Projo Politics Blog

WASHINGTON -- Rhode Island is among the states in line for an immediate extension of unemployment benefits provided in a bipartisan spending bill that the Senate sent last night to President Bush.

Rhode Island workers who have already exhausted the standard 26-week term of unemployment compensation would be eligible for another 13 weeks under a provision in a supplemental appropriation for spending on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other purposes. Rhode Island qualified for the extension because the state’s unemployment rate is over 6 percent. Last month’s jobless rate in Rhode Island hit 7.2 percent, second only to Michigan’s jobless rate of 8.5 percent.

Nationwide, unemployment rose to 5.5 percent.

Extended federal jobless pay, financed mostly by taxes on employers, is among the government’s tools for softening the effects of an economic downturn. While federal statisticians have not declared an economic recession, many experts say one has begun, or will begin soon.

The war spending bill, supported by all four members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation, includes a new education benefit for veterans, among other provisions unrelated to the wars.

-- John E. Mulligan, Journal Washington Bureau

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