Deal struck to extend long-term jobless aid

Senate standoff at end, but House to get say

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of senators ended a long-running standoff and struck a compromise renewing expired unemployment benefits for five months for more than 2 million Americans who have been out of work the longest, the lawmakers said Thursday.

Approval of the $9.7 billion measure seemed likely by the Democratic-led Senate when it returns in late March from a week-long recess. That would send the issue into the Republican-run House.

The parties have dueled over the issue since late last year, and it has become fodder for this year’s congressional elections. The two sides are competing to show they are trying to create jobs and help families support themselves in the aftermath of the recession of 2007-09.

As the stalemate dragged on, Democrats - backed by President Barack Obama - said opposition by most Republicans to extending the emergency benefits showed GOP indifference toward helping those suffering most from the recession. Republicans said they wanted an extension that was fully paid for and that improved government programs for sup-porting the unemployed and helping them find work.

Two leaders of the negotiations - Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Dean Heller, R-Nev. - said in a statement Thursday that the deal would be retroactive to Dec. 28, when the emergency benefits program expired.

“There are a lot of good people looking for work and I am pleased we’re finally able to reach a strong, bipartisan consensus to get them some help,” Reed said in a statement.

Heller expressed satisfaction that “Democrats and Republicans have come together on a proposal that will finally give Americans certainty about their unemployment benefits.”

Rhode Island had an unemployment rate in December of 9.3 percent, while Nevada’s was 9 percent - the two worst rates in the nation.

White House spokesman Jay Carney urged Congress to help the long-term unemployed by approving the compromise, saying, “This is not just the right thing to do for these Americans looking for work, it’s the right thing to do for our economy.”

Lawmakers said the proposal was fully paid for, with the bulk of the money raised by extending some customs fees through 2024 and changing how some companies set aside money for pensions, in effect increasing their taxes. More federal revenue would be raised by letting some companies make earlier payments to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which guarantees workers’ pensions.

The deal would end jobless payments to people whose gross income was more than $1 million in the previous year, similar to a provision sought by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and John Tester, D-Mont. The lawmakers cited 2010 data showing that 0.03 percent of taxpayers earned more than $1 million and received some form of federal or state unemployment benefits.

The agreement also has a provision sought by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, aimed at improving programs that help the long-term unemployed find new jobs and strengthening how the government verifies that they are eligible for unemployment benefits and assistance in finding jobs.

The last time Democrats tried to act on the issue, they pressed for three months of benefits. That bill stalled when backers didn’t have enough support to cut off debate. The Feb. 6 vote was 55-43.

Like that bill, the latest measure would need 60 Senate votes to overcome any Republican procedural tactics aimed at killing it.

With Democrats having 55 votes - including two usually supportive independents - and five Republicans co-sponsoring the measure, Reed and Heller said they were confident they would have more than enough votes to advance the measure.

The Republican co-sponsors were Heller, Collins and Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mark Kirk of Illinois.

“This agreement is the first step toward reforming a broken program into a safety net that helps the unemployed quickly re-enter the workforce and get back on their feet,” Portman said.

Jobless Americans can qualify initially for state-sponsored unemployment benefits that generally run for 26 weeks. After that, they can receive emergency federal coverage that lasts from 14 weeks to 47 weeks, depending on how high unemployment is in their states.

When the emergency program expired Dec. 28, 1.3 million people immediately lost those benefits. Since then an average of 72,000 people weekly exhausted state benefits and could not receive emergency coverage, according to the liberal National Employment Law Project, raising the current total to just more than 2 million people who are without benefits.

Average weekly emergency benefits last year were $287, the group said.

In December, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Republicans would consider extending emergency benefits“as long as it’s paid for and as long as there are other efforts that will help get our economy moving once again.”

He said at the time that the White House had yet to introduce a plan that met his standards.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel had no immediate comment Thursday on the Senate compromise.

Information for this article was contributed by Alan Fram and David Espo of The Associated Press; by Jeremy W. Peters of The New York Times; and by James Rowley and Roxana Tiron of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/14/2014

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