Extend the lifeline

Sunday, Aug. 9, 2009 | 2:07 a.m.

Last year Congress extended unemployment benefits to help people whose jobs were lost as the recession tightened its grip. This year, under the federal stimulus bill, states suffering from unemployment rates in excess of 8 percent were offered a way to provide an additional 20 weeks of benefits to unemployed residents.

But the gestures have not been enough for many of the 9 million people across the country currently receiving unemployment checks. The National Employment Law Project, a private research and advocacy group based in New York, says 500,000 Americans will see their unemployment benefits expire by late September — a number that will swell to 1.5 million by the end of the year.

Writing about this coming wave of unemployed people in danger of being cut off from desperately needed benefits, The New York Times reported that many economists are wary of suggestions to extend unemployment insurance because they believe extensions result in people having less incentive to find work.

But a labor economist at Harvard University, Lawrence Katz, challenged that traditional view when interviewed by the paper. In the current recession, he said, every time a job opens there are multiple people looking to fill it. “Unemployment insurance gives income to families who are really suffering and can’t find work even if they are hustling to look,” he said.

We have seen how hard it is in Las Vegas for unemployed people to find jobs. A Las Vegas Sun reporter followed the job-seeking efforts of a 51-year-old college-educated woman with a solid work history who had been laid off because of the recession. She finally found work just a few weeks ago after energetically looking for a whole year.

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., is planning to introduce a bill that would provide another 13 weeks of benefits in states where the unemployment rate is 9 percent or higher. Our view is that at least one more extension is necessary. Without it, the twin crises of foreclosures and homelessness will get worse.