Unemployment pay extended for Americans most in need
The check is in the mail.
Well, since unemployment benefits are largely done through direct deposit, that statement isn’t literally true, but it’s close enough for 2.5 million Americans — including a couple hundred thousand Ohioans — who saw their unemployment benefits begin expiring in early June. Senate Democrats were finally able to get a few cross-over votes to break a Republican filibuster on a bill extending benefits for people who have been without work for a year and a half.
The political wrangling over the benefit extension was also a good thing. It focused attention on the issue of deficit spending and on when a program is important enough to merit funding even if the money isn’t on hand
There are going to be a lot of arguments over such matters in the future, because it is going to be a long time before the president and Congress are in a position once again to balance the budget. This, regrettably, is nothing new. There have only been four balanced budgets in the last 40 years — the last three budgets of President Bill Clinton and the first of President George W. Bush. Deficit spending grew steadily through most of the Bush presidency and spending skyrocketed in his last budget and the first two of President Barack Obama.
That happens when the economy is in a deep recession and when the nation has the ongoing expenses associated with being a superpower, which at this time includes extraordinary security costs and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Help at the ground level
But the economic challenges facing the nation are most painfully reflected in the faces of the nation’s unemployed at a time when we are told that there are five applicants for very available job. Nothing is gained and much is lost if tens of thousands of families in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio are left unable to pay for necessities or are forced into bankruptcy or home foreclosure. A nation cannot rebuild its economy when hundreds of thousands of families in states from coast to coast suffer personal financial catastrophes that will require years of recovery.
Extending unemployment benefits at times such as these makes sense because those payments are plowed right back into the economy, paying for food, rent or mortgages, utilities, car payments, gas and utilities.
June’s unemployment numbers, even in Ohio and even in the Mahoning Valley, showed a slight increase from May, but were well below figures from the same month a year ago. But at 12 percent, the rate for Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties remains far too high for anything but very cautious optimism.
Real economic recovery, at least for those states mostly heavily impacted by the recession, lies well into the future. Which means that Congress will be facing another battle in late November, when this latest extension of unemployment benefits will expire for those who have been unemployed the longest and are still unable to find work.