Thousands In Mass. Face Expiration Of Unemployment Benefits

By Curt Nickisch (@CurtNickisch)
Nov 30, 2010, 4:35 PM
6 Comments

BOSTON — At midnight Tuesday night, tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents stop getting unemployment checks.

Without an extension from Congress, jobless benefits are reaching the cutoff point for certain groups of the ranks of unemployed, including the so-called “long-term unemployed” who’ve been receiving unemployment benefits for almost two years now.

While benefits aren’t running out immediately for everyone who’s out of work, the expiration still affects more than 52,000 Massachusetts residents who would lose their benefits in December alone. That is, unless Congress decides to extend benefits during the lame-duck session and make them retroactive to the beginning of the month.

“I am very sure there will be something,” said Judy Conti, who lobbies Congress for the National Employment Law Project. “I don’t think anyone wants to go home for the holidays, you know, thumbing their noses at the long-term unemployed.”

Congressional Democrats said they plan to introduce legislation to extend unemployment benefits for an additional 13 months. But Republicans, carrying the message of deficit reduction that propelled them to wins in the mid-term election, aren’t so sure.

Sen. Scott Brown, who’s potentially a swing vote, has said he supports extending benefits so long as they are paid for with already-appropriated money and not from new spending.

Conti says it all depends on congressional deal making.

“What I’m less sure of is how long the extension will be and what the vehicle will be to get that done,” she said.

One possibility is linking a longer-term extension of jobless benefits to the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, which Republicans strongly support.

However, a compromise could take weeks. And that means tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents may have to get by until an extension is passed and made retroactive.

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Hardy Kornfeld

No worries. Any day now there will be millions trickling down from the wealthy.
John

WBUR and other press articles all say “Things just got worse for the millions of Americans who have been unemployed for up to 99 weeks. At the stroke of midnight Tuesday,…” this is usually followed by a picture of a single mother, or a bedraggled family……

99 weeks is 2 years. If they have not found a job by then, it is time to lower their job expectations and take something else which pays less. Research shows that many (certainly not all) people look seriously for a job only a month or two before their “benefits” run out.

After two years, I don’t think most of those long term unemployed people de serve to tap my income and make me pay for their “needs”. I have to pay my medical bills, support my granddaughter in school and save for my retirement.

Sorry for the vent, but I am sure that the media will not portray it this way.
Dave

John, You obviously have not walked in the shoes of the unemployed so you should not judge them so harshly. Of course people need to expand their job searches to areas that they may not have thought about in the past, but lowering expectations, accepting a lower paying job with less benefits, does not pay the bills and keep a family fed. You obviously have a different perspective given your circumstances, but you should temper your judgment and think how frustrated and demeaning those people must feel who have been out of work for an extended amount of time and are still actively searching to get back on their feet.
sal

Obama shouldn’t have wasted all that “stimulus” money on his union buddies.
moni

It amazes me that Americans can be so cold towards their fellow country people who are unemployed. Believe me, it were you, you’d think differently. The people who are unemployed are not lazy bums, they are folks who have worked for years and are now laid off. What would you have them do if there are no jobs for them. Remember they paid into unemployment insurance when they worked.
moni

My niece was making good money when she was laid off. She has 1100 rent each month, electric, gas, telephone, food and diapers to pay for out of her unemployment. She has applied to every kind of job imaginable to no avail. She’ even willing to take two jobs in order to make due but that would only increase the cost of daycare for her 1 child. Daycare is already $150 per week.
This girl has worked since she was 14 years old. She cared for her parents until they died. She has never asked anyone for charity. Now she struggles to go to food pantry’s to feed her child. Does this sound like someone who doesn’t want to work?