension of unemployment benefits. He says Reid rejected a compromise, offsetting half the cost of the bill with stimulus money, to keep the blocked unemployment extension as a More…
Sharron Angle, the Nevada GOP’s candidate for Senate, is arguing that the government should cut unemployment benefits to get the jobless back to work. Angle has a reputation for taking this hard line: In the past, she has said the unemployed are “spoiled” by jobless benefits — which More…
This morning, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) said he will introduce a deficit-neutral version of the jobs bill. His Fiscally Responsible Relief for Our States Act of 2010 does not raise taxes or expand the national debt, and instead borrows funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, last More…
Here we go again. Last night, Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the Senate majority leader and the head of the Senate Finance Committee, introduced a new unemployment extension bill. It is not actually strictly standalone: It includes an extension of the period in which homebuyers can close More…
This week, the Senate might turn to Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)’s standalone bill to continue federally extended unemployment insurance benefits.* The jobs bill, also known as H.R. 4213 or the extenders package, that included the extension along with a number of other provisions failed to move forward to More…
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