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Congress OKs Jobless Aid Checks digits

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By JIM ABRAMS

The Associated Press

Published: November 21, 2008

WASHINGTON - Jarred by new jobless alarms, Congress quickly approved legislation Thursday to keep unemployment checks flowing through the holidays in December and into the new year for a million or more laid-off Americans whose benefits are running out.

The Senate's vote followed Thursday's report that laid-off workers' new claims for jobless aid had reached a 16-year high and the number of Americans searching for work had surged past 10 million.

The White House, which had opposed broader legislation containing the benefits extension, urged passage of the new version and said President George W. Bush would quickly sign it.

As Congress prepared to leave town - perhaps for the year - there was no such resolution on helping the auto industry, a disaster in the making that could lead to hundreds of thousands if not millions of additional lost jobs. Democratic leaders said they could return to Washington in mid-December to vote on rescue loans if the carmakers first present a plan on transforming and modernizing their operations.

Discouraged by the stalemate over auto aid, investors sent the Dow Jones industrials down to another big loss, 445 points.

As for the jobless benefits, about 1.2 million people would exhaust their unemployment insurance by the end of the year without the extension, sponsors said. The measure is estimated to cost about $5.7 billion, although economists put the positive impact at $1.64 for every dollar spent on jobless benefits because the money helps sustain other jobs and restores consumer confidence.

More than 1.2 million jobs have been lost so far this year, and the civilian jobless rate is at a 14-year high of 6.5 percent.

542,000: people filing new unemployment claims last week, the highest level since July 1992

10 million: Americans currently searching for work

445: Dow Jones industrials' point-loss Thursday

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