State unemployment agencies are gearing up to resume sending unemployment payments to millions of people as Congress moves to ship President Obama a measure to restore lapsed benefits.
After months of increasingly bitter stalemate, the Senate passed the measure Wednesday by a 59-39 vote. Obama is poised to sign the measure into law after a final House vote scheduled for today.
It’s a welcome relief to 2½ million people who have been out of work for six months or more and have seen their benefits lapse.
Under best-case scenarios, unemployed people who have been denied jobless benefits because of a partisan Senate standoff over renewing them can expect retroactive payments as early as next week in some states.
In other states, it will take longer, possibly as long as six weeks.
State unemployment and labor agencies have been preparing for weeks for Congress to restore jobless payments averaging $309 a week for almost 5 million people whose 26 weeks of state benefits have run out. Those people are enrolled in a federally financed program providing up to 73 additional weeks of unemployment benefits.
FULL STORY: http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2010-07-22-unemployment22_ST_N.htm
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