Helping the unemployed

Saturday, June 14, 2008 | 2:07 a.m.

Debate over whether to extend unemployment benefits is moving to the Senate; the House approved such legislation this week with enough votes to override President Bush’s promised veto.

The measure would give an extra 13 weeks of unemployment benefits to Americans whose standard 26 weeks of benefits have run out. In states where unemployment rates are 6 percent or higher, benefits would be extended for up to 26 weeks.

Another provision of the legislation eliminates a requirement that people must have worked full time for at least 20 weeks to collect unemployment benefits. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, said it would be “irresponsible policy” to offer six months or more of unemployment benefits to people who could have worked as few as two weeks.

But Democrats rightly asserted that the 20-week requirement penalizes low-wage workers, part-time employees and workers who have been on maternity leave — groups that struggle to make ends meet even when they are earning paychecks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that to assume Americans are “sitting on their butts back home” to collect unemployment benefits is “an insult to these millions of people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.”

The House approved the measure in a 274-137 vote Thursday — a narrow victory, as two-thirds approval was required under the rules used by Democrats to rush the measure to a floor vote. A House vote on the same legislation had come up three votes short Wednesday. Republicans attributed Thursday’s approval to the fact that several Republican opponents of the bill were absent.

The Senate should show the same perseverance as House members who supported this legislation, and approve the measure as soon as possible. More than 8.5 million Americans reported being out of work in May, The New York Times reports. These people need their government’s help, not its indifference.