1 million could lose unemployment benefits and "You can't go on forever" says Max Baucus

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.

Damned If They Do’

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.”

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.

About 3.4 million Americans 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. Grandpa Note: which means the weekly jobless report by the numerically challenged Department of Labor does not offer details for a drop as they simply do not track them!
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As grandpa noted in his post this morning, this is a jobless recovery. "You can't go on forever" states Max Baucus. Rather ironic that he notes you can't go on forever albeit he has been in congress since 1975. 35 years as a career politician. AND FOR THE RECORD, Max voted Yea on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act. You know, the act that carved out significant portions of Glass-Steagall which gave Wall Street Investment banks the congressional endorement to pillage and plunder!


Oh, and who could forget: December 2005, following the public corruption probe of Jack Abramoff — who was later convicted of fraud and corruption — Baucus returned $18,892 in contributions that his office found to be connected to Abramoff. Included in the returned donations was an estimated $1,892 that was never reported for Baucus's use of Abramoff's sky box at a professional sports stadium and concert venue in downtown Washington in 2001.


Only career politicians with Wall Street and the Health Care Industry in their back pocket "go on forever" Max.