"Help For The 99ers After Current Benefits Reauthorized"

Arthur Delaney:

Over the summer, Congress spent 50 days fighting over a reauthorization of the current four tiers of federally-funded jobless aid as Republicans and some Democrats objected to the deficit cost of the benefits. The reauthorization was ultimately approved, but only though November, at which time the fight will probably happen again. It won't be easy for Berkley and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who introduced a similar bill in the upper chamber, to win much support.

"It's very tough, but it's a whole lot tougher to be unemployed and to have rent to pay and food to put on the table for your kids to eat," said Berkley. "There's some sort of misconception here that if somehow you don't extend unemployment benefits, that poor people are going to disappear. They don't. They end up on welfare, they end up on food stamps, they end up homeless and they end up desperate, so the idea that they'll just go away is ludicrous. It doesn't happen. MORE. .