President Obama Signs Unemployment Extension

Friday 12:16pm Update:

   President Barack Obama has signed a bill extending unemployment benefits through June 2 and restoring full Medicaid payments to doctors. The bill cleared both houses of Congress on Thursday night. The House passed the bill 289-112 just two hours after it emerged from the Senate on a 59-38 vote that capped an unusually partisan debate.

   People who lost out on the additional weeks of benefits after exhausting their state-paid benefits will now be able to reapply and receive those checks retroactively.

Monday 11:16 p.m. Update:

Democrats in the Senate have won an initial skirmish to restore unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands of jobless people despite Republican criticism that it would add $9 billion to the nation's debt.  The 60-34 vote kills a GOP filibuster against debating the measure, which would extend benefits through the end of the month.  It came as senators in both parties blamed each other for allowing them to lapse last week. That means hundreds of thousands of people who have been out of work for more than six months will miss federally financed benefits averaging $335 a week. Republicans blocked the measure from advancing last month. It would buy time while House-Senate talks continue on a far larger measure to extend them through the end of the year.

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A fight in Congress over extending unemployment benefits means at least 1,000 South Carolina unemployed workers will lose benefits this week if Congress does not take action.

According to the National Employment Law Center, 28,494 South Carolinians will exhaust their benefits if Congress doesn't take action. An average of 6,332 will lose their benefits each week starting this week.

Bill Funderburk, with the state Employment Security Commission, says while there are five to six thousand people who are on extended benefits who could draw, only about one thousand are actually drawing the benefits now. They're the ones who could lose benefits this week.

"Potentially, there are 90,000 people claiming today that will be affected at some point in this process. There are another 60,000 or so on regular UI (Unemployment Insurance) benefits and, when those end, there will be no extensions out there for them."

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, is leading the fight in the Senate to block extending the benefits. He's against the extensions without paying for them with cuts somewhere else.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is also in favor of extending the benefits but only if they're paid for.

"You'll never convince me we can't find $10 billion out of a $2 trillion budget to pay for the extension, so I'm tired of borrowing money," he says. "We've got to stop borrowing money to run the government."

He says he could easily find $10 billion in the budget to pay for extending unemployment benefits, saying one example is growth at the U.S. Department of Education. He says cuts could be made there without hurting education because education is a state responsibility.

U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina says he also favors extending benefits only if there's a plan to pay for them. "It's disappointing that Democrats refuse to responsibly pay for extending benefits for struggling workers. Democrats had numerous opportunities to extend benefits without increasing our crippling debt, but they chose to play politics instead," he says.

But Senate Democrats say unemployment benefits have always been paid for with deficit spending because they're emergencies. Sen. Graham says it's hardly an emergency. "We know we've got an unemployment problem. We've had it for several years," he says.

Verlie Smith of Columbia is worried about her unemployment benefits, which will run out in June. She says, "I just pray that God touch the hearts of Congress with compassion for the people."

Funderburk, with the Employment Security Commission, says the agency can't do anything except wait to see if Congress acts. If Congress does extend benefits, he says the agency should have checks sent out within 24 hours.

A procedural vote is expected Monday night in the Senate to allow the bill to be debated but a final vote on actually extending benefits isn't expected until later in the week.