With enactment, the jobless in the hardest-hit states could receive up to 99 weeks of benefits, which average about $300 a week. That would well exceed the previous record of 65 weeks during the 1970s.
The $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, enacted as part of the stimulus package last February and set to expire this month, would be extended and expanded to include a $6,500 credit for people who have lived in their current residences at least five years.
Congress has no choice but to act when there are 15 million jobless chasing 3 million jobs and 7,000 people run out of benefits every day, said Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat. Economists talk about the end of the recession, he said, but “for most Americans, it will still be some time before things start getting better.’’
The legislation now goes to the House, which is expected to quickly approve it and send it to President Obama for his signature.
Massachusetts senators John F. Kerry and Paul G. Kirk Jr. said in a joint statement that the extension would help up to 40,000 Massachusetts residents.
“This extension of a critical safety net will make it easier for families across Massachusetts to hang on in the toughest economy since the Great Depression,’’ Kerry said.
“With the unemployment rate unacceptably high and the winter months approaching,’’ Kirk said, “impossible decisions about whether to turn on the heat or put food on the table loom in many households. Passage of the unemployment insurance benefits extension will provide greater hope to those who continue to search for work during these harsh economic times.’’
The House acted in late September to extend unemployment benefits, but only in the 27 states where the unemployment rate is above 8.5 percent.
