House moves to extend unemployment benefits again

This was pretty easy to predict.

A bill offered by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and expected to pass easily would provide 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits for more than 300,000 jobless people who live in states with unemployment rates of at least 8.5 percent and who are scheduled to run out of benefits by the end of September.
The 13-week extension would supplement the 26 weeks of benefits most states offer and the federally funded extensions of up to 53 weeks that Congress approved in legislation last year and in the stimulus bill enacted last February.
...
Some 5 million people, about one-third of those on the unemployment list, have been without a job for six months or more, a record since data started being recorded in 1948, according to the research and advocacy group National Employment Law Project.
"It smashes any other figure we have ever seen. It is an unthinkable number," said Andrew Stettner, NELP's deputy director. He said there are currently about six jobless people for every job opening, so it's unlikely people are purposefully living off unemployment insurance while waiting for something better to come along.
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"It is likely the exhaustion rate will continue to increase in coming months" as the unemployment rate continues to rise, he said.
McDermott in July introduced a more ambitious bill that would have extended through 2010 the compensation programs included in the stimulus act. Those benefits are now scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
But with a price tag of up to $70 billion, that bill would have been far more difficult to pass. McDermott instead decided to offer the scaled-down 13-week extension to meet the urgent needs of those seeing their benefits disappear this year.

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if only

they would fund a real jobs program for real infrastructure, like a WPA instead of this $50B distributed by the states which is going to no-bid contracts and some offshore.

I'd just rather see taxpayer money going to something like that, which would also give skills training plus public works than just this continuing employment malaise.

This needs to be done

I know I've been out of work since December 2008, and I have been seeking employment every single day! I am out there submitting my resume, going on interviews and still nothing. I have been a manager in the hotel industry for 15 years, and I cannot find employment. I've even applied to positions that are not of a management nature, and I'm overqualified for them. I don't have a problem taking a lesser paying job, because I'm getting that in unemployment anyway, but I can't even get that. If they don't extend benefits, we will be out on the street! Sad to say, we are not alone, there will be alot of homeless people and are economy would be alot worse off than it is now.

Welcome to EP out of work!

Boy, that just sucks. I know the deal when one just needs a job to make rent, yet you're overqualified, you get rejected, even though you can blow past others. Frankly, dumb down your resume. Then, there are jobs, which are cash under the table, sometimes you can dig out, just to get some cash. craigslist is notorious to have some of these listed, or you can just put up a post in "services" on craigslist, or print out some fliers from your computer, or get some cheap "side business" service business cards printed up in some skill areas you are good at. These are all just trying to get some side cash.

Then, consider moving, or temporarily going to another part of the country. There are still some areas which are hot tourist (hotel) areas I think, these are the more remote places where there is not a large population, so they have a harder time finding people.

I'm just throwing out some survival model type hints because I know perfectly good hard working people are getting royally screwed right now and it's getting to be pretty damn desperate.

Oh yeah, blast off a nasty letter to the white house and your congress reps as well as your state reps and demand to know where those Stimulus jobs are because you need one.

I wish I could offer more help, but maybe some of these tidbits are useful. Maybe some others have a few.