Relief

Good news in the NYT today about the Democrats' plans to push for extended unemployment insurance.

Job losses in the national economy combined with a surge in new claims for unemployment insurance are giving a boost to proposals — pushed for months by Democratic leaders and labor groups — to extend unemployment benefits beyond their usual limit of 26 weeks.

Bolstering the case for an extension, its advocates say, are indications that laid-off workers are having an especially tough time finding new jobs, even compared with past recessions.

Over the last year, more unemployed workers have exhausted their benefits before finding new jobs than in the years preceding the recessions of 1990 and 2001, according to a new analysis by a private research group, the National Employment Law Project, which will present its findings to Congress on Thursday.

In addition, the Committee on Ways and Means has a brief on the employment situation and the need for extended unemployment insurance. The Join Economic Committee has a similar report out, too. Both make the case, as CLASP's paper does, that the economy is so bad already that a relief package is necessary immediately.

Economic stimulation is all well and good, and all these proposals would probably have a strong stimulative effect. But that's now a secondary consideration. Relief policy no longer needs to be shoehorned into the narrow stimulus frame.