unemployment benefits extension

If a compromise by definition is a deal that pleases no one, then the tax deal that cleared Congress Thursday was a rousing success: Conservatives and liberals both dislike it, but those who voted for it agreed that the alternative -- letting taxes rise for everyone -- would have been worse.

Jobless aid that had expired for millions of Americans could start flowing again as early as next week. President Barack Obama signed a bill extending emergency unemployment insurance Thursday after lawmakers approved it.

Minutes after swearing in new Senator Carte Goodwin of West Virginia, Senate Democrats moved swiftly to send an extension of long-term unemployment insurance to an up-or-down vote.

Today is a big day for 2.8 million unemployed people who had, at least temporarily, lost their unemployment benefits. A move to restore extended unemployment payments of up to 99 weeks won a key Senate procedural vote. A final vote could come later today (July 20). The House is expected to...

Senate Democrats are poised to pass an extension of unemployment insurance for the 2.5 million people whose benefits have expired. With passage of the extension highly likely, Obama has leveled last-minute political shots.

The appointment of 36-year-old Carte Goodwin to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd appears to give Senate Democrats the 60 votes they need to defeat a GOP filibuster and pass an extension of unemployment insurance.

Private pollsters and economists are piling up statistics showing the government's official jobless rate is becoming more and more of a fiction. And that's not helping solve the problem that's No. 1 for most Americans.

While the extension of jobless benefits may pass at some point, there's no doubt that both parties see political gain in keeping the bill stalled. Indeed, it seems every major player in the debate has a political agenda that has all but crippled action.

A battle in the U.S. Senate over the nation's deficit and taxes is increasingly leaving the country's jobless as its biggest victim. Congress ended the week with no action to extend unemployment benefits in 2010. According to the National Employment Law Project, 900,000 people have already lost...