Senate may start on extra jobless benefits Tuesday
Senate Democrats and Republicans are still wrestling over bringing up a bill to extend jobless benefits by 14 weeks for all states, plus six additional weeks for Michigan and other hard-hit states.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid failed today to get Republicans to agree to a quick vote. It's looking increasingly likely Senate Democrats will start the complicated, tedious and long process Tuesday afternoon of invoking cloture to get to a vote on additional benefits.
While there's never any easy way to predict what will happen in the Senate, it's possible that if Reid gets 60 votes tomorrow the Republicans will agree to a quick vote. Without a deal, the cloture process could delay a final vote until next week.
But even if the Senate passes its bill, a House-Senate conference will be needed to reconcile the differences with the House bill. President Barack Obama supports the additional benefits, which political experts expect will pass in some form. But Michiganians who've exhausted their benefits should expect the political process to take another several weeks.
As of Oct. 16, 44,484 Michiganians had cashed their last unemployment check. Between Oct. 16 and Jan. 8, another 54,305 will exhaust their benefits unless Congress lengthens the program.
Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 15.3 percent.
