By Brian Faler
April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Since the U.S. recession began in December 2007, Congress has extended the length of unemployment benefits for the jobless three times. Now, the lawmakers may have reached their limit.
They are quietly drawing the line at 99 weeks of aid, a mark that hundreds of thousands of Americans have already reached. In coming months, the number of those who will receive their final government check is projected to top 1 million.
It’s a deadline that has rarely been mentioned in recent debates over jobless benefits, in which Republicans have delayed aid because of cost concerns. The deadline hasn’t been lost on Teauna Stephney, a 39-year-old single mother from Bothell, Washington, who said she could become homeless once her $407 weekly checks stop in June.
“What are people like me supposed to do?” said Stephney, who said almost two years of benefits haven’t proved long enough for her to find work after she lost her last job in August 2008. Referring to lawmakers, she said, “I would like them to come and talk to me and spend a day in my shoes.”
Democrats who have pushed through the past extensions agree there’s insufficient backing to go beyond 99 weeks, largely because of mounting concern over the federal deficit, projected to reach $1.5 trillion this year.
“You can’t go on forever,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, of Montana, whose panel oversees the benefits program. “I think 99 weeks is sufficient,” he said.
“There’s just been no discussion to go beyond that,” said Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat.
‘Anxious’
Some Republicans say cutting off aid will spur people to find work.
“We have study after study that shows people are more anxious to get a job after they run out of benefits,” said Representative John Linder of Georgia, the top Republican on the Ways and Means subcommittee with jurisdiction over the unemployment program. “Continuing to extend this isn’t helping them or us.”
Allowing the ranks of those who lose their aid to swell carries risks for Democrats in November’s elections.
“They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” said Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report. Voters are “sensitive these days to spending and deficit issues and yet there are going to be people who need help, and if the administration ignores them, they’ll look rather callous.”
Negative ‘Atmospherics’
Baucus said extension legislation would fail in the Senate because of both the deficit and the negative “atmospherics” of lengthening the weeks of aid into triple digits.
“The best thing to do is get this economy turned around” to create jobs, said Baucus.
Unemployment aid has become one of the federal budget’s fastest-growing components, with costs this year likely to reach $200 billion. That’s six times what was typically spent before the recession.
Since the recession began, aid extensions added 53 weeks of assistance to the 46 weeks that had been in place. About 11 million Americans, roughly 70 percent of the nation’s jobless, in March received unemployment checks averaging $320 per week.
The challenge for lawmakers is that while benefits have reached record lengths, so has long-term unemployment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 44 percent of the jobless have been out of work for at least six months, the biggest share since the government began keeping track in 1948.
3.4 Million
About 3.4 million Americans -- approximately the population of Connecticut -- have been out of work for more than a year, according to a study by the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative.
The states, not the federal government, track how many exhaust their unemployment benefits, said U.S. Labor Department spokesman Matthew Wald.
Interviews with state officials found that in New York, 57,000 people have received their last check. In Florida, 130,000 are no longer eligible as are about 30,000 Ohioans.
Those numbers will grow, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which projects that more than 400,000 may soon begin losing benefits every month.
“The political climate is not as conducive to additional expansions as it had been last year,” a Goldman analysis said. “The result is likely to be a greater share of unemployed workers not receiving unemployment compensation.”
Democrats Struggle
Democrats have struggled to pass legislation just to maintain current benefits over Republican objections about adding to the deficit. Benefits have been interrupted twice because of efforts by Republican Senators Jim Bunning, of Kentucky, and Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma.
“We’re trying to extend unemployment assistance as it currently exists and we’re having a devil of a time getting that done,” said Dorgan.
President Barack Obama signed into law this month a measure extending until June the date by which individuals can qualify for 99 weeks of aid, a move designed to buy lawmakers time while negotiating a bill that would continue such eligibility through year’s end.
That won’t help people like Stephney. And Representative Jim McDermott, a Washington Democrat who supports another extension of benefits, said there’s so little support for the idea that he hasn’t bothered to introduce legislation.
“What happens to these families when they have no money for food, no money for their rent and no money for their health care?” said McDermott. “It’s a problem that nobody around here wants to talk about.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler at bloomberg.net Last Updated: April 29, 2010 17:56 EDT