D-Day Nears For Thousands Of Jobless

Federal unemployment benefits will get cut off Saturday for almost 800,000 jobless workers because Congress failed to pass an extension before adjourning for the year.

There's little holiday hope for those unemployed workers, and the 95,000 each week thereafter who start losing state benefits. Congress won't reconvene until Jan. 7.

"Regrettably, the House Republican leadership turned their backs on these families and refused to act, and the administration chose not to intervene before Congress adjourned," Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle said Friday. "This inaction by Republicans was unconscionable then and it is even more so now."

The Democratic-led Senate approved a comprehensive benefits extension costing anywhere from $2 billion to $5 billion that would have covered people affected by Saturday's cutoff and another 1 million who already had exhausted all benefits. The House passed a more modest $900 million plan of five extra weeks for workers in a few states with high unemployment rates. But the two sides failed to resolve their differences.

President Bush, after weeks of criticism from Democrats, ended his silence on the issue in his radio address last week and said extending benefits for the unemployed should be the "first order of business" for the new Congress. But he failed to say how many people should be covered and for how long, or which plan he favors.

Democrats and groups supporting an extension complained again Friday that Mr. Bush's refusal to press Congress was to blame for Saturday's cutoffs.

"The president's announcement was too little, too late for the unemployed," said Maurice Emsellem, public policy director for the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for the jobless.

The expiring federal benefits package — up to 13 weeks — was passed in March to help workers who were starting to run out of their state benefits, which in most cases allow up to 26 weeks. Jobless workers who haven't exhausted their entire 13-week federal extension still will get cut off Saturday.

GOP leaders claimed the government could not afford the $5 billion price tag on the Senate plan. They also said the economy is improving. The nation's unemployment rate climbed to 6.0 percent last month, while in previous recessions, the rate was much higher - 10.8 percent in 1983 and 7.8 percent in 1992.

But supporters of an extension argue that it would help boost the economy by giving money to the people who need it most.