White House to Issue Report Showing Harm From Jobless Benefits Expiration

Published December 24, 2015

The White House plans to release a detailed report showing how the cut-off in jobless benefits will hurt families and the economy, as the administration tries to pressure Republicans to extend long-term aid which started to dry up Wednesday.

Congress so far has been unable to reach an agreement on prolonging benefits, which the federal government had lengthened to 99 weeks. Republicans want the benefits to be paid for with cuts elsewhere in the federal budget, but Democrats are still hoping to come away with some kind of a deal in the course of negotiations over the Bush tax cuts.

A White House official confirmed to Fox News Thursday that President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers will issue a report breaking down the impact of inaction on a state-by-state basis -- a move no doubt meant to apply pressure to lawmakers whose districts and states may be hit the hardest.

"In December alone, more than 2 million Americans will lose the temporary support that helps them keep food on the table and make ends meet while they fight to find a job if Congress doesn't act," the official said. "The White House will release state-by-state numbers showing how failure to act would affect families across the country."

The official said the report will also "illustrate how letting millions more Americans fall into hardship will hurt our economy at this critical point in our recovery and cut off an important source of demand in our economy."

The report comes as weekly jobless benefit claims rose unexpectedly last week. The Labor Department reported new claims up a seasonally adjusted 26,000 to 436,000. The previous week's claims were also revised up slightly to show applications had tumbled by 31,000 to 410,000.

At the same time, the ADP National Employment Report issued Wednesday found that private-sector employment leaped by 93,000 from October to November -- the strongest one-month gain since November 2007.

Fox News' Mike Emanuel contributed to this report.

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-to-issue-report-showing-harm-from-jobless-benefits-expiration