[Susanleech]

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/1...n_784284.html#

Senate Democrats are discussing their strategy for reauthorizing extended unemployment insurance on Tuesday as the expiration date for the jobless aid is fast approaching.

Neither the House nor the Senate will be in session next week, aides say, so extended unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless will need to be reauthorized this week before they expire on Nov. 30.

Two million people could prematurely lose their benefits by New Year's Day, according to the National Employment Law Project. Currently five million people are receiving aid under two federally-funded programs for the long-term unemployed.

Yet no clear path forward has emerged in Congress for reauthorizing those programs. Aides have floated the idea of coupling the benefits with a reauthorization of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts for the top two percent of earners.

...

A lobbyist who has been pushing for a year-long reauthorization said Democratic leadership sees tying unemployment to the tax cuts as an effective strategy. "Leadership is very aware of the beautiful symmetry of tax cuts for millionaires doesn't need to be offset but $293 a week for the long-term unemployed does."

Aides have said it's not likely a deal on unemployment will be sorted out this week, meaning a lapse is highly likely. It would be the fourth lapse in a year. People who missed checks during the previous lapses were paid retroactively when Congress got the job done.

The programs needing reauthorization kick in after a layoff victim's initial six months of state benefits are exhausted. If the benefits lapse, people whose state benefits end after Nov. 30 will be ineligible for the additional 73 weeks of benefits granted to people laid off closer to the beginning of the recession.