More than 3.6 million people have lost unemployment insurance benefits through September, according to a new report from House Democrats who want to renew the insurance program that Congress let expire in December.
Sander Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee responsible for the report, said that extending benefits for workers unemployed for 27 weeks or longer “should be part of the nation’s effort toward continued economic recovery.”
Since the federal emergency program extending unemployment benefits for those out of work expired in December, the report finds, more than 3.6 million people through September either lost their benefits or did not get benefits they would have received if the program had been reauthorized.
That is a larger number than the current amount of long-term unemployed, which had fallen to 3 million in August from 3.9 million in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many long-term unemployed workers have gained jobs or dropped out of the official workforce.
The report called for Congress to renew the benefits to boost the economy, citing a December report from the Congressional Budget Office that estimated that doing so would create 200,000 jobs, among other studies.
But efforts to re-up the insurance program have failed in the Republican House. As the unemployment rate has plummeted over the year, bringing down long-term unemployment with it, pressure to renew benefits has eased.
