Livermore resident Dave Toledo was laid off last June, and his unemployment checks stopped about a week ago, but he feels luckier than most of the 250,000 Californians whose extended benefits have been halted by a Senate dispute over whether the aid should be continued.
"I saw the writing on the wall," said Toledo, who sold his house and banked some money shortly after losing his job in the telecom industry. He moved his two children into an apartment and is studying for a real estate licensing exam. "Things are going to work out for me," he said. "That's not the case for everybody."
Started during the Depression to cushion the effects of layoffs, unemployment insurance typically lasts 26 weeks. But with more than 40 percent of jobless Americans currently out of work longer than six months, Congress had temporarily extended benefits to a maximum of 99 weeks - helping Toledo and millions of others.
A recent Democratic bid to continue that 99-week maximum through the end of November failed Friday to break a filibuster threat in the Senate after Republicans refused to add the $33 billion cost of extended benefits to a federal budget deficit that's already roughly $1.4 trillion. As a result of the Senate's inaction, the authorization and funding for the extended benefits for Toledo and others ceased.
Typical job seekers are devastated by the benefit cutoff. The state Department of Employment Development says benefit checks to 250,000 Californians have stopped. Each week, thousands more will collect their last checks unless the extension issue is resolved.
"I can't believe it has come to this," said Jeanmarie Murphy of San Francisco, who lost her job as a legal recruiter in April 2009 and now, hit by the benefit cutoff, is hard-pressed to pay her rent. "What are people supposed to do, get kicked out of their apartments?"
The issue is politically charged.
Liberal Stephen Levy with the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy characterized the filibuster as a "petty, partisan, callous effort."
Conservative analyst Jeffrey Jones with the Hoover Institution said he understands how Democrats disdain Republican deficit zeal now given how they spent in the red under Bush. "But can we afford to continue to pay for these measures by borrowing?" he asked.
California Republican senatorial challenger Carly Fiorina backs the extension only if the costs are offset without tax increases, while Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer favors a bipartisan solution to restoring the extension.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Budget, a moderate think tank, said the United States can extend benefits without enlarging the deficit. She said a one-year halt in pay increases for federal civilian employees would save $30 billion, almost enough to cover the extension.
"If it's worth doing, we have to pay for it," she said.
Complicating the debate is the widespread recognition that many of the jobs lost in this recession will never return - forcing people to move or change careers - and raising the question of how much government should help in this transition.
"The system is hopelessly outmoded," said San Francisco labor attorney Michael Bernick, a former director of the state Employment Development Department.
Meanwhile, in Livermore, Toledo boosts his morale by volunteering as an English tutor through his local library and thinks about how the talk of stimulus and deficits affects the little people.
"We cannot put people out on the streets," he said. "We cannot have a Depression."
