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Shortly after 7 p.m., the U.S. Senate passed the unemployment extension bill on a vote of 59 to 39.

The bill will be voted on tomorrow by the House of Representatives where it is expected to pass easily.

Share After the House vote, the bill will be sent to President Obama who will sign it into law.

The extension is retroactive to the previous deadline of June 2. But it could take up to a month for some states to start sending the checks again, according to the Associated Press.

Michigan's Unemployment Insurance Agency has been putting a plan in place in advance of the Senate vote and expects to restore benefits to unemployed residents quickly.

Senate Republicans are holding up final passage of a bill to reauthorize extended unemployment benefits after Democrats broke the GOP filibuster on Tuesday.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/21/unemployment-extension-re_n_654083.html

As seen on CSPAN-2 TV this afternoon around 2:30, the Senate voted to extend unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans. The bill now only needs approval from
the House of Representatives, which should come later this week, before President Obama signs it into law and the unemployed begin to receive checks again.


http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5604106/senate_finally_passes_unemployment.html

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Democrats are poised today to break an impasse over financing unemployment benefits that has resulted in aid being cut off to more than 2.5 million Americans.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-20/senate-set-to-pass-extension-of-unemployment-benefits.html

WASHINGTON – Millions of people stuck on the jobless rolls would receive an extension of unemployment benefits averaging $309 a week under a Senate bill that appears set to break free of a Republican filibuster.

Democrats have stripped the unemployment insurance measure down to the bare essentials for Tuesday's vote, which is a do-over of a tally taken late last month.

With West Virginia Democrat Carte Goodwin poised to claim the seat of the late Robert Byrd, two Republicans will be needed to vault the measure over the filibuster hurdle. Maine GOP moderates Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are expected to provide the key votes to create a filibuster-breaking tally on a key procedural test.

The measure is expected to pass later Tuesday. The House would take it up Wednesday and then send it to President Barack Obama for his signature.

If all goes as expected, about 2.5 million people will receive jobless benefits retroactively, injecting almost $3 billion into the economy once they're paid out. Instead of being dropped from a federal program that extends benefits for those whose six months of state-paid benefits have run out, millions of others will continue to receive payments that would help prop up consumer demand to the tune of about $30 billion more through November.

But first, Obama and his Democratic allies are pressing the issue for maximum political advantage, blaming Republicans for the impasse that halted unemployment checks for people unable to find work as the jobless rate remains close to 10 percent.

Obama launched a fresh salvo Monday, demanding the Senate act on the legislation — after a vote already had been scheduled — and blasting Republicans for the holdup.

"The same people who didn't have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn't offer relief to middle-class Americans," Obama said.

Republicans say they do favor the benefits but are insisting they be paid for with spending cuts elsewhere in the government's $3.7 trillion budget. After initially feeling heat this winter when a lone GOP senator, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, briefly blocked a benefits extension in February, the GOP has grown increasingly comfortable opposing the legislation.

The providing of additional weeks of jobless benefits in the midst of bad times has been regarded as routine, and the latest cycle of additional benefits began in 2008, the last year of George W. Bush's administration.

"For a long time, there has been a tradition under both Democratic and Republican presidents to offer relief to the unemployed," Obama said. "That was certainly the case under my predecessor, when Republicans several times voted to extend emergency unemployment benefits."

But with conservative voters and tea party activists up in arms about the deficit, conservative Republicans have adopted a harder line that has caused three interruptions of jobless benefits.

"What the president isn't telling the American people is that many of us in the Senate are fighting to make sure our children and grandchildren aren't buried under a mountain of debt," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "If we are going to extend unemployment benefits, then let's do it without adding to our record debt."

The president said Republicans are holding the unemployed "hostage"

President Obama pressed Senate Republicans to dismantle their blockade of the unemployment benefits extension package in a Rose Garden speech Monday, and asked members to abandon election year politics that he said are holding the unemployed "hostage."


Republicans have blocked the extension of jobless benefits, which expired in the beginning of June, three times. They cite the soaring national deficit and limited funds. Obama criticized the GOP for voting in favor of emergency unemployment insurance under President Bush but against it in recent weeks. [See photos of the Obamas behind the scenes.]

"The same people who didn't have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn't offer relief to middle class Americans," said Obama, who argued jobless benefits are not handouts, but temporary relief to help those actively seeking work to cover basic living expenses.

But the Republican leadership has said they are wary of the costs involved in passing the near $34 billion package that Democrats will vote on Tuesday, immediately after West Virginia Democrat Carte Goodwin is sworn in to the Senate to replace the late Sen. Robert Byrd. Goodwin will give Democrats the 60th vote necessary to block a filibuster.

"We're all for extending unemployment insurance," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on CNN's State of the Nation on Sunday. "The question is, when are we going to get serious" about the increasing deficit. [See where McConnell's campaign cash comes from.]

This is not the first time Obama has blamed Republicans for the expiration of unemployment benefits. In his weekly video address Saturday, the president said, "We can't afford to go back to the same misguided policies that led us into this mess. We need to move forward with the policies that are leading us out of this mess."

House Minority Leader John Boehner called Obama's Saturday remarks "disingenuous attacks. The president knows that Republicans support extending unemployment insurance, and doing it in a fiscally-responsible way by cutting spending elsewhere in the $3 trillion federal budget," said Boehner in a statement.