Unemployment Extension 2014: New Bill Hits Senate — With One Big Difference

New hope for a 2014 unemployment extension appeared possible Tuesday, as the two senators who have pushed the hardest to bring back the unemployment benefits that were cut off for job seekers six months ago, introduced a new extension measure to the Senate on Tuesday.

The bill differs significantly from an earlier unemployment extension measure that expired at the end of May — a difference that Washington observers say may make this version of the bill somewhat easier to pass.

New Unemployment Bill Must Garner Votes To Break GOP Filibuster

But there’s one catch. Senators Dean Heller, a Republican, and Jack Reed, a Democrat, must now round up enough Republican votes to break the inevitable GOP filibuster that greets pretty much every piece of legislation introduced in the Senate during the Obama presidency.

By the end of 2013, Republicans had filibustered 307 bills in the Senate since Obama became president, the most ever under president by a long shot.

Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid told Reed and Heller Tuesday that he will bring the new bill to the Senate floor for a vote as soon as the bipartisan pair gather enough Republican votes to hit the 60 total votes required to break a filibuster. That puts particular pressure on Heller, as the one who must rally his own recalcitrant caucus.

“What he’s doing is scrambling to get a few more Republicans,” Reid — who also represents Nevada — said Tuesday, referring to Heller. “Anytime Senator Heller makes a little progress on this we’ll bring it back, because people are just as desperate today as they were two months ago.”

Sponsoring Senators Represent High-Unemployment States

Reed, from Rhode Island, and Heller, from Nevada, represent the two states with the highest unemployment rates in the nation, even midway through 2014.

Reed and Heller were also the authors of the unemployment extension bill that passed the Senate on April 7, 2014, but proceeded to die in the Republican-controlled house where Speaker John Boehner refused to even allow the measure to be debated on the House floor.

Without action by the House, the 2014 unemployment extension bill became obsolete at the end of May. Meanwhile, the number of long-term jobless whose unemployment benefits have been cut off has passed 3.1 million.

New Unemployment Extension Excludes ‘Retro’ Lump Sum Payment

How does the new 2014 Reed-Heller unemployment extension differ from the version that died without even coming up for debate in the House?

The most significant difference is that the new bill does not include retroactive benefits — that is, a lump sum payment for the weeks missed since December 29, when benefits were cut off due to congressional failure to vote on a renewal of the extension.

But Reed and Heller say that their new bill will allow those who lost their benefits to “pick up where they left off in the UI claims process,” starting a new unemployment claim that would be good for the same number of weeks they missed when their original benefits were severed.

Even supporters of the previous bill were concerned that the lump-sum “retro” benefits could prove to be an administrative nightmare for states, who would be charged with administering the program. The new unemployment extension eliminates that objection.

The new 2014 unemployment extension is estimated to cost about $10 billion over five months, a cost that is covered in the bill by changes to customs fees and certain pension programs.